Waterfalls and Sea Monsters (and Puffins!)

The day began in glorious darkness.  Well, as dark as we've pretty much seen (while not in tunnels).  We went to the guesthouse to have breakfast, then loaded up and moved on.  We had to re-trace most of the last leg of our "drive over fjord mountain passes and try not to die" trip from a few days ago.  While in the mountains, we stopped off at a waterfall we had seen on the way in.  Dynjandi waterfall is a series of falls, that you can observe up close as you hike partway up a cliff.  It is truly awesome, and I was aching to test common sense (and certain death) by getting as close to the various falls as possible.  On the way up, we noticed some crew working to repair the path in a few locations.  Both spots required a leap of faith that Indiana Jones would have been proud of.  I am proud to say that Pat and Les made it all the way to the top, and back down (down in a controlled method, not plummeting).  We got some great pics of the falls and of us at the falls, as well as the fjord behind us.Back in the car, we continued re-tracing our steps, until it was time to veer off into undiscovered country.  First on the agenda was the sleepy town of Bildudalur, where we had heard about a Sea Monster Museum.  The museum was really cool, and utilized many different interactions.  It was built around the various myths of monsters in Iceland, and from the stories people told of seeing them.  There were some pretty high-tech exhibits, and the whole thing really added another dimension to our understanding of what it means to be Icelandic.  Carrie and Pat also found some cool monster books in the gift shop (as well as an awesome cake in the coffee shop).We continued down the road, which had gone from nicely paved to roughly un-paved.  Along the road, there were lots of ducks and other sea-fowl.  Some of the birds were nesting, so they took umbrage at our presence, and attempted to scare our car away.  As the road got rougher, we also saw some beautiful beaches.  One point - most of the sand in Iceland is black.  When Icelanders describe the sand we saw today, they call it Red.  Those of us in California (and other sandy places) would call the color "sand".  As the kilometers passed, we finally arrived at our very out of the way destination.  We were at Samuel Jonsson's Art Farm in Selárdalur.  Samuel was a farmer, who, when retired at age 72, decided to follow his dream of becoming an artist.  He had no formal training, but began painting, and creating sculptures that required him transporting sand from the beach to make concrete.  He even designed and built his own museum to house his art, even though this was a totally remote place.  It had fallen into disrepair, and the sculptures were degrading, so a German artist took on the mission of restoration.  There are even plans to create a guest accommodation for artists to come, as well as a coffee shop and store for his work.After our visit, we traversed the rough terrain, to head to our final destination for today, Patreksfjörður.  We found our accommodation, and unloaded before going out to find dinner.  We had a lovely meal.  Les and Carrie had Cod caught in the fjord right in front of the window where we ate.  I finally had soup (that didn't offend my ridiculous food-phobias).  We went back to our rooms for a bit of a rest before continuing our adventure.  We had found out that there was a puffin colony not too far away.  In our (well, Carrie's) research, we had discovered that the best time to see them was between 8-10pm.  So, it was going to be a late #alt-night for us.  It took about 1.5 hours to drive the increasingly rough roads to the location - Látrabjarg.  Now, we had already done a "Puffin Tour" earlier in the trip that had really only provided decent viewing of 2 puffins.  Látrabjarg, on the other hand had loads of puffins that were very docile, and could be approached very closely.  So, we now finally have pictures to rival that nice German couple that had us so envious.We got some great shots and headed back to town.  Our car looked like we had just emerged from the Sahara after being lost for 14 months.  So, we stopped at a fuel station and availed ourselves of the washing brush and cleaned off the car.  We were all becoming annoyed at having to avoid contact with the outside of the car, to prevent the imminent need to throw our clothes into the washer.  With fairly clean car, we made it back to the guesthouse to have some tea, import pictures, and write some rambles.