Pit stops: Jokulsarlon and Hofn

Forty-five minutes east of Skaftafell, we hit Jokulsarlon, a well-known glacial lake. We'd seen pictures of the iridescent blue water and baby icebergs, and we knew sometimes there are seals, but it was actually kind of disappointing. There were a lot of cheesy tourist boats on the water (and jeepers, were those tours expensive!), and there were lots of cheesy tourists (like us, I guess) along the shore.

There is a shop with coffee and a few tables, so that was pretty great. We were able to get our morning caffeine fix and use wifi to plan our day. We spent maybe an hour there before heading towards Myvatn, by way of Seydisfjordur— an artsy fjord town that hadn't been on our itinerary but came highly recommended by Long, a friend we made in Vik.

An hour past Jokulsarlon, we hit Hofn, the lobster capitol of Iceland. It's not a tourist town, but Jamie had researched the town pools along the route in case we wanted to stop for swims.

The Hofn pool was pretty jazzy, with twisting waterslides, several hot-pots and a kiddie area with bright snakes and clowns spitting water and such.

Afterwards we strolled along the cliffs overlooking the ocean and walked the sea-path behind some houses, curiously peering into everyone's backyards. I paid $16 for the tiniest bowl of lobster soup ever, and we hit a grocery store to replenish our carrots, peanut butter, licorice and hummus.

We were about to drive on when I noticed I didn't have my iPhone. It was at the pool, sitting on the bench in the dressing room just where I left it. Because Iceland is the kind of place where you can leave the latest model iPhone in a public dressing room for three hours and no one will touch it.