The day started with breakfast in the cafe.  We then packed to get ready for the next hotel. Sandra and I were meeting the driver to pick up the rental car, a nine-passenger van. The driver was there to meet us promptly at 11:00 a.m.. On the way to pick up the car, we had a little chat and realized that the van we were riding in was the actual rental which we would be driving. It was a very large nine-passenger van with no onboard GPS. Once at the car rental shop, I asked about borrowing the GPS from them; we tried to get it to work, but no luck.  Then we decided that I should just rent a Wi-Fi hook-up, so that we could use Google maps on my phone. We played around with it and finally got it to work. Once in the van, we headed back to the hotel to pick up the rest of the group.
Before we headed out, I tried to put the address of the next hotel into my phone, but it didn't work. I was starting to get a little frustrated when Linda saved the day. For some reason, her phone was working perfectly, so she became the navigator to get us to the Perlan Museum.

What a wonderful place the Perlan Museum of Natural History is! The museum covers how Iceland was formed from volcanoes, tectonic plates, and glaciers. And, how the country came to be shaped. It covers all the flora and fauna of the area as well.

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The first area of the museum that we visited covered exclusively how tectonic plates and volcanoes shaped Iceland.

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​Next was an area that described all of the animals living on the island of Iceland.

We went into an auditorium to watch a video about the Eyjafjallajökull Volcano that erupted in 2010. The eruption lasted for six months. It was very interesting to see the lava spewing out, almost hitting people gathered around the lava flow. Unfortunately, we could not take pictures of the video. 

The guide for the next station told us to bundle up because we were getting ready to go into their ice cave, a model of what the ice caves look like.  We will be visiting one of these later on this trip. The ice cave was quite cold,but it was fun to explore.

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Upon exiting the ice cave we headed up to find lunch, and we could not believe our eyes when we walked in to their restaurant. The place was magnificent for the food was really good. 
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After lunch, we headed back down to the fourth floor where we wandered through the gift shop and out onto the outdoor observatory.  From there, we headed down to the auditorium on the first floor to see a very informative movie about the aurora borealis in the IMAX theater.
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It was now time to head down the road to our next hotel. The drive took an hour and a half with Linda giving excellent directions.  As we pulled onto the property, it looked like we were entering a dude ranch. The Hotel Ranga is wonderful. It is a very large log cabin and looks like something out of the Old West.  When Mary Ellen and I walked into our room, we noticed a large fox dressed in a suit standing over one of the beds. So we had to go check out all the other rooms to see what was on the walls in their rooms. One had a lovely flower mural, one had a lovely duck mural, and the other had interesting birds painted on the wall. Mary Ellen and I threw our stuff in the room and  went to explore. We found a game room, the billiards room, and hot tubs. We also met the owner.  We sat outside on some Adirondack chairs just soaking in the wonderful views around us.  

It was then time to meet the ladies for our welcome drinks. Linda and I were the first to get our drinks and sat in the lounge area of the bar. We noticed the funniest-looking bar stools you ever did see. It was two sets of legs with very short skirts. As we were sitting there drinking our drinks, commenting about the stools,  the owner came over and said he'd take our picture while we sat on them. We took him up on the offer. He told us the correct way to sit and look over our shoulder for the perfect effect.  The rest of the ladies finally joined us; then we went in for a fabulous dinner.
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Later that evening, I was sitting at my desk in the room. I decided to check out what it looked like outside as the time was 11:15 p.m. I looked out the window to see the most marvelously beautiful sunset I had ever seen.  I quickly grabbed my camera and ran outside to take pictures, came back to the room, yelled to Mary Ellen that she had to get up, get dressed, to come see it and she did.  The sun finally set at 11:30 p.m. but it never got dark outside.  I woke up at 1:30 a.m. and looked out the window. It looked like it was dusk, still light enough to read by.
 

Tomorrow it is off to see nature!