The last night on the ring road we stayed at a horse farm - Volcano Horses (here). They have a great lodge with all the modern conveniences, spacious dining room, cool Scandinavian feel, and Chris booked us in the Henry David Thoreau bare bones cabins only slightly downwind from the stables. Thankfully, it was only a short stroll uphill to use the washroom. The place gives some remarkable 7 - 10 days horse tours throughout otherwise inaccessible parts of the country.
What trip is complete without knocking on door of the local power plant. We became fascinated with their energy self-reliance and had at least a dozen running bets on geothermal mechanics. We called them up and they were more than happy to let us in. No joke.
All of our questions were answered and then some. We got a full powerpoint presentation (which they were suppose to send me) and full schematics of the place -- Chris basically took enough photos for us to build our own. There was no security at all. So afterward, we pretty continued our own version of the facilities tour.
This is the initial cap for the steam pipe that comes out of the ground. This plant had about 25 of these. Our car key almost worked on this door.
A main valve from one of the vents. Completely unlocked. In theory, a hard left-hand turn and Chris could have shut down 5% of the city's power.
