Random Notes on Iceland

When I first arrived in Iceland, I thought Reykjavik was a small town. Apparently all it takes is a few days driving around the island to change one's mind. After a week of seeing nothing but isolated farms and the occasional town with a few dozen houses, your perspective changes. Getting back to Reykjavik, it suddenly seems huge.

The roads are an interesting proposition. You have two-lane roads all around, but the bridges are almost always one-lane. We even get a few one-lane tunnels just for fun. 'Einbreid Bru' is some Icelandic you learn really fast. We have F roads which you can only drive through if you have 4-wheel drive. We have roads winding up mountains with sheer drops down the side and no guard-rails, followed by long straight stretches with guardrails. 

What they don't have are mile markers. I don't know why, but they were not there. It makes finding places a little more challenging. For us the work around was to put in coordinates in our GPS, but I have no idea how people handled this before then.

They do have raised posts with reflectors (cat's eyes?) along both sides of the roads. There was one spot we went that had them twice as high on one side of the road than on the other. I still haven't figured out what that was for.

There are sheep everywhere, and every time we got close to one they were branded. We saw branded sheep in places where there were no farms within sight, which makes me wonder, "how do the farmers find their sheep when it's shearing time?" Don't think they had trackers on them, and I'm curious as to how they handle this.

The other three animals we found in the farms where horses, cattle and rolies, big white cylindrical animals you could see grazing all over the place. Some people claimed they were just bales of hay in huge plastic bags, but I'm not convinced; they were moving around as much as the sheep. K. thought it would be a great idea to sneak into a farm and paint smiley faces on the rolies. In one of the places we drove by they had actually done that.

Swimming pools are a big deal, every town, no matter how small, had one. Heated of course, but used all year long.  The ones I saw were always covered, and a couple included huge water slides.

Everywhere we went the food was good. Everywhere we went the food was expensive.

When you first turn the shower (or faucet) on, it smells like sulfur. The smell goes away relatively fast, but it's definitely there.

Voyage to the Center of the Earth

August 18th, 2015

This day promised to be a light day. Less than 250 kilometers to drive, and all the attractions we were interested in where in were close to the hotel. No need to hurry to get things done.

Our first stop was at the lava tube at Vaetner. You can only visit it with a guide and our guide was a funny young man who asked us to call him Gummy because his real name was just too hard to pronounce. He gave us helmets, flashlights and instructions on how to behave inside the caves and then led us down some circular metal stairs into the "center of the earth." We learned something about the region's connection to Jules Verne (Vaetner is where his Voyage to the Center of the Earth started), how lava tubes are formed, what total darkness looks like, what total silence sounds like, and that the guides stored their sodas down in the cave because its temperature was around 34 Farenheit all year round.

The visit to the cave was followed by a hike along the coast to look at some interesting rock formations and a stop at Amarstapi for some coffee and a visit to ????, the half man/half troll guardian of the peninsula. Then it was time to get into the car and head back to Reykjavik where we checked into our hotel.

We did do one more thing that day, which was go visit the Blue Lagoon. Our mission: simmer in a nice hot pool until they kicked us out of the place. Getting there was a little bit of a drive and a challenge, as our GPS did not have an entry for Blue Lagoon. Fiddling with it a little we took a guess that Bláa lónið is where we wanted to go. Turned out we were right.

They got the spa experience down to a science there. When you arrive they give you a wristband that serves as your id and wallet. You store your stuff in a locker (which you lock with the wristband), shower, put on your swimsuit and join the throngs in the lagoon. In this particular day, given it was rainy, windy and cold, the throngs where not as throngy and once you got in the water you did not want to leave. According to K., Blue Lagoon is a misnomer, it should be called Sea Foam Green Lagoon. Whatever its color, it was nice and warm and once I got in I refused to get out.  But apparently they kick you out around 9 pm.

And that was it for our Iceland experiences. The next day was spent with last minute shopping, and just relaxing, and the day after we got on a plane and came back home.

The Walter Mitty Day

August 17th, 2015

After a good night's sleep we were ready to get on the road again. Our goal was to make it to the west end of the Snaefellsnes Peninsula by the end of the day, which meant we had over 400  kilometers to cover. Checking our map, we decided to forego the hot springs at Reykir, and seal-watching at Vatnsnes. It wasn't a hard decision, our geothermal experiences so far had been disappointing, and back home we have easy access to seals, sea-lions and sea-elephants. So we got into the car and drove.

Our first stop was at Stykkisholmur, an old fishing town, and, apparently, where they filmed scenes from 'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty'. Our goal was to visit the lighthouse they have there, and take a look at the Breidafordur, a bay with hundreds of little islands. We parked at the harbor and a small hike later we were by the lighthouse, enjoying the view and the weather. The lighthouse was much smaller than I expected, but the hike was pleasant and the view of the bay was very nice. With a stop for some coffee and another one to refuel we were back on the road and heading towards Kirkjufell, apparently Iceland's most recognizable mountain and our next stop. And yes, it also appeared in the Walter Mitty movie.

Don't have much to say about Kirkjufell. I certainly did not recognize the mountain, but that is to be expected given my inability to notice things around me. It stands by itself, and I guess that makes it different, but I found it unremarkable. Kirkfoss, another waterfall, was nearby so we also stopped there.

Back in the car we settled in for another hour or so of driving until we got to our hotel. We passed a few attractions we wanted to visit along the way, but they were close to our hotel, we were tired and decided to visit them the next morning. So we checked in, had a beer, a nice dinner and ended the day with a walk down to the beach.

Sleeping in the Middle of Nowhere

August 16th, 2015

The plan this day was to trek along the north coast of Iceland, and spending the night near ????. There was some sight-seeing we wanted to do along the way, visiting Godafoss and Akureyri, Iceland's capital of the North. 

Godafoss was the first stop, about an hour out of Husavik. It' a beautiful waterfall, but it's claim to fame is more historical than anything. In the year 1000, Thorgeir, then leader of the country, was forced to choose between Christianity and their pagan gods. In order to keep the country united, he chose Christinaity and, on his way home from that meeting, threw his paga idols in this waterfall, hence its name. There were nice walks along the waterfall and we chose to follow one of them, leading to a pedestrian bridge that allowed us to cross the river and enjoy the waterfall from the other side.

Back on the road we made our way to Akureyri, the second largest town in Iceland with a population around 20 thousand. We had two goals there: visit the church (Akureyrakirkja) and the botanical gardens. A two hour drive took us into town and we found the church, where we parked and went exploring.

The church was designed by the same architect that designed Hallsgrimkirkja in Reykjavik, and it shows: the same preference for unadorned concrete, one high tower in the middle and straight lines. This one was a little more art deco-ish than Hallsgrimkirkja, but interesting all the same. Unfortunately it was closed, so we did not get a chance to inspect the organ they had inside.

Since it was close, we wandered down the steps in front of the church and went to explore the old downtown area, which is basically a street with bookstores, restaurants, bakeries and souvenir shops. After exploring a few of the stores (and buying some souvenirs) we ended up having coffee and pastries at one of the bakeries. One interest tid-bit: they had doughnuts, which they referred to as USA. You could have a caramel-glazed or chocolate-glazes USA if you wanted.

Back in tourist mode we climbed up the stairs and headed past the church to the world's norhtnemost botanical garden. It was small, but pretty, with many different plants, shady walks and benches for one to enjoy what was a sunny afternoon. And enjoy we did, spending a very pleasant half hour there before getting back on the road.

Back in the car we decided it was getting late, we still had a long drive before us, so our next destination should be our hotel. We got out our trusty GPS, and tried first the name of the town, then hotel name, but the GPS said it had no idea what were talking about. We then tried entering the coordinates of the hotel as provided by our travel agency, but there was something wrong: it listed the latitude as being XX degrees and 69 minutes, somethiing that can't possibly be correct as there are only 60 minutes in one degree. Not that it mattered, as every variation I tried had our destination as the Atlantic Ocean. 

We gave up on the GPS and decided to navigate the old way, by map. Followed it for two hours and eventually were in the vicinity of where we thought the hotel was, but could't find it. Eventually we gave up, stopped the car and, after a few attempts were able to reach someone in the hotel who told us in which route the hotel actually was. We reoriented ourselves and ten minutes later were arriving at our destination where they pointed us to our room, a grass-roof cabin a little bit down the road.

We both had lamb for dinner at the hotel; the other choices were fish (which we were tired off), horse steak (which we did not have because we don't eat pets), and beef heart (which is way much bigger than a chicken heart). No matter, the food was delicious and and afterwards we retired to our cabin for a hot shower and a much needed rest.

Whales and Lava

August 15th, 2015

After waking up early and a good breakfast, we headed off to the docks for our whale watching tour. There were a few dozen French people waiting for our boat to start loading which surprised me, as our tour person had said that he'd only sold two other tickets for that time. He had claimed his boat could carry 41 people, but it was beginning to look like it was going to be crowded. Our luck changed, though, when the French found out they were waiting in front of the wrong boat and left. Our numbers reduced to a dozen or so, I felt we were in for a more comfortable trip. 

The first thing that happens when you board a whale watching boat in Iceland is, they give you a waterproof, neon-colored overall and tell you to put it on and tighten it around you wrists and ankles with the velcro strap. Apparently that is to help you float should you fall in the water, which, by the way, they do not recommend you do as it's very,very cold. We put our suits on, me with a little difficulty as they did not have one in my  size, but we made it work and soon, under the watchful eye of our guide, Veronica, we were on our way.

Our first destination was Puffin Island, and we eventually we got there after a detour to look for a humpback whale that never materialized.  The puffins were, as K would say, adorable and sight to behold. Apparently they were getting ready to migrate south, but there were thousands of them still there, flying around, diving or just resting in the water. I was impressed by how fast they fly! Our guide said up to 80 km/hr, an impressive number for a bird so small.

When we got our fill of puffins we went further out in search of whales. We soon found a pod of white-beaked dolphins, apparently residents of the area. They were curious and playful, swimming along with the boat and jumping out of the water, until they got tired and left us to look for more whales.

It was somewhat of a long search, but we did find a mink whale swimming leisurely along the bay and got to admire it for several minutes, before it was time to head back to land and the rest of the activities for that day. Our plan was to drive to lake Myvatn and enjoy the volcanic attractions around that area: Dimmm???, Hverfjall crater and the Hverarond geothermal area.

Dimmuird??? was our first stop. It was a maze of black lava rock formations, and supposedly the home of the "Yule lads," thirteen sons of a couple of trolls that spend their time telling stories and playing pranks on each other. There were well marked paths that took us among the rocks, each one more strangely shaped than the other, with small caves all over the place. Our path eventually led us to the Kirkja rock, a big hollow formation that locals say looks like the apse of a church. It took us over an hour to go there and back, and the Kriklja rock was a little anti-climatic, but it was worth the effort:  there were interesting formations everywhere.

The next stop was Hverfjall, a volcanic crater about a kilometer wide and 420 meters tall. I mention the height because, when we got there, we found out that parking was at the base of the mountain and you had to walk all the way to the top to look into the crater. And climb we did, with several stops along the way for rest and recreation. I will say that the crater was large, but unimpressive, just a big, dark gray, sandy bowl. Maybe the view from the other side of the rim was better, but I was tired, the climb had drained most of my energy and there was no way I was going to walk around. So we toop pictures and started the long trek back down.

Our final destination for the day was the ???? geothermal area. Despite the beautiful description in the guide book, it was a disappointment: a few fumaroles, a couple of mud pools and the worst stink I've ever smelled at a geyser area. I'm beginning to believe that if you've visited the geysers at Yellowstone, with all their colors and gushing water, there is no point in visiting the ones here.

By then we were tired and gave up on our tentative plan of going to a geothermal pool by the lake to relax. Instead we went back to our hotel, had dinner and went to bed by 9 pm, with the sun still shining outside.

On the Longest Road

August 14th, 2015

With over 500 kilometers to be covered in one day, this was by far the longest leg in our trip. Accordingly, we planned on leaving Hofn around 8 am in order to make it to Husavik by a decent hour. Plans never work as they should, and by the time we were actually able to leave it was close to 9 am.

Travelling along the Easter edge of the country, one encounters a lot of nothing. Huge expanses with no towns, no houses, no farms, and very few cars. Makes one feel very alone, and a little worried about what would happen if we had car problems. But don't worry, they Icelanders have a way of dealing with that. As their roads climb up the mountains, with sheer drops along the side, they make sure the roads have no curb, and guard-rails. This way, if something happens you will meet with suddent death and no need to worry about how to get help. They do make up for that by putting pretty waterfalls all along the way; and swans, lots and lots of wild swans. So if you die, at least you get to die with a beautiful view.

There weren't many stops along the way. We refueled in Stodvarfjordur and then went on to Eglisstadir, the fastest growing town in Iceland. It was our first encounter with an actual town in a while, and it seemed big. We had one stop there, to visit what was billed as Iceland's equivalent of Loch Ness, ????. It was a lake. Pretty, but just a lake.

Back on the road we kept travelling north, until we hit our first actual, real, bona-fide attraction, Dettifoss. This is, as expected, another waterfall, billed as the biggest in Europe by volume. Getting there meant walking for about 1/2 mile through trails meandering around huge lava rocks, with no waterfall in sight until you hit a bend and find  yourself looking down upon it. A beautiful spectacle indeed and well worth the hike. It was also a very polite waterfall, and chose not to dampen us as we walked around admiring it from different heights and angles.

Back in the car, we decided to head for our hotel in Husavik, as it had been a long day and we were tired. Following the GPS to the hotel took us through our first long stretch of gravel road, an almost straight line going up and down hills, some of it steep enough to make me wonder if our 2-wheel drive car would be able to make it back this way. After about ten kilometers of this we were back on gentle paved roads and soon found ourselves at our hotel where we were able to check-in without  a problem.  There was an interesting quirk, though: this hotel was part of the chain where we had spent the previous night; in the previous hotel the reading lights had no bulbs, in this one we had no reading lights at all.

We went out in search of dinner and tickets for whale and puffin watching the next day and found both at the same place. We talked to the owner, who seems to be the local entrepeneur. He owned a restaurant, a coffee house, an ice-cream parlour and the whale watching tour company. And if you bought the tickets with him, you got a 10% discount at his eateries. A nice dinner of cod, and we were retired for the night, ready for the next day's adventures.

All About Icebergs

Today was all about icebergs. It was supposed to be about icebergs and glaciers, but it turned out not to be. Such are the vicissitudes of traveling. We didn't sleep well the previous night, the qualiity of the coffee that morning did not put us in good spirits so we were not in the kindest of moods, but we left our hotel and backtracked some, looking for our first stop, the Sk.... entrance to the V.... national park.

The visitor center was a disappointment. No map of the park, no description of the attractions, just movies and books for sale and a small exhibit of the things some students had left behind who went exploring the park in the fifties and disappeared. Eventually we did find the one attraction in the park, a waterfall requiring a one hour hike each way. We were tired, we were cranky, we'd seen 5 different waterfalls the previous day, so we decided to get in our car and head over to our next destination, Glacier Lagoon.

One hour later we were there, and man, were we glad we did. Imagine a lagoon, about the size of a small city, littered with icebergs of all shapes and sizes. Add to that what was described as Iceland's smallest river connecting the lagoon to the Atlantic Ocean, black sand beaches with dozens of beached icebergs and you can see why we were enchanted. It was somewhat surreal and alien, but at the same time beautiful. If only the crowds had been smaller.

We did go on an adventure there, riding among the waves in an amphibian craft along with 20 other people. We got to see some icebergs from much closer, heard an interesting explanation about their lifecycle, and were told that the reason our amphibian craft had a Zodiac boat shadowing it was because the water was a chilly 33 degrees Farenheit and if we fell overboard we would die within fifteen minutes. The Zodiac boats were there to get us out of the water fast. Wish they had explanined this before we were at the middle of the lagoon.

Back safely on shore we decided it was time to head towards our hotel for the night, close to the city of Hofn. We did make a stop along the way, for some home made ice cream at a nearby hotel. Well worth it, it was the best I've had since I was in Italy 7 years ago.

We made it to the hotel plenty early, with enough time to go and explore nearby Hofn, whose claim to fame is that it was the biggest town since we left Reykjavik, with a population of around one thousand people. Now, that might not seem much, but after three days of seeing villages with populations around the dozens, it was quite exciting! We didn't learn from previous experience and went to its visitor center, where we had a good surprise: a small exhibit about the region, a room with non-stop videos about the area, and people who actually new what there was to see around there.

We chose to walk, first along the harbor and then along a nature path that had as its gimmick the fact that it was a scale model of the solar system, one billionth the size. Walk along the path and there were markes to show where Mercury, Venus, Earth and company were. And yes, Pluto was included.

And that was it for the day, other than a small stop at a local supermarket to grab some munchies for tomorrow's long trek: we're crossing to the North side of the island, a distance of about 500 kilometers, over double of what we've been doing so far.

Impressions? Icebergs are amazing; Iceland needs to improve their visitor centers; the area is way more enjoyable when it's not raining all the time; and I lost a glove, which caused me to obsess about it all day long.

Distance covered today: 200 kilometers.

Wet Day

A very wet day indeed. They weather people warned us that we were in for rain all day long, with over an inch hitting the ground in some places. But no worries, this was a day where were mostly going to visit waterfalls and those are famous for getting people damp. The rain would serve as a warmup for the day's activities, a pre-dampening so to speak.

We managed our first good night of sleep and after a decent breakfast, we packed up, paid our bills, got in the car and thirty minutes later arrived at our first waterfall of the day, Seijalandsfoss. This one was big, and we could see it from the road several miles away. What made it special, though, was that the path around the waterfall actually went behind the water curtain, a new experience for me. It was loud, extremely damp, but still a thrill! I actually had to remove my glasses a couple of times, as the accumulated drops from the mist made it impossible for me to see.

Back into the car and another hour of traveling later and we arrived at our second waterfall, Skogafoss.  A straight 180 feet drop, majestic and beautiful. It did, however, have one inconvenient feature: stairs along the hillside leading to the top. Since I follow tourist rule number 14 (if there are stair at a tourist site you have to climb them)  I climbed them. All 210 feet of it. That's the equivalent of a 21 stories building!  But it was worth the climb. Not only did we get to see the vista of the whole plain from up there, we also got a glimpse of the canyon carved by the waterfall up there.

To take a break from the getting drenched looking at waterfalls, our next stop was at one of the black sand beaches at Dyrholaey. I had never seen black sand before, so I was rather thrilled by the experience. Black sand, black rocks, black caves and black clouds made me think that I had found the  perfect Goth beach. And we didn't even miss the waterfalls, as the pouring rain made us feel satisfactorily drenched.

After a break for lunch at Vik, Iceland's southernmost town,  we got on the road again and made our way to Kirkjubaejarklaustur, because it was marked on our map. There was nothing in the town, and the guidebook failed to interest us in any of its attractions. However, nearby was another waterfall, Foss der So-doh! Again tall and beautiful, and different from the others in that the drop was only half the hight of the hill, after that we had a very steep river running down its side. It was rainy, it was windy, but this time we avoided getting damp: the path to the waterfall was closed, so we got to enjoy the view from inside our toasty, dry car while it poured outside.

And that was it for the day. We headed to the hotel, had a nice meal and went to bed, to figure out what was coming next day. 

Impressions?48 Farenheit is way too low a temperature for a summer day, and rain doesn't make it more pleasant. There's a lot of emptiness in this part of Iceland, where we went miles without seeing another car, farm or any other signs of human presence other than the road we were on and power lines.  The few farms we saw seemed to actually be ranches, raising herds of big white cylinders; somebody told me those were bales of hay, but I'm not buying that story. And I'm still trying to figure out why two-lane highways have one--lane bridges.

The Golden Y

Apparently, it really isn't a scam. The website to which I gave a lot of money promised me that somebody would pick us up at 8:30 and take us to the car rental agency where your car would be waiting for us. Lo and behold, at 8:30 someone walked into holding a sign with my name on it. We followed him outside and, instead of mugging us, he ushered us into a minibus and ten minutes later dropped us of at the car rental place. A quarter of an hour to fill out the paperwork and we were on our way in our nice and clean Citroen.

The first stop was Thingvellir National Park. We put the destination into our GPS, and one hour later we were there, the GPS having taken us 99.5% of the way (it insisted we go half a mile longer than we really needed to). The place reminded me a little of Yellowstone, with great mountains in the background, a beautiful lake and brooks and streams feeding it. What made it special, though, was that it is also the place where the North American and the European teutonic plates meet, which makes for some interesting geography: one side of the plain obviously dozens of feet higher than the other. How cool is that?

A hike and several photos later we were back in the car, asking our GPS to take us to Geysir. The GPS flat-out refused, claiming such a place didn't exist even though we were in front of a sign saying that Geysir was 45 kms away to our right. We did have a road atlas and two maps with us, so we were confident we could get there. And about one hour later we did, including a stop for some home-made ice cream at a dairy farm we found along the way. Tasty ice cream, in a room with a view of the cows that provided one of the basic ingredients of the milk.

Geysir was not as exciting as expected. Again we were reminded of Yellowstone, but where there we found hundreds of geysers, here we found  a few. Where the geysers there have long lasting columns of water and steam, the one reliable geyser at this location, Strokkur, pretty much had one mutli-second burst every few minutes and that was it. If you've never seen a geyser, it's cool; if you have seen them, the only reason to stop is because it's on the way to Gullfoss.

Ah, Gullfoss! That was in the GPS and we found it without trouble. It's an amazing water fall, with the hidden in a canyon. It provided the whole waterfall experience: roaring water, huge drops, the opportunity to get thoroughly soaked just by standing near it, and nice paved paths that made most of the walk straighforward.  our guidebook says it's the biggest waterfall in Europe, bigger than Niagara Falls. I haven't seen Niagra falls, so I can't compare.

Next stop Herio-doh (the doh stands for a letter in the Icelandic alphabet that we couldn't agree on whether it was a modified d or o). There the GPS failed us completely. First it said there was no such place. Then it said it would take us there, but 30 minutes into the journey it decided the place didn't exist again and stopped navigating. Then it told us we had to drive 15 kms, at the end of which it told us to turn back and go the way we came. Eventually K. and I gave up, stopped the car, brought out the maps and figured out how to get there on our own. Another 30 minutes and we were there, though it took a couple more stops to check the map before we actually made it.

Herio-doh is a crater lake where, apparently Bjork once performed. The lake was not big, but the crater was deep, around 180 ft from the rim to the surface of the lake. And it was a beautiful dark blue. The only disappointing thing was that this was the first place we stopped that required an entry fee, 2.5 euros, 3 dollars or 700 Iceland crowns. We did a quick calculation and went with the crowns, it was the cheapest.

Last sightseeing adventure of the day done, it was time to go towards our hotel, near the town of Hilla. If we had gone back to Reykjavic we would have completed the Golden Circle tour. But since we went in the opposite direction, I dubbed the route the Golden Y.

The hotel was not in the GPS, and had no address. It did, however, provide coordinates. I pointed the car towards Hilla as K entered the data into the GPS and, half-doubting we were doing the right thing, we decided to follow its instructions. When we turned off the main highway we were reassured by a road sign saying the hotel was in that direction, but that feeling of comfort quickly disappeared when our two-lane paved highway turned into a one-lane gravel road, surrounding by nothing other than fields and the occasional farm. It turned out the GPS wasn't lying this time around, though. At some point it made us turn right into a driveway and 1 km later we were parking in front of a farmhouse, which, apparently, was our hotel.

The rest of the evening was uneventful. We got a beautiful room, had a delicious dinner of mushroom soup, cod with cauliflowers as the entree, and sky (pronounced skuh) for dessert. A very tasty dinner indeed.

Impressions of this first day on the road? Mixed. Two of the attractions were worth the visit, the other two only so-so. The GPS made us feel a little tense, and the fact that one of our cameras decided to break (its autofocus stopped working, not a good thing on a compact camera), made for a little bit of frustration. But all in all, it was still a good day and I was happy to be there to live it.

Reykjavik

So, it turned out not to be a scam; they were waiting for me at the airport. Some time ago I decided that this year's European vacation destination was going to be Iceland. No particular reason for it, just a desire to somewhere different and Iceland popped into my mind. So after talking to K. we decided that we wanted to do a car tour of the island and I went online, found a site with shiny pictures, filled out a form and gave them my credit card number. One month later we got out of the plane in Reykjavik and, as promised by the tour company, they picked me us up, dropped us off at the hotel and gave us a bag with all the paperwork we needed for the trip, just as they promised. Couldn't have been easier.

Well, getting there wasn't that easy. Our flirst leg from San Francisco to New York was supposed to leave early and arrive early, but was delayed on the departure end because they couldn't fit us into the airspace, and when we landed at JFK it was over 30 minutes before they moved enough airplanes out of the way so we could get to our gate. The second leg was also delayed, as they had to find an alternative way to load potable water into the plane when the hose they were using broke. But they figured it all  out and we made it to Iceland. Unfortunately I only got one hour of sleep, even though they put me in an emergency exit row. So I was exhausted.

Our room was not ready, so we left our luggage in the hotel's storage area and were off to explore the city, starting with a trip to a nearby bakery recommended by the hotel for some breakfast. Turned out to be a good choice. K. raved about her salmon panini, and I hadn't had such a good croissant in a long, long time.

After lunch we set of the explore the old city, visiting the Old Harbor, Laugavegur (the main shopping street), Harpa, Hallgrimskirkja, Tjornin (the downtown lake), city hall, a wool shop that was K.'s must-see destination (she's back into knitting big-time), a restaurant named Tabasco that, nevertheless, promised authentic Icelanding food,  and the Einar Jonsson sculpture garden. All this by foot. One Tallin, if we go by my FitBit.

So, what are my impressions of Reykjavic? Well, let's see...

iIt's not really a city, but more of a town, with very few building more than three stories high. The people are friendly and English is used everywhere; every restaurant we saw had signs in English. They had a gay pride event recently, and they seem to still be very proud of it because we had a street painted in rainbow colors and rainbow flags everywhere; as a matter of fact, other than one Icelandic flag over city hall, all others we saw wee gay pride related. I liked it that there are very few American stores here. I ran into one Subway and one Dunkin Donuts, but the latter had a line of people 20-30 deep waiting for the chance to get into the store. The view from Hallgrimskirkja's iconic tower was very nice and the fact that it was an elevator that got us to the top,instead of the traditional European set of never-ending stairs just made it better.

The only surprise was the code. We expected cold, but thought it would be sweater + jacket weather. Unfortunately, there's this biting wind that made it more of a sweater + jacket + scarf + wool cap + gloves sort of weather. A little too wintery for Summer, but then again, Reykjavik is the world's 

northenmost capital.

And now I find myself back at the hotel, exhausted, achy, and looking forward to catching up on all the sleep I've been missing lately.

Joshua Tree

It had been a while, so K. and I decided it was time for another short vacation. After some deliberation we decided on Joshua Tree National Park: we hadn't been there before, it was a three-hour flight away and we would get to use our national park annual pass one more time before it expired. Sounded like a plan.

Choosing the destination airport was a little more complicated that we envisioned. There were two airports conveniently located at the entrance to the park, but they lacked two things we wanted: avgas and airplane rentals. We expanded our search radius and ended up picking Bermuda Dunes. It had gas, rented cars and, most importantly, was an airport neither of us had visited before.

Friday came and by 8 am we were at the airport, meeting our mechanic who had just finished Bianca's oil change. The plane checked out fine and half an hour later we were on our way, following an IFR flight plan whose clearances changed every few minutes (ok, only three times, but I like to exaggerate). The first hour of the flight was spent at nine thousand feet, over a cloud layer and with a wonderful, 25 knot plus, tailwind. Smooth air made it even more pleasant. Once we got into the desert things started getting bumpy, but we climbed to eleven thousand and things smoothed out again. That didn't last long, though: that same tailwind, over the mountains, caused some turbulence which made the last leg of our flight somewhat uncomfortable. But not matter; two and half hours after departure we were wheels down at Bermuda Dunes and ready for our adventure.

Once on the ground we took care of the usual logistics: arranging for parking, getting fuel, renting a car and figuring out where we'd stay. We ended up getting a Jeep, the perfect car for a desert adventure and, after spending some time trying to figure out where the window controls were, were on our way to our hotel at Twenty Nine Palms. Two hours later, after a stop at the park's visitor center for some maps and a quick lunch, we were checked into the hotel, unpacked, and ready to go exploring.

We only had the afternoon left that first day, so decided to stick to the north end of the park. Our first stop was to admire some Joshua trees and to get our first glimpse of the local wildlife: a coyote. Its behavior allowed me to answer one of life's many unanswered questions, "Why does the coyote cross the road?" The, answer, apparently, is to take a dump.

Ok, all joking aside, the park is beautiful. From the different types of plants to the rock formations it's one amazing sight after the other. I'm not a poet, and as such cannot describe them here, so I will let the photos speak for themselves.

After two days of fun it was time to go back, so we packed, checked out and drove back to the airport where Bianca was fueled and ready for us. After the usual pre-flight inspection we were on our way, but this time going against that same wind that made the trip down a quick-ish hop. This time we would need over four hours to get back, most of it spent in very turbulent air. And four hours is longer than I feel comfortable with for a direct flight, so we added a stop for lunch at Harris Ranch. And a smart move that was, as by the time we finished eating and were back in the air things had calmed down somewhat and the air was much less bumpy.

By late afternoon we were back home, very happy to have had this experience but, as usual, feeling like we needed one more day of vacation to rest from all of the fun.