Bon Voyage on a Big Adventure!

June 30, 2018July 12, 2018

Days Two and Three in Iceland: The Blue Lagoon, Thingvellir National Park, Haukadalur Geysers, Gullfoss Waterfall, Kerio Crater Lake, and Lots of Icelandic Horses and Anti-Social Sheep

Day Two: The Blue Lagoon and Thingvellir National Park

I don’t know if I mentioned that we went to bed at 6:45 PM on Tuesday night– remember, the Red Eye flight–but when we woke up in our tent in Reykjavik, Iceland on Wednesday morning at 8:30 AM, Rich looked at me and said, “You slept like an animal.” I think he meant some sort of bear or other hibernating creature, because we were both out. For fourteen hours. Apparently, being without a home and sleeping in a tent suits us. Sorry, mom.

After breakfast at the campsite, a quick walk down by the water in Reykjavik, and some campsite freshening up, we headed to the Blue Lagoon.

The Blue Lagoon

So what exactly is the Blue Lagoon? It isn’t natural– they have coined themselves a “geothermal spa,” probably because that sounds better than hot silica and sulfur runoff from the local geothermal power station. The minerals are supposed to do wonders for your skin, and the milky blue water makes for a banging Instagram picture so we booked our pricey $99/person entrance tickets as soon as we knew Iceland was stop #1.

And it was 100% worth it. Here’s why:

Iceland is cold. The Blue Lagoon is warm. I get it. We booked a trip to a country named Iceland– of course, it’s cold. Still the shock of leaving balmy DC in June and landing in a place where you have to wear two long sleeved shirts, a scarf, a hat, and a jacket was a little jarring. BUT the water in the Blue Lagoon is 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Spending HOURS in a huge jacuzzi was exactly what I needed to start to warm up (ha!) to Iceland a bit more.
As advertised, it makes your skin feel amazing. Your entrance fee includes a silicon mask that took years off of our faces. Maybe. They definitely felt smooth and tight when we rinsed the clay off.
We got to shower. We’re camping. The hot shower was glorious. There was a hair dryer. The end.

ThingvellIr National Park

Not our favorite. Our first campground in Rejkjavik had a large kitchen and indoor eating area, free wifi, and super clean bathrooms. The campground at Thingvellir had bugs. Like really a lot of them- gnats that flew right at your face and swarmed around your head like Linus on Peanuts. I know things could be much worse than trying to set up a tent with twenty five bugs trying to fly in my mouth, but I would like to spare my dear readers this experience. If you ever camp in Iceland, camp at the campgrounds with indoor kitchens and no bugs.

On the upside, Wednesday was our third wedding anniversary, and once we finished cooking outdoors being attacked by gnats, we enjoyed an incredibly romantic hot dog dinner in our SUV.

Day Three: Haukadalur Geysers, Gullfoss Waterfall, Kerio Crater Lake, and Lots of Icelandic Horses and Anti-Social Sheep

Haukadalur Geysers

The earth spontaneously spewing gas into the air is kind of crazy, right?

Gullfoss Waterfall

The first of many, many Icelandic waterfalls on the Golden Circle. This waterfall was mighty and awe-inspiring, but I think my favorite part was that all of the signs and literature were devoted to Sigríður Tómasdóttir, an Icelandic woman who led tours for years and then fought to keep the beautiful falls out of private hands. She was rather severe looking but determined. Love it.

Kerio Crater Lake

We almost skipped this one because there was a charge and Iceland is expensive, but we didn’t and it ended up being one of our favorite spots. It is a giant crater with a lake at the bottom, and we were able to hike in a big giant circle and then down to the bottom. Our pictures turned out great, in my humble opinion, and still don’t do the spot justice.

We should really ask someone else to take our picture.

Rich climbing on some volcanic leftovers.

Icelandic Horses and Anti-Social Sheep

So in Iceland, there are horses and sheep everywhere. Since Iceland is an island, the horses were isolated for many years and are a different breed from, umm, normal horses. They are really beautiful but to take a picture of them, you have to pull off the road and then approach animals on someone else’s land. We are not very good at that.

Evidence A: We were driving along, and we saw some sheep! These sheep were outside the fence. Maybe they are wild sheep! Here is our opportunity to Instagram some wild Icelandic sheep!

So Rich pulls a u-turn, we pull in a driveway, approach the sheep….and they run away. Who knew sheep were fast? Maybe they are tired of appearing on Instagram. I got a terrible shot of the sheep, but ended up with a great shot of my handsome husband. More soon!

My Handsome Icelandic Lover (Not a Sheep)

June 28, 2018July 16, 2018

On the road…In Iceland!

Without further delay, faithful readers (read: my stepdad and now Marie Bucciero), I bring you actual travel blogging! We have left America, and I am blogging from a campsite kitchen in Rangaping Eystra, Iceland, a stone’s throw from a waterfall (seriously). Let’s look back on how we got to Reykjavik.

I must first begin, back in America, with a shout out to our sweet families. Rich’s mom and stepdad drove from Philadelphia to DC and back to offload a few last items for us in our last week, and my mom and stepdad flew to DC to deliver us to the BWI airport and then drive our car back to Tennessee. We so appreciate you.

No tears! 5 -star Uber driver and mom extraordinaire

Day One: Travel to Iceland and Dinner in Reykjavik

Our flight was fairly non-eventful. We flew Wow Air to Iceland on a flight that left at 12:45 AM. We were pretty anxious so we got to the airport at 7:30 PM and spent the next three hours in the BWI lounge, courtesy of our travel credit cards. Having a place to crash with free food and drinks was a plus, especially considering that Wow airlines was the opposite of luxury- not so much as an in-flight water and the seat was about as comfortable as sitting on a bicycle. We did our best to sleep through the flight and landed in Iceland at 10:00 AM.

From the airport, we picked up our SUV and tent. I am sorry to report that the tent-on-top-of-the-car fell through, and we ended up with a regular SUV with nothing on the roof and a rented tent. We then headed to the Bonus superstore, Piggly Wiggly’s Icelandic cousin complete with cheerful pig mascot, where we picked up groceries for the week- peanut butter and jelly, coffee, pasta, and hot dogs. We eat a little better than that at home, but we are gone for a year and Iceland is super expensive.

For our first night, we ate dinner in Reykjavik- fish stew, an Icelandic specialty. Iceland, not shockingly, is cold, and despite the fact that we were wearing every warm article of clothing we brought, we needed some hearty comfort food to thaw out. It was delicious, as is most food covered in bearnaise sauce.

We then headed to our urban campsite to set up our “5-minute” tent. Let’s just say that setting it up decidedly took longer than 5-minutes and, as I may have mentioned, Iceland is cold. The words “camping is terrible” may have been uttered as well as “You have been camping– why don’t you know how to set up the tent?” But we figured it out, exchanged high fives, and quickly climbed in to fall fast asleep.

Tent Success! (As well as apologies to all of Rich’s family- all video footage of him building a tent has been destroyed.)

COMING SOON- Days Two and Three: The Blue Lagoon, Thingvellir National Park, Haukadalur Geysers, Gullfoss Waterfall, Kerio Crater Lake, and Lots of Icelandic Horses and Anti-Social Sheep

June 20, 2018July 12, 2018

Stay Tuned…

The good news about having a blog audience is, well, I never expected to have a blog audience (a blogience?).

The bad news is that your audience wants you to write something.

And by audience, in this case, I mean my almost 70 year old stepfather who informed me yesterday that “there was really not much happening on the blog.”

Touche.

Rich and I have been busy saying goodbyes, packing stuff, and closing out our jobs. We end work on Friday, and we take off on Monday!

All that to say, we will not bore our readers (read: my stepdad) with details of which container we packed which socks in, but we will promise to write soon when there are lots of exciting things to share.

And I will end by saying that we are just so incredibly, unbelievably excited. I feel like I am on drugs, walking around smiling because we are about to take off and see the world.

Back to the sock packing– stay tuned! It can only get more exciting for our readers too!

April 29, 2018June 3, 2018

Hello world!

Here we go! As I write this, we are t-minus two months from camping in Iceland during our first week of 10+ months out of the country. There is so much to do, and yet, when I start feeling overwhelmed, somehow the idea of climbing into a tent on top of a car with my husband in Iceland, who has never spent a night in a tent anywhere before, brings me peace. I cannot wait.

So with two months left in the states, here are a few things we have already done:

Bought our packs and gear (using the word gear like 50% of what I’m taking isn’t from J. Crew).
Booked flights and lodging (lots of AirBNB) for our first two months using travel credit cards.
Updated my passport to reflect my married name and got approved for Global Entry.
Made concerted efforts to get in good shape so we can meet all of the physical demands of the trip (i.e. through running, hot yoga, moderate weight lifting).
Notified our principals (we both work in schools) of our plans once the school year ends.

Here are items we are working on:

Obtaining visas for countries where we will need them.
Scheduling and completing medical appointments.
Figuring out how to store and/or get rid of our stuff.
Seeing family and friends before we go.
Creating this blog.

We also have a few outstanding questions we are working through. Do we sell my car? Have we picked the best route for hitting six continents? How many books can I reasonably fit in my backpack? Can I take a hair straightner and stil refer to the trip using words like expedition and adventure? How many tubes of travel size toothpaste do you start with?

And then there are bigger questions: Will we be homesick? How will we stay connected with friends and family when we go months without seeing them? How do you build a home when the place you sleep changes every 3-4 nights?What will we do when we get back? Will this sort of adventure change our lives and the way we live forever?

Here we go!