Training Log Archive: Yvonne

Hike @ Matson Hill w/ 12# pack. Trying not to think about how much my fitness has suffered. Rather discouraged w/ my L leg.

Great hike though - love these woods!

Did a touch more city-touring - back to the whale museum & checked out the geothermal beach then headed to Keflavik airport. Flight to STL was delayed a few hours and customs/border patrol in the US took forever to get through but other than that, travel was straightforward.

Some random thoughts about our trip:

- Wow Airlines was great. Nice new, modern planes. Very much like an Icelandic version of Frontier or Southwest.
- Camping was a fantastic way to make this trip affordable. The campgrounds were excellent and well-equipped. I think it also added to our enjoyment overall because it made our itinerary so flexible. No reservations were needed so we could adjust on the fly, and we did that a couple times. We had no issues packing all our gear and clothing in 3 huge duffle bags for our checked baggage. Everything else went in our "personal item". Piece of cake.
- Iceland is very family-friendly. The kids were pretty much free of charge for many things (e.g. the campground fees) and heavily discounted for all the museums/tours.
- We ended up paying for full rental car insurance. I choked at the cost, but hubby was all for it for peace of mind (he was the sole driver) and that's just one of those things that's wise to compromise on :). As it turned out, we got a small rock chip in our windshield so it was probably a good move!
- I was afraid our route would be too much driving (over 1,000 mi.), but nobody thought it was a big deal. Except for the S side of the island, there was very little traffic. We packed a lot into our days.
- We brought a whole bunch of food (energy bars, etc.) and we ate it. It probably saved us several hundered dollars.
- I was worried about deciphering labeling for daughter's food allergy. It turned out allergens were labeled so it wasn't too much of a problem. When we weren't sure, our US food stash came in handy.
- Both kids and I used Frogg Toggs Ultralite2 rain suits and they exceeded my expectations. They appear flimsy, but are surprisingly tough and performed better than my pricey gore tex stuff. Crazy lightweight and inexpensive too. Will definitely be using this as my raingear for Wonderland.
- This was a fabulous first international travel experience for the kids.

Drive back to Reykjavik - set up camp at the same place and hit the zoo/family park, botanical garden, and geothermal pool one more time.

City hike to obtain some food for dinner - it was past 6PM so all the groceries were closed (!! we knew that, but still). Found a convenience-type store and that did the trick. BTW, green peppers were $10 EACH. Yes. A lowly cup of chicken ramen was $3.50 and the Twix bar treat for my son was $4. A pack of 6 Oreo cookies was $6.

After everyone was in bed, headed back out to the bike path along the Reykjavik waterfront to enjoy the perpetual sunset, wildflowers, cool museum architecture, and sculptures galore. Sad to be leaving tomorrow.

Ranger tour/hike at Thingvellir - out of possibly thousands of tourists here today, we were the ONLY ones to participate. So the advertised hour-long tour turned into a longer affair as we hiked around and peppered him w/ questions about the tectonic plate features of the park, water clarity in the plate rift where the snorkeling activity is (360' visibility - the clearest water in the world! So clear, snorkelers get disoriented looking down thinking they're falling through the air), Icelandic politics and attitudes about land development/tourism (any type of land development is a major issue w/ the public), and differences between the Icelandic & US NP systems. Super nice guy and fortunate to have this experience.

Then headed out of town to complete our "Golden Circle" tour by visiting Geysir (lots of geothermal activity and a 100' tall geyser that goes off every few minutes) and Gullfoss (massive dual waterfalls w/ 5,000 ft3/sec flow volume). Touristy, lots of busses, but very cool nonetheless.

Very wet evening back at camp. Some French bikepackers set up near us and I attempted to get details of their journey (somewhat of a fail as their English wasn't too extensive and my French is way rusty and wasn't really that great to begin with).

Glacier trek on Skaftafellsjokull. We booked this the previous day. It was the only glacier trek that allowed kids under 14 but we still wore harnesses, crampons, and held ice axes. So it was the real deal, just a shorter distance and less intense terrain. Nevertheless, I'm not sure this would have worked well last year. Daughter needed a little extra help in some of the steepest sections, but not a big deal. We were in a small group (10-ish folks) and our guide was also a volcanologist/university professor so we got a bonus tutorial on Iceland's 30 volcanos. He pointed out the main features of the glacier, took us over some "stable" crevasses, discussed current research and encouraged the kids to hack away at the ice w/ axes to their heart's content (son was in heaven and could have spent all day doing that).

Kids debated at length which tour so far was the best (whale, glacier amphibious boat, or glacier trek). No clear conclusions. All front runners!

Left Vatnajokull and drove to Thingvellir (again, not the actual spelling - an English phonetic version based on Icelandic pronunciation. Which, by the way, was super-difficult for pretty much every word we encountered) National Park. Set up camp in the Vatnskot area on the shores of Lake Thingvallavatn (largest lake in Iceland). Very peaceful, picturesque, and deserted. My favorite campsite.

Shuffle-ran the windy entry road. First running in months! Leg felt decent but still a touch unstable. Sheesh.