The Quinn Family Excellent Adventure

We had become very comfortable with the excellent bus system in Edinburgh. An Airport bus left regularly stopping throughout the city and headed all the way to the Airport. It was only a 10 minute walk to the bus stop. Thankfully we were able to walk past a donation drop off spot. Someone got my old shoes, a new Tilley hat, a few fast dry shirts and some other odds and ends. The bus had convenient shelves for all our stuff and only a few passengers. It's always so nice to say goodbye to our home in the morning from a bus or Uber.

Our bus driver was helpful in letting us know when to pop off. Wheelies were nearby and soon we were navigating the airport. Getting out boarding pass was simple enough but strangely they did not take your bags at the counter. We were directed to walk in a certain direction to drop them off, The signage is kinda lax and we walked right past the drop off spot. You wind up walking into another ticketing area which confusingly looks similar. The place was closing down for an hour and we were told to wait. I was confused for a sec until we found the missed drop off spot. We wasted 30 minutes there. After dropping the bags off it was time for security clearance upstairs. My gosh this was a busy place. Rather than organized single file, this place was like the checkout at a busy shopping mall. Both of our carry on bags were full of stranger stuff and obviously needed to be manually checked. You have to keep an eye on the bag the checker is currently holding as they call for the owner. It's so loud that you cannot really hear them calling out. You really have to keep an eye on your bag and wait for someone to grab it. The person guides you over to a desk and they go through it pretty thoroughly. Pretty tight security, wild.

After that fun we were clear to wait for our gate assignment. We met a young Icelandic couple with a new baby heading over. The flight was delayed a few times giving us plenty of time to check for snacks, water and other fun things. Flight Aware and the Airline's online site offered more up to date info than the Airports displays. It was not too much longer before we were boarded and enroute. I had booked a rental car from an Airport location and anticipated a few hours delay in our arrival window. No big deal.

The flight was really nice and the first sights of Iceland were epic. Airport security, Visa's were all supper quick and soon we were on a shuttle to the car rental locations. I picked a place called Lotus Car Rental based on their excellent reviews. https://www.lotuscarrental.is/about-us/ Considering the size of Iceland and the possibility of needing to sleep in the car, I picked a wagon called the Kia Ceed https://www.lotuscarrental.is/our-rental-cars/kia-ceed-automatic-transmission

I kinda pimped out our ride with a spare gas tank (you never know), a GPS and portable Wifi, An Icelandic Map, and 2 Vadlaheidi Tunnel Fee's. I knew we needed 1 tunnel fee but suspected we may come back the other way if we did not complete all of the Iceland Loop. Just being proactive. The Lotus sales dude was great. We talked about his adventures living there and the cool places we should probably visit. All in the car was 54,560 Icelandic Króna or 1,624.91 Canadian Dollars for 8 days. That's 203 Canadian per day. Sitting around is not an option. We planned to use this thing.

The Keflavík International Airport is about an hours drive away from Reykjavik the location of our Airbnb. We had time to spare before out check in so we headed out for our first random journey landing near the fishing village of Eyrarbakki https://goo.gl/maps/975d6BgNfbdEEcvP7 It's really hard to drive in Iceland as the stunning views make it difficult to pay attention to the road.

It's quite amazing how quickly the geography changes. After a really special Coffee/Tea break at at Hafið Bláa Restaurant With A View. http://hafidblaa.is/ https://g.page/hafidblaa?share we headed to Reykjavik to find our Airbnb. I somehow messed up the GPS location and wound up in downtown. Thank goodness I made a mistake, construction down there made parking and navigating difficult. With the correct coordinates we were soon home to our Airbnb. We met our Airbnb hosts and checked into our nice room. https://goo.gl/maps/TDJubYbzAgzjTaHh7

Our hosts had a huge list of cool things to do and see. It was a long travel day so we dug in for our first Icelandic night. As it did not get all that dark, we had an interesting twilight sort of sleep :-)

We were now in the first 24 hours of our many day water fast. The first 48 hours are really hard and it was true for us. We still managed to get out, and walk to an awesome health food store https://heilsuhusid.is/ and juice place. https://www.joejuice.com The health food store had some more supplies to get us through including Bone broth, vitamins and some protein shake stuff. The Juice place was really nice but holy moly expensive in Iceland. We soon had the energy for our first walk down to the oceanfront. So beautiful. After the waterfront we walked to the Hallgrimskirkja http://www.hallgrimskirkja.is/ It's an interesting structure and has a great lookout for the city.

I thought I had planned a visit to the Blue Lagoon for the day after we arrived. My brain was not working I suppose as it was way off. After realizing it, the staff were able to do a reschedule online with very short notice. Whew, its a busy and expensive place. I'm pretty sure I saw rescheduling requires a fee. With spare time we had a chance to try some local Hot Springs. Google had indicated a cool place was Reykjadalur Hot Spring Thermal River. https://goo.gl/maps/MNMw6duz4pCgWUVS9 It was a reasonable drive. Lot's of cars parked on the road. The walkin route is challenging during a fast. It's a moderately steep climb and about 2 KM's to the springs. Well worth the journey to the final location in the Valley of Reykjadalur. https://goo.gl/maps/JFzio5THmrDQkRvz9

The Blue Lagoon was next on our list. https://www.bluelagoon.com/ It's touristy, pricey and potentially crowded. They have it setup pretty good though. Show up at your checkin time and you can stay the rest of the day. Getting their early and hanging out all day is easy. We liked it. You gotta do it once. Our next drive was a larger tour. First on the list is Thingvellir National Park. https://goo.gl/maps/VtNaT2G7TXJXGAFKA It's pretty epic https://www.thingvellir.is/en A short drive later is Geysir, another epic spot https://goo.gl/maps/dxxto6GvuNzfy86p8. It was the first time we saw a geysir. So cool.

In planning out next days journey I figured, lets drive around the Iceland Ring Road. It's only 1332 KM https://guidetoiceland.is/best-of-iceland/best-attractions-by-the-ring-road-of-iceland

We did not sleep all that well so getting up at 5 or 6 AM and sneaking out quietly made for a wise early departure. The first day was 788 KM's and with taking our time (sorta) grabbing a hitch hiker and only 1 mix up it took 11 Hour and 41 Minutes.

Driving the ring road in 2 days is kinda dumb. Doing it over 2 weeks is less dumb. Doing on a pedal bike would be the best. I saw quite a few riders and was so impressed. Fortunately I booked an Airbnb for our nights sleep on the eastern part of Iceland, the Hamar Hótel https://goo.gl/maps/Acv6A2a316yawpvp6 We pulled into the Hamar within minutes of our intended arrival time. The car was amazing on gas. 801.4 KM's getting 5.4 L/100 KM's

We had just enough time to chill out, have a shower and say hello to some nice people who shared the kitchen. We had a great sleep and were up before everyone at the hotel. After stashing our key in the special place we were off. The weather had changed to fog and rain for several hours of the drive. We had to endure 631 KM's in 9H 40 minutes. Unfortunately 4 hours of the journey was covered in fog and clouds. That kinda sucks. Lot's of the drive was meandering slowly on Fjords. 90 KM/h is the speed limit and with the thinner 2 lane roads you need to keep an eye out. A majority of their bridges are a single lane and sometimes they are a blind entrance. Keep an open eye for that.

Our first cool stop was Jokulsarlon OMG chunks of glaciers on a lake. https://icelagoon.is/ I was still in shorts but did not care. We walked around and got a sense of the beauty. It was a pretty busy place with tours and all that. I saw 2 bikes there. Epic. Wish I saw the riders. For hours after leaving Jokulsarlon you see glaciers on the right (assuming you are travelling west) Keep an eye on the road. Many silly people are not looking.

A few hours down the road is the famous Kirkjufjara Beach https://goo.gl/maps/josYDpBAQ8wMFyB47 Keep an eye on the waves. It's not uncommon for a sneaker wave to take you out. The locals call it Chinese Take Out. https://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/news/2016/02/11/reynisfjara_beach_death_police_publish_photograph_o/

Here's an example of natural selection failing us at this same location https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEy5IsfsdyY We blasted home after he beach and were kinda spaced out from all the sitting. As we had time, tomorrow will be a day to visit the Bobby Fischer Center

The weather really opened up the next day wow. It was really beginning to warm up now. The drive to the Bobby Fischer Center is pretty quick. http://www.fischersetur.is/index.cfm?lang=en&page=pages/start_en3 It was a really nice museum dedicated to his work. I was kind of bumbed out to learn he was Antisemitic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Fischer#Antisemitism We can't forget his greatness as a chess player though. A short drive beyond Bobby Fischer's grave is the famous Kerid Crater. https://goo.gl/maps/KbUtSQNhC3pbAGmJ7 It was a really cool structure believed that is now considered to have been a cone volcano. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keri%C3%B0. We crammed so much into every day in Iceland. Sadly it was time to head home, pack and leave for Canada.

Our plane back to Canada left at 5:05 PM. We had lots of time to enjoy a final morning in Reykjavik. It had gotten really warm and sunny. So perfect. We left for the airport around noon and filled up our gas tank one final time. A young man approached us asking if we were heading to the airport. Yes we were and in he hopped. It turns out this young person has been hitchhiking all over and is now heading back to Europe. His flight is the next day so he plans to sleep in the airport. Man to be young again. I told him about couch surfing and airbnb just in case he needs a real bed. We dropped our new friend off at the airport and then dropped our car off with plenty of time to spare. I inquired about our total driven distance. 2200 KM's in 7-8 days. That's 275 KM per day. Crazy. The staff said it was impressive. We grabbed our gear only to find the shuttle bus driver was waiting for us, so nice.

Figuring out how to check out bags was a bit tricky. Machines were everywhere but which to use was not clear. After sorting that out, our longer nap sacks need to be put through an over sized bag area. I kinda like being able to talk to the bag scanner in this situation. As I have a crazy amount of electronics and wires at the top, I can explain it to them so they don't freak out. Yay that was done.

With 2-3 hours before departure we had no gate yet. This airport is kinda crazy busy on the day we flew. We wondered way down a hallway to find a place to sit and chill keeping an eye on the gate thingy. Once the gate was assigned, we quickly headed there. I'm glad we did. There is only seating for about 50 people. The plane holds way more than that. They must have used the same airport designers as we experienced with our flight to Moscow. I would up sitting beside a lawyer and his wife. I was told this guy mostly keeps to himself. We talked solid about multiple random topic for 2 hours blasting unnoticed through multiple plane delays. His wife was really happy. I wish I got his card. Neat guy, super smart. We eventually all got asked to stand and queue up in yet another long delay. Weird. This airline has a history of not enough support bodies. Oh well, we were still having fun.

Our flight took us over Greenland. It was soooo beautiful. Seeing Toronto from the air was kinda strange. I was really nervous about how much I had spent throughout the year. I had proactively created an itemized list of everything we had purchased over the year. It totaled $3666.08 Canadian. It was way beyond the allowable $600 per person. I tried breaking the item ownership up so at least it was split but it was still high. I was equally nervous that KT was still overseas with some of the items. Add to the concern was I did a really shitty job identifying what we did not buy. The laptop, some phones, Sony Camera, Underwater Camera ... all purchased before leaving. I was so worried that customs was going to be really tough. When finally faced with the automated passport scanner claiming thingy, I was completely honest with the total amount. This obviously flags me with a different printed ticket than others. Once facing a human, I simply explained these items were purchased new and were used throughout the year. None of them were new in the box. I was amazed that I was let through without any issue. A few more times I was asked the same question at other stops and with the same honest answer I was given the green light. Being clear, honest and open seems to be the best policy.

With that all cleared up we were finally walking towards Canadian soil and greeted by Michelle's Mom and BF Mike. Pretty awesome eh