Iceland Day 10 – Back to Keflavik

The Weather Finally Caught Us

Our ride out of the valley came at 10:30 this morning. The same driver showed up to take us out at brought us in. I figure he had another day and a half under his belt so they probably assumed he was a pro now and let him come in leading another trainee.

The day was clouded, threatening to rain but the clouds were high enough still at this point that we could see all that we hadn’t been able to see when we arrived. But as soon as we got to our car the skies began to open up and the rain began to fell.

We had planned on stopping at Seljalandsfoss, a beautiful waterfall that you can actually walk behind but when we pulled into the parking lot there were two huge tour busses; four tour vans and dozens upon dozens of cars. Looking out at the falls we could see a line of people cued up to get there turn walking behind the thunderous water – definitely not our thing and so we kept on driving.

We had no plans for the day and as it turns out that was probably a good thing. The weather turned bad quickly, with lots of rain, wind, and heavy cloud cover. We considered a few stops but with the weather none seemed appealing except to make a stop for a real sit down meal, which we did at a cute restaurant where we enjoyed burgers and fries and split an Oreo pie.

Jenny decided that since we had the time and we were in Iceland, we might as well take a quick look at Reykjavik and the famous church that is there. So we made the 40 minute drive there and literally pulled up in front, snapped a few shots and continued down to the waterfront where I stopped for another photo.

Exhaustion hit Jenny fiercely all of a sudden, she had not had a good night’s sleep the last three nights and she started to feel queasy so I suggested we just head to the hotel to give ourselves time to decompress, repack, shower up and for me to do my proctored covid test.

She agreed and proceeded to pass out within minutes on the drive back. Once in the room, she immediately fell asleep again for another hour or so before finally waking. It was at this point that I decided to get my covid test over with. This is where things went south real quick…

After four attempts at trying to get the app to work properly and get through to a proctor, I finally did only to be told that the test kit had expired and there was nothing they could do. Scrambling to find another option was fruitless – either the test centers were closed or they had no more appointments for today. The soonest I could test was 8:00 AM tomorrow morning, less than two hours before my scheduled departure. To say this put a huge damper on the end of the trip would be a massive understatement. I was beyond upset.

Jenny and I did go downstairs and have a fairly enjoyable dinner before calling it a night. We talked about our favorite things we did and about Iceland in general. I think we are in agreement with all the things we loved – the whales, the black church, the drive out to see the puffins (and the puffins too), the seals, the walk on top of the volcano, the hike yesterday, the sheep farm, the drive back into those two secluded valleys and the incredible scenery. Iceland is a beautiful place but I don’t think it called to us like other places have. We certainly would return to hike and stay put in one area longer than one night but there are other places I would rather return to for that. But perhaps once we are home and we have had time for it all to settle in and we come down from the whirlwind of circumnavigating the island, our feelings for Iceland will be stronger but I don’t think it would ever be like Patagonia to us though.

It is funny because we got to talking about how much bigger Iceland feels than it appears on a map. So to try and give us some perspective we did a little comparing to the US – we were stunned at what we found. Take a look:

So…as for me getting home…well that remains to be seen. It is going to be an ugly mad dash tomorrow morning. I have to drive Jenny to the airport at 5:00 AM, then wait until 8:00 AM to get my test; return to the airport to drop the car off; walk from there to the terminal; get in line to check in with a dozen or so other flights leaving with an hour on either side of my departure time and I will have one hour and five minutes to accomplish this. I will be honest, I am usually pretty optimistic but I am not feeling so much now.

But, I do not want to end what was suppose to be the final blog on a sour note. Once again, I loved spending time with my girl – she makes me laugh a lot. I always love seeing the world through her eyes and having her point out the things I have overlooked. We missed having Billy with us, there were so many things he would have enjoyed. The fact that my teenager is still willing to spend her week vacation with me, makes me so happy. That fact she tells me she will miss me… well… I think you all know…