Shopping, Meeting, & Departing in CA
[Photos taken 06-09 June 2023, posted online 10 March 2024. Still no eruption.]
While planning my California trip, I allocated one day to shopping, a walk, and a downtown-dinner. The day after I managed to invite myself to visit a person I’d been regularly remote-meeting with for work that whole spring, and then it was time to fly back home!
Tuesday 06 June 2023
Stanford Reunion & Memorial, Bjarki Graduates 10th Grade!
[Photos taken 04 – 05 June 2023, posted online 3 March 2024. We’re waiting for the next burp, err… eruption. There was a small magma-run yesterday, but it stopped before peeking out of the ground…]
My whirlwind-visit to the San Francisco Bay Area continued with a reunion of the Stanford lunch group (or whatever to call it?). The following day was dedicated to attending the memorial of Prof Len Tyler, and then literal walks down memory lanes as I walked all over the Stanford campus, curios to see what was new and what was the same.
Sunday 04 June 2023
California Revisited
[Photos taken 01 – 03 June 2023, posted online 17 February 2024. There’s been another eruption since my last post! This one took out the hot water pipe to the Reykjanes peninsula, but it was fixed by building a road on top of days-old lava, and reconnecting a new pipe on top of it!]
June was a busy month. It began with Bjarki departing on a multi-day trip with his graduating-class to celebrate the end of their journey together. Trips like these came about to stop 10th-graders going on drunken binges downtown to celebrate finishing their compulsory education!
Then I was off on a whirlwind-trip to California to attend a memorial ceremony for Professor Len Tyler, who’d passed away a few months earlier. It so happened that I also managed to wrangle together a meetup with lots of old friends, as well as inviting myself onto the campus of a company that I’d had remote meetings with for months. The biggest drawback was that I missed Bjarki’s graduation ceremony, but the boy did good, and passed all his classes!
Thursday 01 June 2023
USA 2022 – Electric Go-Carting & Departure
[Photos taken 11 – 14 August 2022, posted online on a cold and blue-skied 30 April 2023.]
The other “big” activity that we’d planned while in Colorado, was trying the electric go-carts I’d found while scouring the internet, and it was a lot of fun!
Anna and myself then spent the Friday shopping (the others lounged), before we all journeyed back to Iceland on the following day. Thus endeth our two-week long USA trip, and it was deemed a great success!!
Thursday 11 August 2022
USA 2022 – Colorado Lounging, Climbing & Splashing
[Photos taken 07-10 August 2022, posted online 22 April 2023. I’m officially ridiculously far behind on my blogging!]
We flew from Spokane, Washington, to Denver, Colorado, picked up our rental car and made our way to Sarah and Augusto’s place. En route we were given a glimpse of the mad downpour that can happen in the area, with multiple cars simply driving to the side of the road and waiting the rain out rather than continue onwards almost blind.
Our Colorado days were calm in comparison to the first week of our US stay. We literally spent the first whole day lounging, although I did manage to get our travel insurance to OK Anna getting an x-ray of her ankle (not broken). The following day, most of us drove into the mountains to play in an elevated obstacle course, splash in some fresh river water, and check out flood remnants.
The following day we split up, with some of us shopping ’till we dropped, and others doing more relaxing things!
Sunday 07 August 2022
USA 2022 – Upper Glidden Lake & Idaho Departure
[Photos taken 06 – 07 August 2022, posted online 08 April 2023. The storm has come and gone… but more in a few days.]
On our last whole day in Idaho, we drove up the canyon and hiked to Upper Glidden Lake. The lake and surrouding area were gorgeous, but then the mishaps began!
Finnur tripped and scraped his leg, ripping up his pants leg. Then, thankfully pretty close to the car-park on the way back, Anna tripped and twisted her ankle so badly I ended up giving her a piggy-back-ride back to the car. Yay for lots of gym-time!
Just to make the day more colorful, we were met in the parking lot by a guy who was looking for a jack, as one of his tires had fallen off, and he didn’t have a big enough jack to get it back on. His car was of course blocking the road, so we tried helping him, but it wasn’t until some more cars arrived, one of whom had an old-style jack, that the tire got put back on.
The following day began with yet another variation on an amazing breakfast, before we said our goodbyes. We then drove back to Spokane airport, and flew onwards to Denver, Colorado.
Saturday 06 August 2022
USA 2022 – To Idaho, Zip-Lining & Silver Mine Tour
[Photos taken 03 – 04 August 2022, posted online 06 April 2023. Hello Easter Break!!]
We landed in Spokane, Washington, after about an hour in the air from Seattle. The Spokane airport is tiny so we quickly collected our luggage and rental vehicle, and began the drive east towards Idaho.
We’d no sooner got going than I realized Emma needed sneakers to go zip-lining the following day. We therefore stopped at a Spokane mall and walked out with four pairs of new shoes! Yes, shoes can be silly expensive in Iceland, and I go a little nuts elsewhere.
About an hour later, we’d found our way to Ivan & Margo’s cabins, in a canyon the mountains of Idaho.
The follwing day was full of action, as we went on a zip-line tour, and then visited a silver mine!
Wednesday 03 August 2022
USA 2022 – Seattle Days 2&3 – Cruise, Aquarium & Airport
[Photos taken 02 – 03 August 2022, posted online 26 March 2023. Second confirmation party of the season later today, three more to go!]
Our second day in Seattle was in large part dictated by the Seattle City Pass options. We thus found ourselves on a sight-seeing boat that went up and down the Seattle sea-side. Afterwards the kids opted for an unscheduled ride on the local Ferris wheel, before we went hunting for lunch. The second activity was checking out the aquarium, which was pretty nice, but didn’t quite match the monster aquarium in Monterey, California. Oh, the dangers of having traveled.
Afterwards, we walked back to the hotel, with a quick side-tour to Walmart where we found almost all the products hidden behind lock and key (?!?!). Dinner was at a nearby Indian restaurant, and I’ve rarely gotten so sleepy in my life. Back at the hotel Finnur thus got to pack the bags for the next hop, while I lay near-comatose in bed, yay jetlag!
The following day we found yet another hipster café to eat a bit of breakfast, before taking the train to the airport. This time the mental patient on board was a young overweight man with random splotches of blue paint on him who sat facing us on the side, who constantly talked to himself (somewhat threateningly), while staring intently at us, like he was waiting for something to happen. We did our best not to make eye contact. Some fare-checkers came on board, talked to the guy, handed him some leaflets and took off. Thankfully, the guy left the train a stop before we did.
I highly recommend signing up for the speedy security line at the airport if it’s on offer, it made the airport experience more bearable. And then we were off to Spokane, and then N-Idaho! (65-ish images total)
Tuesday 02 August 2022
USA 2022 – Seattle Day 1 – Glass, Pop & Needle
[Photos taken 01 August 2022, posted online 25 March 2023. It’s still freezing outside, it’s a bit unusual.]
Our 2-week-long vacation to the US was a complicated one. We began by spending two whole days in Seattle to get over the worst of the jetlag. Then we spent a day traveling east to Idaho to meet up with my Stanford advisor and his wife at their second home, where we spent three whole days. We spent a day traveling to Colorado, where we spent a further five whole days with old friends, before flying back home to Iceland.
For our stay in Seattle, I settled on buying the Seattle City Pass, and using it at five attractions. The first day we thus visited 1) Chihuly Garden and Glass, 2) Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP), and 3) Space Needle. (70-ish images total)
Monday 01 August 2022
Florida Day #11: Goodbye!
[Photos taken on 02-03 March 2019, posted online 24 August 2019. The leaves are starting to change color, and every now and then fall is in the air.]
Too quickly, our last day in Florida dawned. We had to clear the airbnb house by 10 am, but happily didn’t have to actually clean it. Ever since The-Very-Sweaty-Very-Stressful-Exit-Cleaning-of-the-Airbnb-house-in-Lyon, I’ve tried to rent tidy-only properties.
We piled all our stuff into the two cars, and then went to do a bit of shopping as we moved in hops closer to the airport. Our flight didn’t leave until close to dinner-time, so we had plenty of time to kill.
We arrived in Iceland on the Sunday morning, and spent the day recovering, and making cream-puffs! (40-ish photos total)
Saturday 02 March 2019
