Saturday, 10 June 2006

It was time for my last run in Reykjavik, Iceland. Again, I incorporated the seawall path into my route, this time going as far as I could on the paved trail. The weather seemed like it couldn't make up its mind. Mostly overcast and breezy but it didn't rain.

Since the Blue Lagoon was pretty much on the way between Keflavik and Reykjavik, the excursion companies offered a tour for those whose flights out of Iceland were in the afternoon. We could catch the bus to the Blue Lagoon at 11:00 am, relax in the lagoon while our bags stayed on the bus, then get back on the bus at 2:10 to continue on to the airport. Since our flight left at 4:30, we decided to sign up for this.

By the time we got to the Blue Lagoon, the clouds were hanging low, almost more like a fog. Combined with the steam from the warm lagoon water, visibility was so low you couldn't really see across to the other side of the lagoon! We would have loved for a clear day here but it wasn't meant to be. So instead we soaked in the water for an hour this time. Afterwards, we bought a light lunch from the little food stand then wandered to the front of the building and took a few pictures of the water and lava out front. No one swims here but the water and lava is a close enough example of what is in back, in the lagoon proper.

We got back on the bus and in about 20 minutes we were at the airport. Through customs here, we got the exit stamp in our passports :-) We wandered around and spent some money in the duty-free shop, then sat near the gate and read, waiting to board.

Again, this flight was full. Bil had the aisle again, and I had the center seat. Luckily, we had a quiet window-seat-mate. As on our way over, I tried to doze, read, watch the in-flight entertainment, anything to get my mind off of how stiff and crampy and tight my muscles were feeling. Ugggghhh. Some 6 hours later, we finally landed back in Minneapolis, ~6 pm local time.

We had a much shorter layover this time, so we found dinner at a restaurant--something more than fast food, then wandered around, window shopping at all the shops in the airport. Our flight to Seattle left on time ~9:40 pm. To my "Reykjavik body time", that was 2:40 am Sunday morning.

On the 3-hour flight to Seattle, I was so tired that I think I actually dozed. At least, Bil said my head was back and I was slack-jawed. He also said something about drooling but I think (hope) he was just teasing me. :-) We landed in Seattle about 11:00 pm local time. Our luggage arrived too, and we called the car park lot to pick us up. We got our car and even though we were tired, we just wanted to get home. We split the drive up so we each drove about half the distance.

We pulled into our driveway just after 1:30 am on Sunday morning, or 8:30 am Sunday on my "Reykjavik body time". In other words, except for trying to doze on the airplane, we'd been up for over 24 hours. But it was so good to be home and our kitties actually seemed happy to see us!

Deb seemed to have enjoyed her stay here too and we got to spend Sunday together before she flew home on Monday. It would take a couple of days to recover from the jet lag; and almost a week before I felt like I had recovered from the lack of sleep from the trip home. But, Sunday morning--or later Sunday morning!--I still got in a little run to keep my streak going.

We hope someday to do something like this again. But maybe we'll try to save up enough to fly first or business class next time!