November 14th 2018 Wednesday
We left Saint Louis at 4pm on November 13th. I went to Nick's house to pick him up and take him to the gym so we could get a few things done. I had taken off of work that day but it was nice to finish up a few more things before we left. The money that I had saved from watching dogs had not transferred yet. So, I was understandably nervous about the whole thing. I spent a majority of my time that day trying to figure that out.
Nick's mom picked us up from the gym they we went to go get Gabe. Gabe had decided to join us about a week before we left. Our original third person had backed out at the last minute. Gabe had agreed to take his spot, this was beneficial to us because we were able to split things three ways instead of two. Nick and I were able to piece together all of the gear for gabe that we though he would need. This allowed him to go without purchasing much of anything. Gabe s lucky that we worked at a place with so many Outdoorsy people.
We made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare for our flight.
Getting on the flight was a trip. It almost felt like stepping back in time. All the female flight attendants were in a bright purple/fuchsia outfits. The gents were wearing the same color vests. Everything cost money so I was glad that I had brought some of the Raw Rev bars. We were lucky enough to get sponsored. They sent us some bars and told us to have a nice trip. The six hour flight went quickly though we were all thirsty by the end. We had all filled up our water bottles before boarding, but we all ran out by the end of our flight. We played Munchkin and they I read one of my guide books on Iceland.
Our plane arrived around 4 am on November 14th. We weren't tired yet so we planned to stay up until that evening. Nick had rotten us a rental car and we all thought they would be there holding up a sign. We saw a guy with a sign for what we thought was our rental car place but we were not on his list! Luckily another group of guys was in the same position as us. No name on list and no one to pick them up. The driver that we found loaded all six of us into a van and took us back to the office. Some woman called him as we were driving but he told her that she was not where she had said that she was going to be and that he would be right back.
So, he drove us to the rental place, which was in an industrial park. We waited our turn and ended up with a car that we hadn't booked, but would work. A Suzuki with an orange lower half and a white top. Who even knew that Suzuki made cars? As the trip continued, I loved it more and more. All the cars at this time of year have studded tires, and are required to do so. I asked about the studded tires messing up the roads Nick though they were cheaply paved with ASH so it wasn't too big of a deal.
After we got our car it was still early and we knew nothing would be open. We assumed that we would be able to find a public lava cave or something. We settled on going to a hot spring called Krysuvik. We pulled in close to Lake Kleifarvatn. Getting out we started to walk but with it being so dark we couldn't see any trail markers, even with our head lamps. I hesitated to press on though I am sure the boys would have pushed further. With few words from any of us we turned around and went back to the car, all falling asleep rather quickly and waking up with the sunrise about 9:30 am Iceland time.
Still with few words we drove a short distance to the Hot Springs. It was public and free, a nice start to our trip. As we pulled up we saw a couple was there up on a high ridge. This hot spring was not the kind you could get in. Hot enough to burn you in a muddy brown bubbling pool. It had walkways that made a loop but if you were adventurous you could take a path up to where that couple was. It was a verticle (almost) dirt trail, with some "steps" made of heavy chains scattered throughout.
It made me nervous but the boys were already on their way up so i followed. In places I though better than to turn around at all. I knew i would be nervous and want to double back. I got to the peak where we had seen the couple. Nick and Gabe decided to keep going but i decided to just explore the area that i had made it to for a bit then head down. I do wish that I would have stayed up there longer, as I got back down to the loop the sun began to peak over the mountains.
I walked the loop a couple more times before the boys began to head down.(the group of men that we were at the rental car place with that morning were on the other side. I recognized the shaved head braid combo from a distance)
When we were all back in the car we decided to head for costco to get provisions for the trip. But first a trip to IKEA, we had read that food is pretty cheap there and we didn't want to shop on an empty belly. I got meat balls, potatoes and gravy. Then picked up a non dairy smoothie. We were hungry so nothing was wasted. After reading that Costco has the cheapest gas or close to it we knew that it was a stop that we had to make. We were able to get a bunch of food:
Cuties
Seaweed
Peanut BUtter
Jelly
Crescent rolls
Tub of Couscus - Pre mixed
Then we headed to our camp site....
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