Iceland!
This trip was a long time in the making and took a few winding turns along the way as you’ve (or will) read.
September 20 – Our flight was scheduled to leave at 2:15pm from JFK, so we left with plenty of time…. no we didn’t. We were running behind!!! I think it was about 45 minutes behind schedule actually. An hour into the road trip I realized I forgot the tent poles, so I was going to have to scramble on getting a tent in Iceland. There’s a great place in Reykjavik that rents equipment, so I figured that’s what we’d do. We drove like hell to get to JFK and decided to park as close as possible, so that meant long-term airport parking. Parked, grabbed the shuttlebus to the airtran area, and then proceeded to our gate. Amazingly there was no line and we boarded without a problem. Oh, Dexter had a Nalgene of water that had to be dumped out, but that was only a minor holdup. Once we got to the gate I went online and reserved our tent for the week. This place, Iceland Camping Equipment, is highly recommended if you need gear! We got two fleece blankets, two sleeping pads, and the tent for the week.
We arrived in Keflavik around 11:30pm local time and walked to the rental car place, Go Iceland!. It was less than 5 minutes to get there, but there was a slight drizzly rain. I had pre-paid for the car back in March, but yeeeeaaahhh… there’s more to it than what I thought. It started off rough; the guy said I still owed quite a bit and I told him the balance was zero. Another person came in and said we were good, the computer had an error. But then I was told I only had the minimum insurance so they had to put a hold on my car for $2900. Um, no. Just no. So the only option I had was to pay $140.00 for the “Super-de-dooper” insurance, then the deductible would be maxed at $400. Kinda between a rock and a hardplace, eh? I paid it, reluctantly. We got a Suburu Forester, did a quick inspection, and hit the road. I had no clue how to get out of the airport but eventually found the main road.
We drove a bit, got lost a bit, and then finally found our first home for the night. Through AirBnB we got a room nearby. The very nice owner met us in the driveway and showed us to our room for the night. We piled in, had a quick drink, and climbed into bed. We were in Iceland, FINALLY!
