Black & Blue

I landed in Iceland with no plans and no real expectations, not because I wasn’t excited to go but because I hadn’t had any time to research the country or plan out my trip. Icelandair did a good job piquing my interest on the flight with their teasers though, for example, “The most amazing thing about Iceland is not the fact that Vatnajökull glacier is the largest glacier in Europe or that Iceland uses 99% renewable energy…it’s the fact that most of Iceland’s residents believe in elves.” and “The most amazing thing about Iceland is not its beautiful unspoiled landscape and majestic waterfalls…it’s the fact that the prime minister is listed in the phone book.” Nice job, Icelandair advertising! They definitely got my attention! They also got my attention with their practice of naming all their planes after volcanoes. Not sure how comfortable I am with my airplane being associated with a natural disaster!

I had decided to go to Iceland on a whim as I searched for more efficient ways to get back to Montana for my brother’s wedding other than flying all the way to California and then backtracking. This implied that I connect in either Minneapolis or Chicago and, wouldn’t you know it, Icelandair flies direct to Minneapolis and does not charge for stopovers. I took it as a serendipitous opportunity and booked the flight without really a clue of what I could be or would be seeing. I can tell you though that after only four days in Iceland I am determined to go back to see the 90% of the country which I didn’t have a chance to touch!

As many already know, but I embarrassingly hadn’t thought much about, Iceland is part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge separating the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates. I read that it is far enough north that it really should be entirely covered in snow and ice as is Greenland but that the geothermal heat coming from the Ridge is thawing the country at the same time the weather dictates it should be frozen, hence the reference to Iceland as the Land of Fire and Ice. What this means is that Iceland is literally covered in amazing and often one of a kind natural wonders. The only place I have seen with anything similar is Yellowstone National Park which also sits on a “hot spot” so has geysers, hot springs, and lava flows similar to Iceland. What is hard to comprehend though is how much large Iceland is in comparison, and how many active volcanoes are still there. Yellowstone is about 3,500 square miles while Iceland is over ten times as big at just under 40,000 square miles. It’s about the size of Kentucky, as one of my tour guides told me, so not enormous but certainly much bigger than I had initially thought (or poorly guessed).

One of the “must sees” for those visiting Iceland, and Reykjavik in particular, is a loop called “The Golden Circle” which takes you through part of Þingvellir national park including the site of the first Icelandic parliament (a quaint setup of four small houses in a pretty amazing location), an area of hot springs including the inspiration for the word “geyser,” and to the amazing Gullfoss waterfall. It’s a bit of a whirlwind and is not my favorite way to see and explore a new place (bus tour – blech) but was a wonderful way to see a lot in a single day and to get a better feel for the country and landscape.

Iceland is essentially a land without trees (they are beginning to plant some now); an island of volcanic rock covered in green, fuzzy moss and….Alaskan lupine (also called Arctic lupine). These blue / purple, cone-shaped stems with small flowers quite literally cover the countryside and the contrast with the reddish, burnt orange volcanic soil and green moss is really rather spectacular. Many of the older generation Icelanders are not fans of the lupine though because it is “not Icelandic” as it was transplanted from Alaska. Iceland is a relatively small, remote, and oft forgotten country (at least until its debt got out of control and Eyjafjallajökull erupted) but its people are very proud of their heritage and their country. I asked an Icelandic woman if she liked living in Iceland and she replied enthusiastically, “Yes! I love it!” I asked her what her favorite part about living in Iceland was and she said, “I love absolutely everything about it! The fresh air, the country, the people. Just everything!” For a Nordic person this is the equivalent of shouting your love and admiration from a mountaintop. None of the Nordic people are all that talkative or open let alone this expressive and emotional!

As I mentioned, the word “geyser” in English actually comes from a geyser in Iceland literally named “Geysir.” Geysir once shot to a height of 80m (WOW!) but was plugged in the 1950’s when some tourists threw rocks into it thinking this might set it off. (I hope someone threw them in afterwards for being such idiots!) Geysir was already infamous enough before that to get an English word created from his name (Geysir is referred to as a “him,” by the way). It still erupts a few times a day but is no longer as frequent or as high. Fortunately, there is a smaller geyser near Geysir (this is getting confusing!) called Strokkur which is now the main attraction. Strokkur erupts about every five minutes and shoots up a couple times (from about 15-30m) before mellowing out and pooling water for the next show. Growing up an hour from Yellowstone has made me a bit of a geyser snob though, I have to admit. I noticed immediately that my good old Old Faithful was a much higher (around 200ft high), stronger, and longer-lasting geyser than is Strokkur. (I like to claim all sorts of things as “mine” and no, I’m not competitive at all. Why do you ask?)

Gullfoss (Golden Falls) waterfall was really incredible. It’s enormous and really spectacular, falling an impressive 32m. In the early 20th century, some foreign investors wanted to utilize the waterfall for hydroelectric power which implied damming up the Hvitá River and ruining the waterfall. The local landowner refused to sell to the investors but they tried to go around him and work directly through the Icelandic government. The landowner’s teenage daughter, Sigrίður, walked the 100+ kilometers to Reykjavik in protest and threatened to throw herself over the waterfall on the first day they started work on the plant. Thankfully, the deal fell through and Sigrίður is still seen as a local hero. There’s a statue next to the waterfall in memory of her and her fight. Go Sigrίður!

Þingvellir, the old Icelandic Parliament, is also a really cool and unique place. There is a lot of Icelandic history which happened there but the most interesting thing about it to me was the location. Þingvellir nearly sits on top of the rift between the North Atlantic and Eurasian tectonic plates. These plates are apparently pulling away from one another at a rate of 1-18mm per year according to my Lonely Planet and it has created 90 degree “walls” of rock at the boundary between the plates. There is a path which runs down the middle of the rift and it is really bizarre how sheer the “break” is and even crazier to think about what you’re really walking along.

I had really wanted to climb Mt. Hekla but given that I was only one and the minimum to climb (as it involves glacier climbing it is guided) was four, I missed out this trip. I found out later that Hekla last erupted in 2000 and its next major eruption is expected to happen in 2010. It actually already did erupt a couple months ago in April, although it was a relatively minor eruption, so I probably shouldn’t be surprised that nobody but dummy me was ready to sign up to climb it this June! I talked to some local climbing guides and they said that you only get a 30 minute warning (by earthquake – yikes!) before an eruption so if you’re high on the volcano when the warning comes you’re in a heap of trouble. Probably not worth the risk…but I’m still mad I missed it (especially since I now know that there was no eruption on the day I’d planned to climb!).

Instead of hiking Hekla, I did a trip to Mýrdalsjökull which is the fourth largest glacier in Iceland and covers approximately 700 sq km. Mýrdalsjökull sits on top of Katla which you may recognize as the much bigger and potentially dangerous neighboring volcano to the European airlines’ best friend Eyjafjallajökull. There was and still is some concern that Eyjafjallajökull’s eruption might set off Katla which is much more likely to be a significant and potentially catastrophic eruption. The tour I joined was called “Blue Ice” but, given the glacier’s proximity to Eyjafjallajökull, it would probably have been more appropriately named “Black Ice” this year. The glacier is currently covered in a paste of Eyjafjallajökull’s volcanic ash and although I don’t have the “blue ice” for comparison, the ash-covered glacier was eerily beautiful and the ash even made the glacial rifts and breaks even more prominent and easier to distinguish. The pictures look other worldly.

We hiked up the glacier on crampons (which work amazingly well!) walking over the cracks and rifts, peering down into the seemingly bottomless pools of glacier waters, and just exploring the bizarre land- or, maybe more appropriately, water-scape. The glacier can be up to 750m thick in certain places and is really just an amazing natural wonder. We found a sheer ice face and did some ice climbing with our crampons and picks and it was a blast! We had some very nervous female participants in our group that day so the guides split the climbers into men and women and gave the women the easier slope. I wasn’t happy with this so asked to do the “men’s climb” after I did the women’s and did it faster than all the guys! It didn’t bother me that they split us up into men’s and women’s groups but I was annoyed by the assumption of sub-par athletic ability. (Again, clearly not at all competitive!) My guide told me I was a natural ice climber and that I “made it look easy.” (He was kind…and probably just didn’t want me challenging anyone to another climb! I never caught an eye-roll but I wouldn’t have been surprised.) I’d say this would be a good new hobby but I’m not so sure I’ll be able to find many glaciers to climb around San Francisco…

After two days of group outings, I had had enough and decided to do an independent albeit much closer to home trip the next day (which didn’t require scary metal tools and spiked shoes). There is a mountain across the bay from Reykjavik called Mt. Esja which is apparently a popular hike with the locals so I decided to do this on my own in the morning so that I could explore Reykjavik in the afternoon and still make my whale watching expedition that night. Getting to Mt. Esja required that I navigate the public bus system which, thankfully, was pretty easy and didn’t require much clarification from the local bus drivers who spoke little to no English. I got to the foot of the mountain and had three hours to complete the approximately 900m climb until the next bus came. No problem! I was thinking that I had way too much time and would be sitting there cooling my heels for more than an hour.

The hike is touted as a “family” hike and was supposed to be relatively easy if still a good climb in elevation. This was true for the first three-quarters of the climb but the last quarter got increasingly difficult and steeper with each step. Whereas I had started out on a very clear, wide path with steps cut into it when necessary, the last section had no clear path and required a lot of climbing and scrambling on rocks. Finally, I came to a posted warning sign recommending that those afraid of heights not continue. I’m actually quite afraid of heights but there was no way that I was walking back down that mountain without getting to the top. I scrambled up another 100m or so of rocks on what was at that point a pretty steep mountainside and then got to the very last section which was no longer hiking at all but rather hoisting oneself straight up a series of rock cliffs. To get to the rocks I could actually climb I had to first navigate my way around the side of the mountain. Unfortunately, the path to get around to the front was on fairly fine volcanic soil which was already sliding down the mountain and did not offer any sure-footing let alone a flat surface on which to walk. In some areas there were chains pegged into the rocks so that I had something to hold on to but in other areas there was nothing and I was clinging to the rock face for dear life, trying to find cracks and holds without looking down. I did pretty well but had to stop a few times to do some slow breathing exercises when I freaked out. This was definitely no “family hike!” I would be lucky to get myself to the top let alone anyone else! (It seems that the families turn around when the hike transitions from easy to intermediate and long before the most difficult portion – would have been nice to know this before I set out!)

Once I was no longer on the sliding mountain face and had transitioned to climbing up the rocks I did a bit better. I’ve always been better at climbing than at coming back down! (It helps a lot when I’m looking up rather than down!) I kept hoisting myself up rock after rock until, all of a sudden, I was there! I scrambled up from the rocks and toward the center of the summit. I was sick of hugging the edges! There were three Icelandic women up there enjoying a snack before their trip back down and they offered me the summit book in which I was supposed to write my name as proof that I had conquered Esja. As is typical for me, I was very happy to be at the top but was already anxious to get back down! I signed the book quickly, got a couple pictures, and was just starting to relax a bit as I talked to the other hikers when it started to rain. Thankfully, it wasn’t heavy rain but it was rain nonetheless and all I could think about were all the rocks I had just come up, and the mountainside which was already sliding. UGH. No rain! There was no longer time for chit chat and I wanted to get out of there before it really started to rain. I gave myself a pep talk (à la my best friend Margaret from home who chanted once when we were parasailing together and she was very nervous, “Fun, not scary! Fun, not scary!” This was my get-down-the-mountain mantra for Esja that day!) and started the climb down as fast as I could. Getting down can be scarier for me than climbing up is but it’s a lot less work so usually goes a bit faster. I was shocked at how fast I came down Esja though. It’s amazing what a little fear-induced motivation will do for you! I got drizzled on the whole way down but didn’t have any disastrous falls and emerged from the trailhead with only 20 minutes to spare before the bus came. I was happy I had stuck with it but even happier that I had gotten down from the rocks on two feet rather than tumbling and bouncing off them which was the nightmare that was playing in my head every time my foot slipped or I couldn’t find a rock hold to grab. Thank goodness I didn’t completely freak out at the top or I would have never gotten down!

After a long, hot shower (a few scared hours in the cold wind and rain makes you very appreciative for hot water!) I took off to do a walking tour of Reykjavik. (Interesting fact: “Vik” means “cove” in Icelandic so many city names end in –vik as they are on a cove…Reykjavik, Husavik, Vik, just to name a few. The word “Viking” means roughly “man who came on a boat from a cove” so the root word “vik” for cove is also at use there.) Reykjavik is a very cool and unique city but I wouldn’t say it is beautiful. Iceland is only now starting to get and successfully grow trees so it historically has not been able to rely on wood as a raw material for construction. This has resulted in a city made of concrete (using volcanic ash and rock) homes and buildings. It subsequently looks fairly industrial even in areas where it isn’t. This in itself makes the city look and feel very different and, truthfully, how many cities or countries can you think of which endured a centuries long dearth of wood so nothing could be made from it? Perhaps the most striking and well-known building in Reykjavik, Hallgrίmskirkja, an enormous church rising 75m, is even built entirely out of concrete.

After self-guiding my Reykjavik city tour, buying an Icelandic wool Russian-looking winter hat, and treating myself to Icelandic halibut for dinner, I set out for a nighttime whale watching expedition. Nighttime is supposed to be great for whale watching and Iceland is one of the best places in the world to see many types of whales including Orca, Minke, and even Humpback whales. I happened to be in Iceland for the summer solstice (longest day of the year) on June 21 during which the sun rose at 2:58am and set just after midnight (crazy!) and I went whale watching the next day to, hopefully, chase whales under the midnight sun. The midnight sun is actually one of the things which make Iceland such a great place for whale watching. Having up to 20 hours per day of sun in the summer means that a lot of plant life can grow quickly in the ocean so there is plenty for the whales to eat. The combination of plentiful food stores and cold arctic waters is the perfect combination for an animal whose job it is to store as much energy in the form of blubber as possible during the summer so that it can survive the long winter.

We left the harbor around 8:30pm and I was dressed warmly although not as warmly as I would have liked. I had a sweater, a fleece, and a waterproof jacket but no gloves and no extra layers on my legs. I figured that I might be a little chilly as Iceland never really gets warm (probably 65°F max over the four days I was there) and I’d be outside on a boat but I really wasn’t prepared for it to be raining or as cold as it turned out to be. I stood outside with another American woman who was on vacation from Italy where she lives now, her Italian boyfriend and his son, and an Australian guy I had met on my glacier hiking trip the day before. We all had multiple layers on and had turned down the “coveralls” (more like a snowsuit) which had been offered by the boat captain and his assistant when we boarded. I stood out on the bow in the drizzling rain searching for whales for a good hour before I lost feeling in my hands and my ankles started going numb. I finally went in for the coveralls. I came back all snuggled up and the rest of my crew sitting outside (all others were sitting inside and only came out if someone saw something and yelled) took one look at me and all went in to gear up! We were fools to refuse the first time! (Check out the pictures of this outfit if you’re looking for a good laugh!)

We searched and searched the horizon, looking for a spouting blowhole, a fin, a tail, an anything, for hours. About 11pm we were all feeling discouraged and had started getting cold again despite our whale watching suits. I went inside to warm up my hands and heard yelling from the bow so ran back out. The expedition assistant yelled and pointed, “10 o’clock! 10 o’clock! TWO porpoises!” I think I just looked at her and blinked. Are you kidding me? Porpoises? I want to see whales, lady. Someone else must have looked disappointed too and she told us that porpoises were mammals and, as such, one of the smallest types of whales. Um, no dice. I wasn’t going for that. They looked like more boring versions of dolphins and were pretty far away. We had been told that the previous three trips that day and been extremely successful and they had seen multiple Minke whales and even a Humpback! Unfortunately, the Humpback seemed to be heading back out to sea at 5pm that evening and we couldn’t find anything else besides two sad little porpoises!

We kept scanning the horizon but were getting increasingly discouraged. You really can only look for whales for so long before you start thinking that every little ripple and water chop is a whale. I was starting to go crazy! I swear I began hallucinating spouting blowholes! I had just gone back in again to warm up when we heard a shriek, “Minke whale! Minke whale! WOO HOO!” We all ran out to the bow and the assistant explained that Minke whales can get up to 11m long and usually surface 2-3 times before taking a deeper, longer dive into the ocean for a few minutes. She said we’d be able to tell if the whale was diving because it would have a more pronounced arch in its back as it surfaced. We watched and waited for the whale to resurface and then, there he was! He did just as our guide had told us and surfaced a couple times before arching his back and disappearing for three minutes or so. We probably got within 40m of him and it was amazing to see such a big creature swimming so gracefully. The sound he made as surfaced was amazing too but indescribable – just so peaceful and perfect and balanced. We only saw one whale that night but it was a really cool experience and it truly was under the midnight sun which made it even more special.

I think our crew was ecstatic (relieved!) too that we’d finally found a whale and we were all happily drinking hot chocolate, up from the doldrums which had characterized the 30 minutes before the sighting, as we set out for a tiny island off the coast of Reykjavik which is known to house thousands of Puffins. Puffins are little birds which look a bit like a cross of a penguin and a parrot to me (clearly not a bird expert!). Unbelievably, there are 10 million Puffins in Iceland and only 300,000 people! Our guide described the Puffin as “a faithful lover” who is monogamous to one mate until death do they part (in which case the living mate can find another). Similar to penguins, they have one egg and, subsequently, one baby each year and the parents watch and care for the egg using the same nest each and every year. (Our guide said that some local scientists had followed an Icelandic Puffin for 30 years and he used the exact same next in the exact same location every year until he died – amazing!) After breeding season, the Puffins all fly out to sea where there remain until the next summer when they will raise their next-year chick. They have little tiny wings which they have to beat 400 times per minute in order to fly but are very good for use diving in the ocean. Puffins can dive up to 200ft or more below the surface in open water. That’s one crazy little bird!

I crashed after the midnight whale watching and, unfortunately, had to head out the next afternoon but not before I visited perhaps the most famous tourist site in Iceland – the Blue Lagoon! The Blue Lagoon is a geothermal hot spring which has been turned into a major tourist attraction through the building of a spa, restaurant, and rather lovely shower facilities literally on top of the hot springs. I went to the Blue Lagoon on my way to the airport and got to spend a few hours soaking in the very nice, very blue, 38-40°C water and I even got a massage in the water floating around on a little mat in the open air. I didn’t know what to expect from this but figured it was worth a try and it was wonderful! The natural properties and temperature of the water kill all harmful bacteria so it’s not necessary to chlorinate or even clean it. It was really nice and relaxing to hang out in the hot pool for a few hours and although I had to go to catch my plane, it looked like most people were there for the day, enjoying the bar on the water and even laying out in the 65°F sun between dips in the warm water. It was definitely a different but very cool experience. The water and the silica mud from the Lagoon are also supposed to be really good for your skin so I floated around with about a hundred other tourists all shellacked with silica mud on our faces. Where else can you do something like that?

The water is a great temperature but can get too hot if you stay in for too long so I would periodically take breaks from the pool and walk around the facility. At one point I was walking back into the women’s locker room to grab something from my locker and noticed a man in front of me making a beeline for the women’s shower area. I grabbed him just in time and pointed to the sign above the entrance depicting a figure in a dress. I then pointed across the hall to the men’s locker room entrance and said helpfully, “Men over there.” He pointed at a pylon in the hallway blocking his entrance while the staff quickly mopped the floor and said, “I can’t get in. I don’t know where to go!” I shrugged. Sorry, buddy, but that is your problem! All I know is you can’t go in the women’s locker room! Twenty more feet and he would have been smack dab in the middle of a room of showering women and I’m pretty sure that wasn’t going to go over very well!

The only bad part of the Blue Lagoon was that I had somehow picked up a 60 year-old Dutch man on the bus after he sat down next to me (the bus was full) and we had discussed US and European politics on the way to the Lagoon. He found me later in the Lagoon and was following me around telling me how he’d never met anyone in the world with the same eye color as him but that I had it and he was mesmerized. Gag a maggot and skedaddle already! Thankfully, I could move through the water a lot faster than him and was able to get, and stay, away.

I washed all the silica out of my hair and got cleaned up for my flight back to Montana for my brother’s wedding. Because I had stopped over in Iceland, I had already knocked out about four hours of travel and had adjusted three time zones closer so I was feeling pretty good. I was excited to see my family and go to the wedding and only had to connect in Minneapolis on the way to Bozeman. My flight from Reykjavik to Minneapolis wasn’t bad, only six and a half hours and it went pretty smoothly. I was feeling great at that point, was back in the US for the first time in six months and only had a short two hour or so flight to Montana. I had a four hour layover before my flight to Montana which I had intentionally scheduled as a buffer since my Minneapolis to Bozeman flight was completely separate from my Helsinki – Reykjavik – Minneapolis flight. After navigating the Minneapolis airport (out of all the airports I’ve been in over the last six months this one was by far the most confusing and poorly signed of all of them, and I could even read the signs!) and getting to the domestic terminal, I was a little disappointed to find that my flight was expected to be a half an hour late but, what can you do? I camped out on the floor next to the only outlet I could find and tried to make use of the time.

What started out as a 30 minute delay became 60 minutes, then 90 minutes, and then 2 hours. Now I was getting a little worried. I was supposed to have left at 9:40pm and now we were talking about 11:40pm, getting me into Bozeman at nearly 1am. I was exhausted but I knew that my parents were tired too as were our family friends who we were staying with and I didn’t want any of them to have to wait up that late. The woman at the gate suddenly made a hurried announcement, “The airplane has just arrived and we will deplane the passengers as quickly as possible. We ask that you all then board as quickly as you can. Our crew is running up against ‘duty day’ limits and if we don’t take off by 11:29pm tonight, we won’t be able to fly.” That got everyone’s attention – it was already ten minutes to eleven and we still had to deplane and then board an entire flight!

We all hurried and scurried and the plane was fully boarded with all passengers in their seats at 11:14pm (you better believe I was checking the time!). We sat and waited, waited and sat. The minutes ticked away…11:19pm, then 11:23pm, surely they are going to push back any minute…11:28pm, maybe my watch is fast?...11:31pm, are we going to get an update?...11:45p, why the hell haven’t we heard an update?....midnight, WHY THE HELL HAVEN’T WE HEARD AN UPDATE?! The flight attendants were serving drinks in first class and water to the rest of the plane. Things were not looking good! They let us sit there without a word of update with the pilot and co-pilot going back and forth in and out of the plane talking to someone at Minneapolis dispatch while we all sat there nervously waiting, our anxiety increasing by the second. The guy next to me was not happy and kept saying helpful things like, “Yep, well, here’s the baggage crew ready to unload our stuff!” It was a miserable wait.

About 12:20am, after being on the plane for nearly an hour and now almost three hours later than our scheduled take-off, we finally got an update from one of the flight attendants, “I’m afraid I have bad news. Your flight has been cancelled because we don’t have a crew to fly the plane. Also, unfortunately, there are no hotel rooms in Minneapolis because of a conference this week and there’s only one Delta employee left at the airport to help you so I suggest you call our 800 number yourself to reschedule your flight rather than stand in line.” The entire plane erupted in obscenities as we scrambled out of our seats. You have got to be kidding me!

The lone man at the desk when we deplaned didn’t endear himself to us either when he immediately announced, “Just so you know, you folks are on your own for accommodations for tonight. I can’t help you with that and there aren’t any hotel rooms available anyway.” Um, sensitivity training, perhaps? Or maybe just some base level social skills? He continued, “We will compensate you for the inconvenience with $100 vouchers good towards your next Delta flight. I guess I’ll see what I can do about some food vouchers. I think McDonalds might be open.” I couldn’t believe it. I wanted to tell him that, first of all, there would be no more Delta flights in my future if I had anything to do with it. And secondly, that I’d like to trade in that $100 voucher for the opportunity to slap him silly, the little troll!

I had called Delta immediately as I was deplaning and had finally gotten through to a woman who put me on standby for the 9am flight the next morning. She told me that she was unable to give me a seat number because it was too close to departure but that there were 12 empty seats on the plane and that I was definitely on the flight. I looked around at the other confused, exhausted, and pretty forlorn looking crowd from my flight, all scrambling to figure out what to do – sleep there? Find and pay for another hotel? (Turns out only the “Delta partner” hotels were booked – of course there were plenty of places to stay in a city as big as Minneapolis.) Rebook for later that week and go home? I grabbed my things and tried to find a relatively quiet place to sleep. (Good luck! The airport PA system announced the local time every 30 minutes – is that really necessary?!) There was no way I was going to go back out of security, pick up my bag, go to and pay for a hotel, sleep four hours, and then turn around and come back to do it all again. I figured I would just suck it up and sleep there. If I hadn’t gotten on the 9am flight then maybe things would have been different.

I had actually checked a bag for this flight which I never do but was trying to get some things back to the US from Finland so didn’t have anything of use with me besides my computer. No soap, no toothbrush, no nothing. I had over packed my checked bag, however, and they made me take a few pounds out of it to get under the weight limit when I checked-in. I had brought some quilt packs back with me (packages of assorted cuts of fabric to be used to make a quilt) which I was going to leave in Montana until Christmas and had pulled one of those out of my checked bag and put it into my carry-on to make the weight limit. I pulled out one of the yards of fabric, wrapped it around my head to try to block out the light, put my iPod headphones in to try to muffle some of the noise in the airport, and curled up in the fetal position on a bench. Sweet dreams!

I somehow managed to get a few hours of disjointed sleep until I was woken up by a crowd of people who were sitting at the gate at 5:45am for a 9am flight. Who are these people?! I tried to ignore them and wrapped the quilt fabric around my head tighter but my limited sleep time was over. Time to get up! UGH.

At this point I was a total grease ball in addition to being exhausted. I had silica in my hair, my back hurt from sleeping on a pod of hard plastic chairs, I hadn’t brushed my teeth in 24 hours, and I was mad. How can Delta get away with this? I camped out near the gate for the 9am flight and got in line to speak to the woman at the desk to get my boarding pass as soon as I could. She looked up my information and said, “You’re on standby along with 11 other passengers and this flight is full and fully checked-in.” I was a little slow given my lack of sleep the previous night and asked, “So, what are you saying? Do you think I’ll get on?” She made no bones about it and just shook her head, “No. It’s not looking good.” I had just about had it but was calm, asked her what I was supposed to do and then just started babbling, “My flight was cancelled at 12:30am and I called Delta last night and was told I was confirmed on this flight. I had to sleep in the airport. Other people got rescheduled for a flight this Friday which is NOT acceptable. I’m going home for my brother’s wedding!” (My original flight was Wednesday.) She looked at me and said, “I’m sorry. I don’t even know what happened. A flight was cancelled?” I could have wrung somebody’s neck at that point (although not hers – she was the only helpful person I had encountered in the last 24 hours)!

I explained the situation and we tried to figure out other potential alternatives. She could schedule me for the Bozeman flight that night, a full 24 hours from my original flight and 40 hours after I had left Reykjavik. She could route me through Salt Lake which required a connection and would only get me in a few hours earlier. She could send me to Helena or Billings and I could then drive to Bozeman from there. What a mess! She told me she didn’t think I had a chance to get on the 9am flight but that I may as well stick around just in case and then decide which of the other options I thought would be best. I sat down and first started complaining and cursing to my mom on the phone about what a disaster this had been and how terrible Delta was and what I was going to say to so-and-so Delta representative once I got one on the phone. I then got so frustrated I started crying in addition to cursing. It wasn’t very pretty.

I began commiserating with a man who was in the same situation as me just as they were making the final call for boarding. The woman at the desk kept calling final boarding for a couple who had not yet reached the gate. Miraculously, she then called both me and the guy I happened to be talking to and we ran up to the desk. “I have a couple in wheelchairs who I have confirmed as having landed and currently on their way to the gate but they’re not here yet and I can’t hold the plane any longer. I’m going to give them one more minute and then I’ve got to close the doors and I’ll put the two of you on.” I’ve never hoped that a couple of wheelchair-ridden senior citizens wouldn’t make it somewhere but I definitely hoped for it then! My new airport buddy said, “Would it be bad if we paid someone to run down the hall to intercept them?” I didn’t even answer the question, “I’ve got twenty bucks on me – is that enough?”

We waited a painful 60 seconds before she printed off our boarding passes and let us on the plane. We ran onto the plane at 8:56am for a 9am departure and I was on an emotional high for the first 90 minutes of the flight before the exhaustion caught up to me and I started to fade. I got to Bozeman only about 12 hours later and one sleepless night after I had expected to arrive but was so glad to be there that I didn’t care. Ironically, my brother Jesse and his fiancée Heidi were booked on the same Minneapolis to Bozeman flight that night which began showing up as departing late as early as noon that day. Knowing what a mess that flight was the night before and having no faith in Delta, I suggested that they figure out alternative plans. They played it a bit by ear but had a back-up plan and when the flight got delayed another hour later that afternoon they changed their flight to go to Helena and then drove to Bozeman. That Bozeman flight ended up getting cancelled again and was the third cancellation of that route in three days. I ran into a woman whose Tuesday 9am flight had been cancelled and she had been rebooked on my 9:40pm flight on Wednesday. After that flight was cancelled, this woman was rebooked on my brother’s Thursday 9:40pm flight which was also cancelled…things could have been much worse! (Poor thing – I hope she made it and that Delta gets nailed to the wall for the whole mess!)

Needless to say, it was a pretty painful reintroduction to the US but Iceland was wonderful! I already have my next trip to Iceland decided…it will be for a 5-7 day trek in Skaftafell National Park! (I never seem to be able to “check-off” any of my travel locations – I just want to do and see more after I’ve done some and seen a little!)