Northern Iceland and Waterfalls

Saturday was not only day 4 of our road trip, but also the 4th of July....pretty easy to remember, right? We began our day like a true local of the Westfjords...fearing for our lives as we drove along the edge of cliffs. We knew we had a long day of driving ahead of us to get to Akureyri so we began the day with a beautiful waterfall located about an hour from our house in the Westfjords.

As we embarked down the dirt road we quickly realized it was going to be another nauseating cliff side drive when we saw these signs far to frequently -

         

This little blue sign means "rollercoaster ahead", at least that's what we determined it meant after we took our first stomach rolling drop a little too quickly. Our fear-filled car ride had a gorgeous reward waiting for us that made us forget (somewhat) about the journey to get to the waterfall. 

          

Dynjandi had 7 tiers and you could hike up to each level if you didn't mind a shower, but I can't imagine it being anymore beautiful from the top than it was from the bottom! We spent an hour at Dynjandi soaking up the sunshine and having our own 4th of July celebration.

                                    

          

We braved the treacherous drive back up the mountain and along the cliffs of the Westfjords. Our drive went much faster since we knew we had already survived once. We felt like pros and I blew dust in the faces of the scared slow tourists...who were driving just like we had been less than 24 hours prior. 

Our 4 our drive to Akureyri didn't feel too bad once we got on highway. We arrived in Akureyri around 6pm and checked into our hostel, Akureyri Backpackers Hostel. Now this was what I envisioned a hostel to be like! We were located in the heart of the town and the hostel had a restaurant on the main floor and the bedrooms were located on the 2nd and 3rd floors and the showers and laundry facilities were in the basement. Our room had 3 sets of bunk beds and our hall had sinks and toilets. It reminded me a lot of the Clemson dorms I stayed in. We had dinner at the restaurant downstairs and it was fabulous! We went to a couple of gift shops after dinner and then went to bed early since we were leaving early the next morning. 

        

                                     

We woke early Sunday morning for another long day of driving, but this day held promise of several gorgeous waterfall stops! We wandered Akureyri after breakfast and I wish we had had more time to explore! Akureyri was such a cute town! It's the largest town in northern Iceland and it's a great base for those wanting to explore the nearby area. We saw a cruise ship in the harbor and there seemed to be a lot of activities and nightlife. 

       

                                  

                                 

       

When we finally loaded up in the car and left town, we began our day by....getting lost...for an hour and a half! We obviously hadn't had enough coffee because we thought nothing of the one lane dirt road we were on until we saw signs for a state park. I took a 10 point turn to go back to Akureyri where we saw where we went wrong...we were too distracted looking at the cute houses and we missed the sign that took us across the harbor and in the correct direction. 

                                    

Our first waterfall of the day was my favorite, Godafoss. Godafoss is a horseshoe shape similar to Niagara Falls and you can get much closer to Godafoss than you can Niagara Falls. We walked around both sides and it was absolutely breathtaking! 

                                

                                     

     

We kept driving East and our next stop was full of anticipation because Summer and I had read about Dettifoss and it was supposed to be spectacular. We drove for over an hour down the deserted highway and when I say deserted I mean empty! Few cars, no buildings, and only black dirt and rocks. Out of nowhere we saw a geothermal pool just as blue as the Blue Lagoon! It was so beautiful! This geothermal pool was not conducive to swimming but we stopped to take pictures. We kept driving down the isolated highway until we began to see more cars and even large motor coaches. Where did these people come from!? Finally, we pulled into a parking lot for Dettifoss...but I still didn't see the waterfall...or even hear water! We had to hike 15-20 minutes down to the view point. We definitely knew when we were close! Dettifoss was huge! We couldn't walk to all vantage points of Dettifoss, but we still had a spectacular view!

      

                           

                                 

We continued driving toward Eglissadour, our town for the night. We rented a house through Air BnB and we had a full house to ourselves! After being in a hostel and small cabin-like duplex, it was exactly what we needed! We picked up frozen pizzas at our always reliable Bonus grocery store so we made dinner and settled in to our large living room for movie night. Watching The Notebook in English with Icelandic subtitles was just as good as watching it at home! Momma Summer treated us to a wonderful breakfast of bacon and eggs...Icelandic bacon smells just as amazing as at home! 

      

Another long day of driving ahead of us took us to our most anticipated destination, Vik, in South Iceland. We were in the car for over 7 hours and by the time we arrived we were all a little tense and tired of being in a car by the end of the day, but our reward was our cute house in the middle of a field where almost everyone got their own room for 3 nights! 

       

 Photo Credits: Christina Hawkins, Morgan Leatherwood, Summer Saunders

Beyond the city to the Westfjords

Friday morning, July 3, we picked up our rental vehicle I had arranged through Auto Europe and loaded our many bags into the SUV and hit the highway to drive North toward the Westfjords. I drove and Summer navigated with a paper map...yes, you read that correctly, a map not a GPS. We were determined to explore like real adventurers! We were advised to shop at the Bonus grocery stores because they were less expensive so we stopped at the first one we saw outside of Reykjavik and stocked up on snacks and lunch because no roadtrip is complete without snacks.

                          

 

As we drove the roads got a little more winding and steeper. We saw sheep and horses along the side of the roads and endless amounts of purple flowers. Several hours in to our drive, we reached the top of a hill with a breathtaking view of a valley and lake. With no other cars in site, we parked and jumped out to take in the picturesque view. It was in that moment that it struck all of us that we were really in Iceland! We were no longer in just another large city, but we were embarking on a journey through the Land of Fire & Ice! 

                                       

         

         

      

Our excitement quickly turned to nerves as we hit the gravel road of our first fjord. Let's get this clear, I am a flat land beach girl not a girl who is used to driving up and over curving roads without guard rails! My grip on the steering wheel was at a white knuckled 10 & 2. I wouldn't dare look over the cliff I was driving on in fear of losing my Bonus bought lunch out the window. 

                              

   

We breathed a sigh of relief as we slowed through a beautiful valley with a field of horses, purple flowers, a home, an absolutely beautiful church. We knew we had to veer off to take pictures of the scenery. As we were peeking our cameras through the fence, 2 little boys ran toward us. They asked us what we're doing and they asked if we would like to see the church...not just see it but go inside of it. We all looked at each other a little leery of following 2 Icelandic boys, Marcus & Oliver, into an empty field and little church, but we shrugged and said "when in Iceland" and followed the boys up the dirt road toward the church. They were so excited to see friendly people they chattered the whole time. We learned their parents were not home at the moment and they were ages 8 & 11 and go to school about an hour away from where they live. They moved to the area just a few years ago for their Dad to pastor the church which apparently fills up every Sunday. The boys were proud to show us around the farm area and even picked up the dead sheep that eerily greated us at the gate. Oliver, the oldest, opened the large doors of the church and we wandered inside the tiny building. Marcus ran up the loft stairs to show us the bell tower and Morgan and I followed him up to peek out. They showed us the pulpit and the organ and let us take pictures and they even asked us to sign the guestbook. We took a group selfie after they closed up the church, thanked them and drove off as we breathed a sigh of relief that we survived a potential CSI episode.

                                       

                                       

                     

We braved the remainder of the fjords and finally arrived at our first Air B&B accommodation. Summer and I found us a small house in the Westfjords where we had 2 bedrooms, a sleeper sofa, bathroom, and small kitchen. It was nice to spread out a little bit after being in the hostel. 

        

We drove up to the only restaurant in town for dinner then thought we would venture to the first waterfall nearby. We encountered another death defying dirt road and as Morgan sailed over the hills we all decided we may have had enough near death experiences for the day so we stopped and spent time at 1 smaller waterfall and took a group picture to prove we survived the day and headed back. Iceland has roughly 21 hours of sunlight during the summer months so we didn't expect to see any sunsets on this trip, but God surprised us with the Icelandic version of a sunset so we stopped along the lake to take pictures of the color changing sky.

         

                                    

            

Photo Credits: Christina Hawkins, Morgan Leatherwood, Summer Saunders, Shelby Goione

"Hey, let's go to Iceland!"

Iceland. How did I ever decide to visit Iceland? It all began when my friend Summer posted a status saying she wanted to take a trip to Iceland and if anyone was seriously interested in going then contact her. Little did she know how many people would respond. Eventually she ended up with a group of 5 girls who could go the dates she was interested in and were committed to going. Summer came to me looking for help to plan the route, flights, accommodations, and car rental. When she was leaving my office I casually mentioned if anyone backed out of the group and she needed someone else to go then let me know because I might be interested. 48 hours later she text me that a girl backed out and 24 hours after that I had my vacation time cleared with work and I was ready to go! Summer and I spent weeks researching and mapping out the best route and making a list of must sees.

Our group consisted of 5 girls...4 from Wilmington and 1 from Charlotte. Everyone knew Summer, but not the others so with Summer as our bond we prepared for 10 days of road tripping around Iceland. The Wilmington girls, Summer, Savannah, Shelby, and me, drove to Raleigh and Morgan, from Charlotte, met us there so we could all fly out of RDU together. We flew to JFK and on to Reykjavik. 

I found a shuttle bus through AAA's partner, Travel Bound, to take us from the airport directly to the Blue Lagoon then on to the city because the Blue Lagoon is closer to the airport than it is Reykjavik. Many people think the Blue Lagoon is a tourist trap, but after an overnight flight we could not be more excited to soak and relax in the blue hued geothermal pool. The water was warm and just as blue and milky as it looks in pictures. The lagoon was large and fairly crowded and as we quickly discovered...swarming with Navy sailers. A Navy ship was in port in Reykjavik for 2 days so there were at least 30 sailers enjoying the Blue Lagoon with us. We made pleasantries and followed Dory from Finding Nemo's advice of "just keep swimming". The Blue Lagoon had a natural silica mud mask and an algae and vitamin mask we could rehydrate our jetlagged skin with. They even had a swim up bar we could rehydrate our bodies with their sparking strawberry wine! 

When we were sufficiently pruny we caught the bus to Reykjavik and found out hostel, Guesthouse Odinn. We had a private room for 5 and shared a bathroom and common living area with 2 other rooms. The room was spacious and most importantly the hostel had free wifi! We had high hopes of exploring and enjoying the infamous Reykjavik nightlife, but the jetlag and relaxing Blue 

Lagoon got the best of us so we had protein bars for dinner and popped a melatonin and were all asleep before 8pm. 

                                 

Twelve hours later we felt human again and prepared to explore the city. Our first stop was the grand cathedral in the middle of the city, Hallgrimski, where we went to the top of the round church tower and had amazing views of Reykjavik! The church itself was beautiful and had a huge pipe organ inside. The remainder of the day we wandered through the downtown area and city center, ordered our first Icelandic coffee, saw trolls, explored boutiques, tasted Icelandic hot dogs for lunch, and even found an Icelandic travel agency! 

                       

                       

        

        

                                         

                                         

Photo Credits: Christina Hawkins, Morgan Leatherwood, and Summer Saunders 

Turks & Caicos Tropical Storm Adventure

Everyone knows I'm slightly obsessed with the Sandals and Beaches Resorts because let's face it, they may advertise like crazy on Wheel of Fortune and promise you "Love is All You Need", but really all you need is someone to relax and have fun enjoying beautiful beaches and pampering staff. Who wouldn't love that!? I had a few travel agent rewards from my 2014-2015 sales of the resorts so I decided to take the best person I knew who would love to lay on a white sand beach and eat and drink a few days away to Beaches Turks & Caicos...my Momma! I'm definitely a Momma's girl and require a lot of undivided attention time with her...I know what you're thinking and yes, I'm an only child. Therefore, I requested a long weekend just the 2 of us to breeze on down to Turks & Caicos to soak up some sunshine.

We left Wilmington on Thursday August 21st...scratch that, we were supposed to leave Wilmington but our flight was canceled and we had to make a made dash drive to Myrtle Beach to fly to Charlotte - this should have been red flag #1. We arrived into the tiny airport in Providenciales and took the short ride to Beaches Turks & Caicos.

Welcome to heaven on earth!

 

We checked in to the new Key West Village and were taken to our Key West One Bedroom Concierge Suite. It was so beautiful! The Key West Village used to be a separate resort, The Verandahs, before Beaches acquired it a couple of years ago so the suite had a full kitchen, living room with day bed, private bedroom with king bed, and 2 bathrooms. More than enough space for 2 people! We spent our afternoon wandering the resort and trying out a couple of the 19 restaurants on site and watching a breathtaking sunset.

Friday morning greeted us with a fresh fruit breakfast served on our patio before we took to the white sands of Grace Bay. Beaches Turks & Caicos is located on a picturesque stretch of Grace Bay with countless watersports available such as snorkeling, glass bottom boat rides, sailing, scuba diving, water tricycles, paddle boarding, and kayaking. All of those wonderful options and what did we decide to do on our first day? We grabbed a Miami Vice and plopped ourselves down on a lounge chair to work diligently on our tan. I mean, we didn't want to enjoy all of the available activities on our first day, right? We sampled another restaurant for lunch and I saw my long lost friend, Elmo! Elmo was just as happy to see me as I was to see him! We grabbed another Miami Vice to go and exerted all of our energy to get us over to the adults only pool in the Key West Village where we made sure each side of us was tanned evenly all afternoon. Friday night there was a Sesame Street Stage Show in the French Village so we wandered over to check it out. It was so cute! Beaches is partnered with Sesame Street so Big Bird, Elmo, Cookie Monster, Oscar the Grouch, Burt, Ernie, Abby Cadabby, and Super Grover were all singing and dancing on the main stage.

 

We also found our pictures posted in the French Village!

After dinner we wandered by the water sports center to sign up for a snorkeling cruise on Saturday and were told that nothing was scheduled because the weather was predicted to be a little stormy. We thought nothing of it as we watched another glorious sunset. Saturday morning we woke up to a light rain so we went to a restaurant for breakfast and decided we'd enjoy our suite and read, watch tv, and nap. We ventured out in the rain and went to The Cricketers Pub to play games. I definitely beat my Momma at Battleship! By afternoon, the rain slowed and we went to check out the Pirates Island Waterpark. A few laps on the lazy river and the black clouds came back out and rained on our parade (you laughed - admit it!). Saturday night we went to my favorite restaurant, Kimonos. Kimonos is a Japanese hibachi style grill where they cook in front of you. Since there were only 2 of us we were seated with a larger family group from Connecticut who were celebrating several birthdays. We became part of the family within an hour and celebrated with cake and sake bombs.

Sunday brought more rain and the announcement that the island of Turks & Caicos was officially enduring Tropical Storm Cristobal. More rain meant more naps, more restaurant tastings, more reading, and a trip to the complimentary Red Lane Spa hot tub and plunge pool. We ran into our new family at each restaurant we went to and bonded even more since we learned they were supposed to have flown home on Sunday and the PLS airport was now closed thanks to the storm. The family was told it may be Thursday before they could get home! We can began to panic internally since we were supposed to fly home on Monday. When we decided to not let the rain ruin our fun, we continued our pursuit of sampling the menus at each of the 19 restaurants on resort. Sunday night my Mom had her first and possible last experience with sushi at Soy, then we had our main course at the seafood restaurant, and dessert at the Italian restaurant. We groaned all the way back to our suite before falling into a food coma.

Monday brought a lighter rain so we thought we should be fine to fly home. We saw our Connecticut family at breakfast and they burst our bubble by telling us flights were still canceled. I called US Airways and they confirmed but told us to call back in a couple of hours because they were discussing send an extra plane down since there were so many people stuck. We called back as they said and sure enough they were sending another plane! I had the concierge track down our other family to tell them the news! We all celebrated our last night in Turks & Caicos because we were flying home Tuesday morning!

Our 4 day weekend unexpectedly turned into a 5 day getaway but Beaches Resorts handled the storm like professionals and kept everyone calm and having fun. I asked for some quality mother/daughter time and boy did I get it! We had a fantastic time enjoying a fabulous family resort. Beaches truly showcased their supreme service during our tropical storm adventure and I can't wait to return...when it's not hurricane season!