Do you know why some people never take vacations? Because you kill yourself beforehand trying to get everything done ahead of time, and then you kill yourself when you get back trying to get caught up. At least that's what my co-worker professes every time the subject of taking time off comes up. While there's definitely some truth in that, I'm always willing to deal with being a little behind in order to see a little piece of the world.
A month ago, we were in Europe. Ever since we've returned, it's been a slow dig of getting caught up on life. I've done a pretty good job of just dealing with that and not letting it stress me out. I'll get caught up when I get caught up. In the meantime, we'll probably be toasting to the New Year and I'll have barely posted half of my vacation recap summaries. :)
Saturday, September 30, 2017
I feel like we don't usually begin our trips on a Saturday, but it really worked out quite well. We left Cincy by 9 AM and figured we'd have an easy drive up to Hammond and a fair amount of time to spend with family before going to the airport. The kitties don't love car rides, but they calmed down a fair amount by around an hour into the drive.
Around the 2-hour point, somewhere in the Indy vicinity, Francisco asks if I think we have enough time to turn around and run back home. 😅 Apparently, his phone had decided to do some kind of hard reset, possibly related to his company making data changes to his plan since he'd informed them we'd be traveling outside the country. And he needed some kind of special code to unlock it now. Which he didn't bring with him because he had no idea this would be happening.
I calmly explain that it would not be advisable to turn back as it would be another 4 hours before we are again at the point that we are at on the road right now. Turning our 5+ hour drive to Chicago into a 9+ hour drive, which makes a huge difference. He called T-Mobile to see if my phone would work - they said yes; I didn't fully believe them because it didn't work in the UK - and we were thinking through other options. Eventually, he was able to bypass the code prompt, so crisis averted.
Not too long after this situation, he informs me that he'd just gotten a message from one of our AirBNB hosts stating that there was some flooding along one of our planned routes, and the bridge was out of commission.
There wasn't anything we could do about this one, so we just started talking through contingency plans. The problem with Iceland is there's only one main road that encircles the entire country. If part of the Ring Road is closed, well, depending on where you are, you might have to turn around and drive back the long way. Our rental car agreement expressly forbade us from driving on certain roads. Roughly around the yellow highlight below is where the road was closed. [Spoiler alert: we were able to drive the entire Ring Road while we were in Iceland.]
Can we get some better news please?!?
We swung by Francisco's mom's house to drop our kitties off. They were a little freaked out, but I think it worked out well for them to stay there. Next, we went to my parents' house and presented my mom with the chocolate cake we had made her for her recent birthday.
We went back and forth on lunch and airport drop-off plans, and eventually decided we would have lunch with my parents in the city before they dropped us off at the airport. But our spout of bad luck wasn't dry yet. Chicago traffic was awful and left us with no time to eat lunch with the family.
However, we did have enough time to do a dry run with my parents to show them the exact route they should take when coming from the cell phone lot to Arrivals. They're notorious for getting lost. [Another spoiler alert: it didn't help.] We still appreciate them dealing with Chicago traffic to pick us up though!
Anyways, airport food it was, and our dinner at
Tortas Frontera was perfectly tasty.
OK, this may warrant a big fat 'duh', but if you find yourself frequently getting stopped by airport security (ahem, ME), I have a tip for you. As I went through the security line, I was once again pulled aside for a thorough pat down and hand swabbing. This time the attendant commented "that's the worst possible shirt to wear to an airport". I wasn't sure what he was talking about at first, but he explained that you should make sure you don't have any metal attachments on your clothing. "But I don't..."
Oh, my shirt's just covered with them, and I didn't even think about it. I never even considered whether these little spots were metal vs. some other material. So, yes, it may seem obvious, but now I wonder how many times I've been flagged just because of my attire.
We left O'Hare at 7:30 PM, and we had a 6-hour flight ahead of us. Iceland is 4 hours ahead of Cincinnati (5 for Chicago), and we were scheduled to arrive for our KeflavÃk Airport layover at 6:35 AM. Yay, how I
loathe love attempting to sleep on airplanes. [Hmm, Google is now telling me that Iceland is 6 hours ahead of Chicago, but I think this is due to Daylight Savings Time, so I am going to stick with my original calculations.]
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