Þórsmörk (Sept. 12) and the Blue Lagoon (Sept 12-14)

We enjoyed a leisurely morning of not having to wake at 6 and pack right away.  We took our time and finally left the hut around 9:30am.  Our bus to Reykjavik didn't leave until 2pm, so the girls and I had some time to hang out and explore the immediate area.  We left our backpacks at the little store (you can't leave them in the hut once you've checked out) and meandered a bit.

Camping area at Þórsmörk

The braided river our bus would drive through.

For those folks continuing their hike to Skogar, walk downstream a bit and

cross the pedestrian bridge.  Do NOT try to cross this water on foot.

It is far deeper than you realize.

After killing the time walking about and eating overpriced food from the little store, our bus arrived and drove through a bunch of rivers, past the volcano I hoped wouldn't explode, and eventually back to the paved ring road and mainstream civilization. 

We were dropped off near the main tourist information center in Reykjavik instead of the BSI bus terminal.  Whoops...I didn't use the same bus service leaving the Laugavegur Trek as I had going to it.  No matter, everything in Reykjavik seems to be no more than twenty minutes walking distance from everything else.  The plan was to take a bus from BSI to the Blue Lagoon Clinic Hotel, where I had a room booked for the next two evenings.  Of course, we saw a bunch of taxis as soon as we began walking to BSI and, since my mind was now finished with walking and had moved on to the more luxurious part of our vacation, I spontaneously decided to take a taxi all the way to our hotel.  That's a $150 car ride...ouch...but hey, this was the end of our stay in Iceland and I had barely spent any cash thus far.  It was a stupid move financially, but it felt right in the moment.

Our room at the Clinic Hotel was lovely.  We had our own little lava field right outside our balcony door, and the hotel had its own private blue lagoon.

The main, huge, touristy Blue Lagoon is a short walk away from the Clinic Hotel.

The cost of the Blue Lagoon was included with the cost of our hotel room, so we made sure to spend a good portion of a day there.  Yes, it's touristy and crowded, but it's still pretty cool. 

There's a restaurant at the Blue Lagoon that offers a four-course Icelandic dinner.  That dinner was absolutely divine; it was expensive (about $99 each), but I thought it was worth every cent.

The girls take a selfie; the lady behind them does an unintentional photobomb.

The girls are trying to look dramatic...the lady behind them looks dramatic too, lol.

Outside, folks stood by the Lagoon and took photos of the moon...

We walked back to our hotel...our last night in Iceland.

aka Clinic Hotel

We made our short way to the airport the next morning and bought some chocolate to bring back to family and friends.

This had been a fun trip.  I'm a bit sad though, because for the next couple of years, the girls and I will have to stay close to home when we thru-hike.  I need to save money so we can complete our highpointing (minus Denali) before both girls go to college.  It's important to all of us to finish what we started back in 2010.  Guide services on Rainier and on Gannet/Granite will cost a lot of money...I have to save for three people...the only time we've ever needed a guide before was on Hood, but we'll need/want one again for our remaining three highpoints.  We have great long-distance trails practically in our backyard (Vermont's Long Trail and New Hampshire's Cohos Trail are two examples), but since we hike that kind of terrain every single week of the year, we like seeing new landscapes when we take vacations.  However, staying close to home means not having to pay for airfare, car rentals, or hotels.  I do realize that we are extremely fortunate to have the chance to thru-hike anything at all, so I'll keep everything in its proper perspective and we'll soon figure out what trail we'll tackle during summer 2017.