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By the time I woke the next day, the storm had broken. Kaye went outside to use the bathroom and when she came back told us it was a beautiful day. I went outside with Gwen, and we were both awestruck by the beauty of the morning—a fresh, pristine layer of snow covered everything, including the mountains that surrounded us, which were bathed in pastel orange and pink light by the rising sun. Both of us spontaneously exclaimed—“Ohhhhh!”—and then were rendered speechless by the beauty (though our camper and the others that had stopped there for the night were half covered in icy precipitation and looked like they’d been through a war).
We changed clothes in the van and Gwen was being her usual boisterous self, shaking the van as she got ready for the day. Kaye asked her, “why do you always have to be the most dangerous and the most crazy person in the family?” I’m guessing Kaye asked that question rhetorically, but she got a response anyways: Gwen gave a winning smile and said: “Because I was born that way.”
We ate a meager breakfast in the back of the van—the last of our cereal and milk, a few slices of leftover pizza from the night before, and cheese and crackers. Then I tried to do dishes as Kaye and the kids went to the bathroom to get ready to leave, but the water tank had dwindled to the point where the faucet couldn’t run any more. I went outside to try and fill it up but found that the only water fill-up station was outdoors, and shut down for the winter. So I filled our camper sink with the dirty dishes along with some dish soap and the dregs of our water supply still left in the tank (getting a fair amount of water on my stockinged feet, which were freezing for hours afterwards). Then I used the remaining freshwater in my water bottle to rinse the “clean” dishes—not that I could do that great of a job under these conditions. I consoled myself by telling myself that we were done using these dishes, and that the rental company was sure to do a deep clean of everything once we returned the van.
We had a few hours to kill so headed to one of the major attractions at Thingvellir—Þingvallavatn, a massive valley that holds the largest natural lake in Iceland. Although it was around 9 AM, the place was already packed with tourists, including a large groups of loud high school aged students.
We hiked down into the valley toward Þingvallakirkja, an austere white and green painted wooden church at the bottom of the valley, built in 1859, but standing in the place where a church has been standing since the year 1017—just 17 years after Iceland’s conversation to Christianity (after a pressure campaign by its then-colonizer Norway). Also down in the valley was a ceremonial residence of Iceland’s Prime Minister, who still stays there during summer months. The house stands on a plot of land where the previous residence burned down in the 1970s, killing the then-Prime Minister as well as his wife and child. A small graveyard completed the scene, and I felt a sense of solemnity at the history of this place, especially in light of the massive mountain Armannsfell, looming in the background and coated in the same pristine white snow that had been such a bane to us the night before.
My sense of solemnity was not shared by the children. As we descended into the valley, Gwen kept stepping off the path, earning rebukes from both me and Kaye for being disrespectful of Iceland and its natural beauty. Then I made the mistake of scanning a QR code that let my phone show how the valley looks during summer and the kids began bickering over the phone, leading me to castigate myself for pulling out my electronics while surrounded by such natural beauty.
We hiked out of the valley, hit the gift shop for snacks (as well as an Iceland-themed Christmas ornament), then got back in the camper van to return it to the rental company in time to grab the noon shuttle to the airport. On our way out of the park, we continued to see hordes of people and large tourist buses. I told Kaye that I preferred the South Coast to the Golden Circle, in large part because the former was less touristed. Kaye added, as she passed a car that had its hazards on and was going unnecessarily slow given the now-clear conditions, that the drivers in the Golden Circle were worse. Later, the driver from Happy Campers who drove us to the airport remarked that there were people who visited Iceland who had never driven in the snow, and that seemed to be the type of driver that we were seeing.
As we drove, we recounted our favorite stops of the trip. The consensus was that the Blue Lagoon, the Lava Show and the ice caves were the family’s favorites. Billy added “and all the waterfalls,” and I thought to myself that he was a kid after my own heart.
We reached Reykjavik and the Happy Campers rental lot, where we gathered our luggage and said goodbye to the camper van. We headed to the airport and managed to get our luggage dropped off despite a malfunctioning conveyor belt (Kaye got up on the malfunctioning belt and personally deposited our luggage into the main drop). We had lunch at a food hall in the departure area, then headed to our gate—a 20-minute walk. There was a “last chopper out of Saigon” vibe as wind and snow picked up and we saw that all the flights after ours (and all the flights headed to Europe) had been cancelled due to a brewing storm. But we made it onto our flight, which left on time—a minor miracle. As with our way into Iceland, there was no gate boarding; rather, we took a shuttle bus from the gate to the exposed tarmac, and then climbed a flight of stairs that were exposed to the elements. As we were about to enter the airplane, we got one last blast of overpowering arctic wind and icy precipitation assailing our faces as a farewell to Iceland.
The flight was uneventful, as was getting through security and immigration. We left the airport lugging our things and I felt jarred by the bustle—there were a ton of people just back from spring break, clad in loud Hawaiian shirts and Bermuda shorts waiting for their rides, and the pickup lanes outside the International Terminal were packed. We eventually got into our black car, driven by a petite, well dressed woman who managed to easily hoist our heavy bags into the back.
As we drove home, I ordered pizza, and it arrived just as the kids had gotten into their PJs and were demanding snacks. It was good timing, since we were basically out of everything. We all munched on pizza, and Billy again brought up my theory that the trip to Iceland would be a “test” of our family. I asked them to give grades—Gwen unhesitatingly said, “A plus-plus” while Billy hemmed and hawed a bit before saying a “B,” but quickly amended it to a “B-plus.” I was gratified to hear that after the hardships we’d faced—among them, battling the fierce Icelandic elements, living in a cramped van for a week, missed or meager meals, lost mittens and snow-filled shoes—they both gave our family a passing grade.
Still though, Kaye said that next Spring Break we would go someplace warm, and we all readily agreed.
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