Sweaters

My most favorite part of Iceland:

These crazy hand-knit wool sweaters -  which were available in a store on every street corner!

I saw them in an advertisement in the travel guidebook and thought to myself that they were obviously made for tourists. But no!  We passed so many local people who were wearing these things. We had to try a couple on, but didn't buy any because, let's face it, you can probably only get away with wearing them in freezing Iceland. The only occasion to wear them back home would be to a ugly sweater-themed Christmas party.

Wait, what day is it, where ARE we?

Two countries, time zones, and plane rides later, we find ourselves (most miraculously I admit) in PARIS!  But first things first- Iceland.

AAAAAHHHH RUN!  but she's such a cute norse-woman!

Well I'm positive that at some point in the past few days we have time-traveled because more days have passed than night's I've slept, leading to an unbalanced and jet-lagged life.  Monday we took off from Salt Lake City after a very restless night sleep due to extreme excitement/nervousness that is very unique to travel, I think.  After shaving my facial hair and feeling naked, we made it to the airport, all ready and excited to go.  All this time spent planning this trip, time to make it happen!

Ready to go!

Our flight took us to Denver for a short layover (not too short to exclude some delicious Pizza Hut pizza, last-supper style), we were off to Reykjavik!  As anyone who has flown overseas knows, what followed after was not fun, we took off from Salt Lake City at 2:40 p.m. MST and, due to interesting time-traveling tricks, landed in Iceland 9 hours later at 6:30 AM GMT.  Despite our recently-purchased inflatable neck pillows, we slept terribly on the plane, but the sun was shinning, and it was morning, so time to get the rental car and go!  One hour later, after wandering around tired, confused, and worried, we discovered that our rental car company had merged with another one, which is why there was no sign for it.  Awesome.  But then, off to our noble steed-for-rent, a blue 4-door Suzuki Swift!

What a head-turner, right?!?!

Our next simple task, on roughly 2-3 terrible hours of sleep was to follow our google map directions to our guesthouse, pretty easy, right?  Well, imagine trying to give directions with this map:

Ah yes, Njardargata, we know thee all too well... Can you spot the Odensgata in this map?  Neither could we!  1,000 year old city planning in full effect!

Further, imagine that these roads are all the width of an average couch (with cars parked on both sides), some are one way, and all are approximately 100 feet long, so that by the time Melanie figured out how to pronounce the name of the next street to turn on, I'm already six blocks past it.  Sleep was low, frustration was high, but somehow, with divine intervention, we made it and collapsed into bed.  We didn't stay there for long though, we had a new city to explore!  And explore we did, we had an awesome time just wandering through the crazy, cute (when you are not driving), and ancient streets.

I still think it looks like a space shuttle!

The inside - simple, but very nice feeling

So much character, every house was unique!

In the interest of full disclosure, it was hard not to just spend all our time laughing at the language and crazy words and letters, it was so foreign and intense!  I think it's disrespectful to go to a country and expect everyone to speak english to you without even trying to say a few words in their language, but every time I opened my mouth to speak Icelandic my brain went dead it is so difficult. 

Thus ended day 1, just spent wandering around.  Day 2 was when it was supposed to get really fun, we headed out of Reykjavik to tour the Golden Circle, Iceland's main sights.  It ended up being a really long drive into the Icelandic bush, most of it looking like this:

I'm sure it didn't help that we were still jet lagged, but out of the three big sights, Geysir, Thingfeller, and Gulfoss, only Gulfoss was really worth seeing.  But man it was cool, waterfalls never cease to amaze.

Not going to lie, Iceland is REALLY cold and windy, all the time.

Air.  Canned, Icelandic air is what I'm holding.  yup.

Strangely, not Geysir.  The real Geysir (after which all others are named) erupts only like every 10 years.

Not sure then, not sure now, but he was big and hairy

Gulfoss!  So amazing!  the tiny dots near the falls are people.

A huge glacier, not just clouds, that blends in with the sky

Some of the drive was better than others.

We wanted to drive out to see the BIG glaciers, but couldn't as our rental car agreement made us promise not to drive that far out there 7 times in three different languages and seal it with blood.  So after 8 hours, we returned to Reykjavik, pretty exhausted.  We wandered around and wanted to try some Icelandic food, but it seems it is only seafood (expensive) and lamb, or "Mountain Sheep" which we weren't feeling, are authentic so we went with some Italian, and weren't disappointed.  We'll put it this way - there's a reason you've never heard of an Icelandic restaurant, capisce?  So we went to bed and woke up early, although at this point our bodies are like "early?  late?  who can tell?  I'll just make sure you're tired all the time."  So we got up early and flew to Paris!  Yay!  We're pumped to be here, and excited to be in a place where I can understand whats happening.  Not to mention the food, the ambiance, the sights... good things to come!

On the Brink!!!

More or less...

 Well, it's kind of strange to say, but we are less than 24 hours from takeoff of our one-way flight to Reykjavik, then on to Paris.  It's a very weird feeling to finally be this close, after over a year of planning, scheming, saving, sacrificing, working, researching, and dreaming.  For the last few weeks it hasn't really felt real, like we were just taking a few weeks off for a summer vacation, but that has all started to change in the last few days.  I've now begun to be kept up at night thinking about things like "we don't speak Icelandic" and "what do we do if Greece implodes before we can see it" and (mostly) "mmmm... we are going to eat SO much gelatto ALL the time."

Melanie, on the other hand, and I should have expected, is cool as a cucumber.

Melanie, taken this afternoon

 This is the same girl who wasn't nervous at all to jump out of an airplane when we went skydiving while dating, so why should this stress her at all.  Amazing.

There has been a flurry of last-minute "to-do's" over the last few days, but overall we feel confident and ready for this.  So surreal after all this time to be able to pull this off, and so gratifying and awesome to see it come to life from the crazed recesses of my mind.  Gonna be a "trip of a lifetime!"

Viva Las Vegas

We rejoin our heroes in the hot desert on the way to Las Vegas for a couple days. 
Our first stop was the Hoover Dam.  The last time I had been there, they were working on the new bridge, and this time it was completed.  So we went up to the top and walked across it; 880 feet in the air!

 We had booked a 4-star hotel for super cheap, and ended up on the 20th floor of the Las Vegas Hotel, in a sweeeeeet room!  It was overlooking the pool and tennis courts and had a view of the strip.

It also had the monorail station in the hotel, so we got a pass and could ride it down to the strip to walk around instead of driving everywhere. We looked up all the free things to go see and spent our time going from place to place. This was a spiral escalator inside Caesar's Palace that was pretty nifty.

And the painted cloud ceilings inside Caesar's and the Venetian.

Stopped for a rest, and to check out the fish in the aquarium.

 

 The gondola boat rides out in front of the Venetian

There are some shows that they do out in front of some of the hotels.  We first went to Treasure Island to see the pirate show.  I last saw this show a few years ago and it was so fun! Two pirate ships met and shot cannonballs at each other and there were pirates diving into the water, fireworks were going off, etc.  This time the show started and a bikini-cad hooch comes out as a "siren" and lures a pirate onto her ship.  Soon there were many hoochies dancing and singing (terribly) and another pirate ship comes along.... not sure what else happened, we walked off after that. So apparently they decided to make the show more Vegas-y and it was so stupid. All the people around us were groaning and rolling their eyes as well.  So we moved down the street and caught the volcano show in front of the Mirage, which was much better.

Brannan is actually amazed, not bored, by the spewing lava

The next morning we checked out the Luxor, which turned out to be a surprising engineering feat

The Luxor is the one that is a huge pyramid, and apparently it's completely hollow inside, with all the rooms up the outside of the walls.  Each floor goes up and in a tier of the pyramid.  And the elevators go up at an angle! Who knew.

We snuck up to the 10th floor to get a better look. It was pretty fascinating.

Of course we stopped at the M&M store, which had every branded souvenir item ever imaginable, as well as the huge wall of M&M's. We decided not to get any since it was 105 degrees outside and we'd have to snarf them all down before we walked out the door.  Although supposedly they melt in your mouth, not in your hand...

The "Eiffel Tower" at the Paris Hotel.  We'll have something to compare this to in about 1 week!

Friday night was Brannan's 29th birthday so we had planned to go see Phantom of the Opera at the Venetian.  The Phantom Theater was built especially for this play, so we figured it was going to be pretty special.

Here's the theater entrance. We had asked an older gentleman if he would take our picture, assuming he would take it with the sign (as in the picture above), but instead got just what we asked for. A picture of us! Oh well, here's us in front of the Phantom theater, not just some random hallway.

The usher kept hollering at people not to take picture in the theater (only because there was a professional photographer you were supposed to pay if you wanted your picture in the theater), but people kept snapping pictures. So we snuck one in when she was distracted. Don't tell

The floating discs above the audience are the different tiers of the chandelier. When the play started, they all lit up and swirled around each other, then assembled to become the chandelier. SO awesome! 

Brannan's face displays the fear of getting caught by the usher

 The play was definitely the highlight of the Vegas trip. At the part during the play when the chandelier falls, the sides of the theater were on FIRE and the chandelier was shaking, then it came falling FAST towards the audience and then the lights went out!! Everyone gasped - it was so awesome! 

The next morning we had a brunch buffet at the Rio, which was enormous.  After stuffing ourselves to the bursting point, we headed out of town.  This week we are at my parent's house in Idaho doing a whole lot of nothing before we leave for Iceland on Monday! After that last week of work/packing/moving/repairs/cleaning and then a week after that of fun vacationing, we are ready for some mindlessness that will probably include a lot of Mario Kart and TV. 

Zion's National Park (Sweet!) and the Grand Canyon (meh...)

So when everything was done on Friday and I walked out of work and we hit the road, I was completely free.  Since then we’ve done a lot, but it has been bliss.  From work we went to Ben and Suzannah’s house for the weekend, and had a lot of fun there, including a cheese night.   

Monday morning we took off from there and drove to Hurricane, UT, in preparation for going to Zion’s National Park.   

It was an incredible place, a canyon that is surrounded by 3 thousand foot shear red limestone walls on all sides.  It made me feel really tiny in comparison.  That first afternoon we got our park pass and drove around a little, rented our hiking gear, and then back to our great hotel room.  We had booked it on Expedia, and it was a 2-star hotel, but it had a king-sized comfortable bed, a kitchen with a full fridge and oven, a nice bathroom, pool, and free wifi and it was super cheap!  Tuesday we were up bright and early for something that I wanted to do for a long, long time – hike the Narrows of Zion (in awesome river shoes).   

 

It’s a hike that takes you along (and in!) the river that formed the canyon, sometimes on the banks, but most of the time you are hiking in the river itself.  The water cut through the sandstone rock, and most of the time you are in a canyon that is only 10-20 feet wide, with thousands of feet of sandstone cliff on each side – just incredible!  

 The water height ranged from knee to chest deep, and was pleasantly cool in comparison to the hot desert air.  We got there early, which meant we got to experience constantly changing scenery as the sun and shadows mingled and danced their way down the wavy sandstone cliffs.  After about 4 hours we started getting fatigued, so we turned around, and made it back in an hour and a half.  Our favorite part (of many) was when we found and explored a “slot” canyon that branched off the main path.  It was only 6 feet wide, very confined, but with towering cliffs on both sides, reminiscent of a maze.  We got back to the car, after taking Zion’s cool shuttle, and we were exhausted, having traveled approximately 12 miles.  It’s hard to say because the canyons were so curvy and it was impossible to stay oriented.  It was all-around fun though!

On our second day in Zion’s, we got up bright and early (again!) to go do a hike called Angel’s Landing.  

 It got its name from a minister who, upon seeing it, said “Surely this is where the angels will land to greet the Lord at the Great White Throne.”  This is a reference to the mountain next to it that, I suppose, looks like a great white throne if you squint just right, have sand in your eyes, and have a creative imagination. 

Great...White...Throne???

Angel’s Landing itself is a thousand foot plateau that has a tiny ridge along the top.  So after taking the awesome shuttle service again, we began hiking to the top of this thing around 8:00.  The trail followed the river along the valley for a ways, but then started to climb the sides.  Eventually it became a series of winding switchbacks that were very steep! 

Once again we were fortunate to get an early start so the sun wasn’t killer just yet.  At the top of the (first) switchbacks, we came into a narrow canyon, but it was cool and flat which was much needed because our legs and feet were still sore from the day before.  After approximately a half mile though, the switchbacks began again, and these were even crazier and steeper than the last, with a turn, then about a 20 foot straightaway, then another turn, then another straightaway, then another turn… they just kept going!  It was fun to look up or down the trail and see the people’s heads bob along, back and forth and back and forth like mice in a maze.  

These switchbacks were called something like the Wiggly Wiggles...he he he

We made it to the top of those after what seemed like hours, and were greeted with a great view of Zion’s, the valley, and the other huge red and white cliffs that line the valley.  Ahead lay the most difficult, dangerous, and awe-inspiring part of the climb though.  Between the small plateau that we were on and the plateau that is the final destination was a tiny red ridge that snake its way up, up, and away from us like the bumpy spine of a giant, rocky beast.  On both sides of the narrow (10-20 feet, narrowing down to less than 5) ridge were extreme exposures of a thousand feet plus. 

Danger is my middle name.  Brannan "Danger" Beasley?  Yes, that's right

Thankfully on the steep and/or narrow parts there were poles drilled into the rock with chains dangling between them to hold onto.  We tentatively made our way over and up this crazy path, taking pictures along the way, and pausing when necessary to allow others to pass, as most places would only permit one person at a time to safely walk (or sometimes crawl).  We finally made it to the top and were greatly rewarded with an amazing and sweeping view of the park, the valley, and high-altitude, close-up views of the surrounding peaks. 

Can you spot the Melanie in this picture?

 

We drank it in and enjoyed it, taking tons of pictures.  After being accosted by greedy chipmunks, and laughing at the crazy characters around us, including some hilarious, arguing orthodox Jewish kids, we dragged our tired bones to the bottom.  We were surprised on the way down to see people beginning such a challenging hike in the heat of the day, but I guess not everyone wants to get up early.  After making it down, we went and saw the Weeping Rock, which is where water seeps through several thousand feet of rock until it if forced out the sides by a harder layer of rock.  It was pretty neat.  

We also did another climb but by that time we were so tired that it didn’t make much of an impression on us.  Then we drove to the Grand Canyon, looked at and were underwhelmed and sort of bored by it and the super expensive motel room we had to get, watched the sunrise, and drove to Vegas, which we are preparing to leave right now.  Sad to say the Grand Canyon wasn’t that awesome, I mean it was pretty but besides look at it, which you can do for maybe half an hour, there’s nothing really to do.  

Yep - it's Grand, and it's a Canyon - not easily impressed.

Sooooooo stinking hot!!!

I wanted to be awe-struck, but we really like Zion’s a lot more, both in terms of things to do and overall impressiveness.  One thing we did notice is that at Zion’s we heard more foreign languages than English (we think), and we wondered how these people heard about it.  I mean, we live like 7 hours (driving) away, and we’re pretty outdoorsy, and we’d never been there.  Interesting!  Anyways, more to come!