South Side

Reykjavik | The Golden Circle | Northern Lights | Snæfellsnes Peninsula

On our last full day in Iceland we had scheduled a glacier hike. It was dark and rainy as we made our way to the Solheimajökull Glacier. Solheimajökull Glacier is part of the larger Mýrdalsjökull Glacier and sits between two active volcanoes, Katla and Eijafjallajökull (that’s the one that erupted in 2010 causing air traffic delays all over Europe). We booked out guided tour with Arctic Adventures via Marriott Moments (…because points…duh!). We had a great guide from Lithuania who was knowledgeable and patient with the people in our group that were taking too many selfies. The landscapes were pretty amazing, to see a glacier, lava rock, green mountains and rainbow all in one picture was astounding! It was also eye opening to see how much and how fast the glacier was melting.

After the hike we went to Reynisfjara Beach, Iceland’s deadliest beach. Its deadly because it has waves called “sneaker waves” that sort of come out of nowhere. A lot of people were taking their chances and my husband was just waiting to capture one on video. And we did! You can see me in the video with the purple rain jacket on. Someone had asked me to take a picture of their group and I just had a feeling I shouldn’t take my eye off the ocean. And I was right! There was a café here and pay-to-use bathrooms (when we visited they hadn’t been cleaned in a while so I was kind of pissed I paid to use a filthy bathroom).

To end our day of site seeing we swung by the famous Skógafoss and Seljalandsfoss waterfalls. Skógafoss was BIG! Its hard to capture a picture without anyone else in the back ground but we managed to get a few. There is a staircase where you can walk to the top and walk along the river a bit to see more waterfalls. Again, people were getting awfully close to the cliff’s edge to take pictures (upcoming post, “How to Die in Iceland”). The staircase was killer, I’m an avid runner and I thought it was tough! And I even saw people trying to walk up it heels; ladies lets forget the fashion statements for a moment wear something functional!

Seljalandsfoss

Skógafoss

Seljalandsfoss is cool because you can walk behind it. And the water just pours off the cliff! It started to rain on us here but we were prepared with our full rain gear, pants included! There is a gift shop and small café/food truck here. The café had really good soup and pastries! And hot chocolate! With the rain and cool temperatures, I needed a hot chocolate! You also had to pay to park at this stop. I’m not sure if they enforce it but we paid anyway.

We made it back to our AirBnB and we were tired! We really just wanted to order pizza. Iceland does have Domino’s and I really don’t care what your opinion is on Domino’s, but I love them. But they wanted to test me a confirmation number to place my order and I didn’t have cell service, so we couldn’t order delivery. We decided to just walk there. And as we were walking we found a local pizza joint, Eldsmiðjan and ended up just popping in there and we were really glad we did. We had garlic break, pizza, beer and fresh Coke Zero (I LOVE Coke Zero by the way. And when I say fresh I mean from a soda fountain).

Over all, this day was just a really great day!

Snæfellsnes Peninsula

Reykjavik | The Golden Circle | Northern Lights

We started this day with high hopes of hiking to see the Glymur waterfall, Iceland’s second tallest waterfall. But since we didn’t end up going to be until past 2am the night before/morning of because we were watching the northern lights we were pretty tired…and decided to sleep in.

We started the day at Braud & Co. with some pastries and then headed out the peninsula. Its about a two and half hour drive to get out there and on the drive I literally couldn’t keep my eyes open! Thank goodness I was not the driver for the trip. We made it to Kirkjufell and Kirkjufellsfoss and snapped our pictures. There is not a lot of parking here so you may need to pull a few u-turns before parking, we did.

Drive to  Snæfellsnes Peninsula 

Kirkjufell and Kirkjufellsfoss

We continued driving along the coast through Snæfellsjökull National Park and parked at Djúpalónssandur Beach where we did some walking around and wave watching.

Snæfellsjökull National Park

Then we made our way around the peninsula to Gatklettur and Bárðar Saga Snæfellsáss Statue. It’s a long the coast with some pretty rock formations. After looking at the map again it looks like we missed some other cool rock formations off the coast. Nuts! Next time. 

 And the last thing I wanted to see on this peninsula was a “petite church in a picturesque locale” known as Búðakirkja. Its described on Google as a, “Tiny wooden church dating back to the 19th century in a scenic natural area with a lava field.” It’s a cute little church and it really is picturesque.

Búðakirkja

We made the long drive back to Reykjavik, changed and went out for some food. We didn’t really want to wait to get our food so we want to a place close by called Roadhouse Reykjavik. It was a burger joint that served you your food in record time. Seriously, they were frozen burger patties that were flavored up with extras to make them good. I thought it was just okay but after a long day anything would have been good.

You can click here to hear the pronunciation of Snæfellsnes.

Northern Lights

One of the main reasons we wanted to visit Iceland was to see the northern lights. We visited in mid-October, so we knew we had a chance. Instead of trying to rally and see them the day we landed we scheduled our outing for the next night.

We booked our tour with Happy World and here is why it was worth it:

·         They picked you up right at your door step (or hotel). Since we were staying at an AirBnB this was perfect since all we had to do was step outside

·         They took professional pictures and gave us copies of every. single. one. It was about 100 pictures from the night

·         They had a telescope for star gazing

·         Served us homemade hot chocolate and Icelandic pastries

·         And stayed past the official end of the tour to capture more pictures

So, the tour ran from 8pm to midnight. It was pretty cloudy but that night the kp index was good so we had our fingers crossed. You could definitely see the bands/ribbons behind some of the clouds. Midnight rolled around and hadn’t really seen a clear shot of illusive lights. There was a break in the clouds coming our way and guides told us we would wait for that opening and keep our fingers crossed. When that opening reached us we looked up and there they were! Dancing above us with a beautiful coronal display.

It was amazing to say the least. We ended up staying out there till about 1am.

We were very fortunate to see the northern lights since the remainder of our trip stayed cloudy and overcast.

The Golden Circle | Day 1; Reykjavik 

The Golden Circle

Read about our arrival and soak in the Blue Lagoon here: Day 1; Reykjavik. On to day two... 

We got an early start to our Golden Circle day. The Golden Circle is made up of a bunch of iconic Icelandic sites and the roads you take to see them sort of makes a circle.

Our first stop was Þingvellir National Park. We arrived around 8:30 and it was misting. We got out at the visitor center took some pictures and hoped back in the car and headed to parking lot 5 further down the road. By this time it was raining and we both said that given the option we would rather not start a hike in the rain. And the parking payment station was out or order so we didn’t know how to pay for parking.

Þingvellir National Park

Next, we stopped at the Geysir Geothermal Area which was awesome! It was the first time either of us had seen a geyser and it was just so cool to see it go off ever few minutes.

 After the geyser we stopped to take part in Horsepetting at Margeiri, Bru's Farm. And that is exactly how you type it into Google Maps to find it! It was 200isk to get some “candy” for the horses and pet them. They weren’t really in the mood to be petted and just wanted some treats.

Waterfalls were next! Gullfoss Waterfall and Faxifoss. We had our packed lunch at Gullfoss before we hit the road for Faxifoss (packing our own sandwiches is a way to keep the budget on track!). 

Top pictures: Gullfoss Waterfall, bottom waterfall is Faxifoss

After the falls was viewing and hiking into Kerið. There is a small fee associated with visiting this site. Kerið was formed about 6,500 years ago and lies at the northern end of a row of craters known as Tjarnarholar, It is oval, about 885.8 ft long and 557.7 ft wide and 180 ft deep: the depth of the water at the bottom varies between 23 and 46 ft deep.

And last on our list for the Golden Circle was Raufarholshellir Lava Tube. They give tours every hour on the hour and it’s a good idea to get there about 30 minutes prior to get in on the tour as they only take about 20 people in at a time. This too has an entrance fee since it is on private property and requires a guide.

Left: Raufarholshellir Lava Tube; Right: Kerið

There were a few sites on the Golden Circle itinerary that we did not get to see: Bruarfoss Waterfall, because, per Google maps, the only way to get there was by using a private drive that was closed off by a gate. And I did not know this and didn’t know if there was another way to get there. And Laugarvatn Fontana, a geothermal bath spa. We didn’t stop here because they were not open when we passed by, they open at 11am. I really wanted to stop here because they also bake bread in the ground using geothermal heat…something for next time!

We made it home with just over an hour to spare before our northern lights tour!

Reykjavik, Iceland

Iceland…WOW! Let’s start with some basics. We flew WOW Airlines and we were pretty happy with them. Their call center totally blows so if you need to call them, good luck. But you do get what you paid for. We paid for the XXL seats which included one checked bag, one carry on bag, a meal and extra, extra leg room. The only problem was the seats weren’t at all comfortable. But we made it there!

We landed at Keflvik Airport around 11am, collected our rental car via Blue Car Rental and headed for the Blue Lagoon. Our appointment at the lagoon was at 1pm and we arrived around 12:30 but had no issues getting in. Everything at the lagoon works off a wristband you get at check-in; its how you’ll get into your locker and how you’ll get your drinks and silica masks.

The hot water was AMAZING right after our 6-hour flight. We had our drinks, did our silica masks and just relaxed. Before you enter the lagoon you have to shower, and if you plan on getting your hair wet they recommend putting in their leave-in conditioner. Even though I had no intention of getting my hair wet I put in the conditioner anyway, I didn’t want to take the chance of the silica drying out my hair. We were here for probably about an hour (changing and soak time). There wasn’t as many changing rooms as there was showers so after we got out and I showered I snatched a changing room since I pretty much had to unpack and repack all my crap. In the women’s locker room they have blow-dryers, some toiletries and plastic bags available for you to put your wet items in.

Blue Lagoon, Iceland

After our Blue Lagoon soak we arrived at our AirBnB in Reykjavik right at 3pm. I seriously cannot express how amazing our apartment was. It was perfect for the two of us and would have been great even if we had brought the kido along. It was within a five-minute walk from the Sun Voyager sculpture, Hallgrimskirkja Church and Laugavegur Street (lots of shops here).

City views of Reykjavik, Iceland

The first thing we did after dropping our belongings off was go grocery shopping for the week. We bought some of the popular Icelandic yogurt, sandwich makings and some fruit, sweets and drinks. Brought all of those back to the apartment and then headed out to take pictures of the city. We walked to the Sun Voyager, then made our way down the harbor to Harpa and then stopped for dinner at Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur, a hot dog stand made popular by the former President of the United States, Bill Clinton. After that we walked to Eldur og Ís for some ice cream and crepes and stopped in shops along the way.

Hot dogs from Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur and a crepe from Eldur og Ís

We were back at the apartment by 6:30pm and I was in bed by 7pm since we didn’t get any sleep on the plane.

Have you ever been to Iceland?

Thanksgiving in the South: Louisville, Kentucky

As I get back into this whole blogging thing and I was looking over my past blogs I realized I did not post about our Thanksgiving trip to Louisville, Kentucky. Back in the day I had just a travel blog, travel mi amor. And then I got pregnant and realized that maybe I couldn't just focus on travel anymore because my brain and life were shifting in a major way. So I created the spotted bulldog; a mix of travel and lifestyle blogging named after my sweet Lola.

SO....about Louisville...

As many of our friends know my husband and I are really into travel hacking...you know collecting hotel and airline rewards points and getting to travel for free...In late 2017 we only needed three more nights to keep our Platinum status with Marriott so we decided to meet family in Louisville, KY for Thanksgiving.

Louisville is abut a 7.5 hour drive for us so we left the day before Thanksgiving and arrived at the Marriott located downtown and settled in for the night. Our daughter, who was 2.5 yrs at the time, traveled great! We were on the cusp of potty training so when she wanted out she would tell us she had to potty. But we learned quickly that she was playing us! Once we arrived we were pretty surprised that a lot of restaurants were already closed for the holiday. We finally found found some burgers and went back to the hotel.

On Thanksgiving day we headed to the Belle of Louisville Riverboats for our Thanksgiving lunch cruise. It was nice not to have to cook and the food was good for what it was. However, the scenery wasn't all that great, that part of the Ohio River is pretty industrialized, but you got a little history about the city. Later in the evening we drove to the Mega Cavern to see the Christmas lights. The Mega Cavern is a man made cavern that was created by a massive limestone quarry. Now its used as a storage facility, adventure park and during the holidays, a light display.

The next day we headed to the Louisville Slugger factory and museum. As an engineer its always fun to see how things are made and we all really enjoyed the entire facility. After that it was off to the races at Chuchill Downs! I had never been to a race track before and I have to say it was pretty fun! My mother-in-law and I took Alana into the Kentucky Derby museum and the guys started to place their bets. I wasn't a fan of the mint julips but it was super fun to place bets and win a little.   

Saturday we were back on the road headed north. It was a short trip but it was fun! Before we had kids we would travel over Thanksgiving every year, hitting up Key West and Hawaii twice. And after doing it again in 2017 we remembered how much we enjoyed it.

Is there a holiday you like to get away for? 

Year Two

Raspberry picking, tulip sitting and ice cream eating

We have been in Wisconsin for two years now...whoa! This past Monday marked the day that Alana and I finished our drive from Texas to Wisconsin (along with my dad who accompanied us on the trip). Its always fun to think back and reflect on what brought us up here and what we have been up to. Check out the review of year one here!

We moved up here because this is where some good jobs were/are. We were both in the oil and gas industry and with the downturn we saw the inevitable and decided to jump. We were also over the Texas heat and its two seasons, hot and hotter. Was Wisconsin our top pick on location? Of course not, but it seemed to tick a lot of boxes.

Alana has spent more birthdays up here than she did in Texas which kind of makes me sad because I am a Texan and will always associate myself that way. When people ask where I am from I say I am from Texas but live in Wisconsin... Texan for Life! But Alana will most likely say she is from Wisconsin; when we practice our states I remind her that she was born in Texas and is from Texas, but, the reality is she only spent 16 month of her life there. We also correct her on silly Wisconsin pronunciations and will continue to do this all her life, lol, or at least until we move again.

Up here in the cooler weather I am able to run and enjoy it and not have to worry about getting a heat stroke or a syncope flair up. I have made a handful of amazing friends that share this love for running too so that helps on the long training runs! I even completed my first half marathon this past April in Nashville, TN.

Christmas feels like Christmas! Our first Christmas here we got really lucky and it snowed December 24th so we had a white Christmas. Christmas 2017 we had some ice and snow but nothing major. But there is snow on the ground, the fire place is on and its all just very cozy and wintery. So far, we like it. We also got to experience our first blizzard this past April when a crazy storm came through dumping over two feet of snow April 14th and 15th. We were just glad it was on the weekend and didn't have to try and drive to work in that!

April 2018 Blizzard

We have been fortunate enough to have family visit us often with my family and in-laws visiting 2-3 times a year (usually not at the same time). They come for Alana's birthday and Christmas and my brother and dad visit for the annual EAA air show.

EAA AirVenture: Airplane pictures taken by Zach Mayer

What do I miss about Texas? I miss the food and HEB. I miss having my family close and I miss our forever home we built and only lived in for three years...But, Wisconsin has been good to us these past two years, I like the lack of bugs and snakes and the soft green grass. They don't have the monstrous rain and thunder storms that cause severe flooding and power outages. I like the slower pace and lack of rat race and the fact there is no traffic. We get to go to farms and pick fresh fruits a few times a year and eat things right from the source! 

Did you leave your home state? How long have you been away? What do you miss? 

Girls Trip Toronto

St. Laurence Market, Union Station, Luna Moth, Gooderham Building

A few friends and I wanted to take a girls trip this summer. With a list of possible destinations we went with the cheapest one, Toronto. We were off without a hitch! Got to Toronto, checked into our hotel, freshened up and then headed to St. Laurence Market for some lunch. We didn't convert any USD to CAD but we should have. the market shops primarily only took cash. BUT they did take the US dollar too! They just didn't do any conversions for you. So if your meal was $6CAD then it was $6USD. My friends got something likely more flavorful and more ethnic than my simple ham and cheese croissant but I was getting hangry and didn't want to wait.

After lunch we headed to Eaton Center, a downtown shopping mall, to do some shopping. And on our way the most disgusting thing ever happened to me...we were waiting at stop light to cross the street and homeless man walked up to me, spit a louggie in my hair and shouted, "have a shitty day!" and then he walked into traffic (unfortunately he wasn't hit). I was pretty shocked that this had actually happened and just thankful that we had a water bottle and some napkins to get it all before we had to cross the street. Welcome to Canada! Here's mucus in your hair!

After that fiasco and shopping we headed to Casa Loma, a 98-room castle in the middle of the city. Casa Loma was once a home to a very wealthy man who, not too long after building his castle, went bankrupt and had to sell the residence and everything inside. Its now a museum and filming location for MANY Hollywood blockbusters including the X-Men series and Chicago.

Casa Loma

We grabbed some ice cream on the way back to hotel before we decided what we were going to do for dinner. We finally decided on the waterfront Amsterdam BrewHouse. We ordered some drinks while we waited and our first round was not very good, we ordered mojios. Once we were finally seated after a lot of confusion as to what was considered "bar seating" or not we ordered our food and second drinks, the peach bilini was much better. We all ordered some version of a hamburger and I think we were all satisfied. After we walked to the Toronto sign which is located near city hall.

The next morning we wondered around to try and find graffiti ally. I was using Trip Advisor and it wasn't being the most reliable so we finally just google mapped it and we found our way. It was an interesting few block of some amazing street art. Once we had had enough we headed to pick up our rental car and we headed to Niagara Falls.

Graffiti Ally

I was a bit disappointed in Niagara Falls. We visited on the Canadian side and it was VERY tourist with casinos everywhere and chain restaurants like Margaretville. This isn't really our style. We did go zip lining which is touristy but I had never done it and wanted to...so we did. While it was kind of cool, it wasn't over the falls and you cant bring anything of your own to take pictures while you zip line down. If you have been zip lining before, like in Hawaii or Costa Rica, this particular one might bore you. The falls themselves seemed a bit underwhelming to me. I don't know if its because I was seeing them for the first time as an adult (verse a kid who is just smaller in size) or if its because I have seen so many waterfalls during my travels. Maybe its sort of how people feel when they see Mt. Rushmore? We didn't spend too much time here, we probably spent more time driving there and back to Toronto, we found a place to eat in one of the casino/hotels on our way to the car and then headed back to the big city.

the falls

The next morning it was already time to head back. My final thoughts on Toronto...well... I didn't really like it. It was just another big city (remember I use to live in the suburbs of Houston, TX) and they really seemed to have a homeless problem. I have never seen so many homeless people just walk out into traffic have total disregard for their life. Matt and I were originally planning on visiting Toronto/Niagara Falls for a family trip in July of 2017 but after visiting I am glad we didn't. I don't t think I will be back to Toronto unless it was for work but I do see myself going back to Niagara, but the American side, so my daughter can see it. 

CN Tower, Toronto sign, yummy beaver tail

Have you ever been a little disappointed by a trip? Or have you ever been harassed by a homeless person?! lol

Nashville + 13.1 Miles

WOW! It’s been a long time since I have been on this little blog of mine! I feel like every time I get on here I say that because I don’t post often anymore. I would really like to change that and maybe start posting once a week to keep those of you who read updated on whats going on in Wisconsin. 

I recently got back from a girls trip to Nashville where I participated and completed my first half marathon. I did not get the time I wanted (9 fucking minutes slower) but I completed it and didn’t die (well maybe I almost did). But it wasn’t hard enough to keep me from wanting to do a destination race once a year.

So…Nashville… It’s always been on my list (because everywhere is on my list) but it’s never been high enough up on my list to really make me want to go. Except maybe when I was 18 and tried and failed to get my parents to take me to CMT Fest. So, when some of my MRTT (Mom’s Run This Town) ladies suggested doing a race I immediately thought of Nashville’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon Series. The planning commenced and before we knew it we had all registered and booked the hotel.

We decided to drive because a 10 hour road trip without kids is very doable. We arrived around 6pm and even though we had been up since 4:30am we rallied, cleaned up and hit the honky tonks of Broadway! We hit up Tin Roof and Nudies Bar. Both were good but I liked Nudies better; they had this awesome peach drink. It seems Nashville is similar to the French Quarter in New Orleans, people are partying ALL THE TIME! Seriously, these bars were busy from 10am to 3am! We finally headed back to the hotel around 11 or midnight (remember, we had been up since 4:30am!).

Nashville Night Life, Drive, MRTT Shoe Pic, Grand Ol' Opry, Night Out on the Town

The next day was the day before the race so we woke up and went for a 3 mile run and I could tell from this run that the half was going to be hard. But after we freshened up we headed out to see the outside of the Grand Ol Opry (sorry, not paying $27 to see some dressing rooms and maybe stand on the stage) and then we headed to a mall to shop for some cute southern clothes for our daughters. After all that was done we ate a dinner of brick baked pizza from The Stillery. The pizza was very good but get there early to get your name on the list!

The next morning was race day! We crossed the start line around 7:30am and it took us just over 2 hours and 30 minutes to complete. I really needed a lot of time to come down from the race that was 40 degrees hotter than what we trained and had much more elevation than what we trained on. Once we got back to our hotel rooms to shower and change we decided to head out to visit Five Daughters Bakery and Reese Witherspoon’s shop Draper James. The doughnuts were delicious and Draper James was having a huge sale that I took advantage of! We then headed back to the hotel to walk to an early dinner at martin’s BBQ. I am glad we went early (like 4:15pm y’all) because the line was already out the door! Luckily the rooftop bar had seating and we were able to get our drinks and food fairly quickly. We didn’t stay out too long after that because we had our 10 hour drive back to Wisconsin the next day.

We woke up and headed out the next morning. Stopping at Mammoth Cave National Park (gotta check that shit off the bucket list). We did not get to go into the cave because there wasn’t a tour at that time but we took a 2 mile hike around the park for a MRTT monthly contest. And when we finally rolled up my house and I got all my bag inside around 6:15pm. I unpacked and then tried to get my daughter ready for bed…over the weekend she became very clingy to daddy, so I was told to, “go away, I don’t love you! I want daddy!” Aww, gee thanks kid, I missed you too… can I just go back out of town?!

Post Race Activities

Have you ever been to Nashville? What did you like about it?