Author Topic: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread  (Read 180503 times)

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Offline Ali the Baseball Cat

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3850 on: July 22, 2024, 09:36:02 am »
Eat some hakarl, you'll be right as rain  :D

Offline wj73

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3851 on: July 22, 2024, 09:38:56 am »
The street hotdogs in Iceland are surprisingly good. Also, if your room has a fridge, head to a store and stock up on cheese, bread, sausage, and other edibles. You’ll save $$ there. Also, most hotels include breakfast. Stuff yourself at breakfast, so you can eat just a light lunch, like a hotdog or your cheese and crackers, so you’re only spending money to eat dinners out.


If you didn’t pack warm clothes for the unpredictable Icelandic weather, consider splurging on a lopapeysa, the traditional Icelandic sweater. They are expensive, but wonderfully warm. If you don’t want to pay full price for a new one, there are some good thrift shops in Reykjavik that frequently have a decent selection. I picked up a lined, zip up hooded one for about $100. It’s amazingly warm and looks nice. I wear it all winter.

You sound a bit tired. I’m hoping that a good night’s sleep and some of your tours will help. Don’t know if you’ll get a chance to visit the Blue Lagoon or one of the other natural hot springs, but sipping a cold Viking or Gull beer while relaxing in the beautiful milky blue mineral water will ease a lot of travel travails.

Offline Natsinpwc

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3852 on: July 22, 2024, 09:51:04 am »
I think the Blue Lagoon has been closed due to the volcano erupting in that area.

Offline wj73

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3853 on: July 22, 2024, 09:52:55 am »
Ah, you may be right about that.

Offline wj73

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3854 on: July 22, 2024, 09:56:43 am »
We were in Iceland for over 3 weeks, so we learned really quickly how to save on food. We found that bars often had good happy hour prices on local beers, which were quite good. We also ended up eating a lot of pizza and pub grub, which was cheaper than trying to eat at nice restaurants. We only splurged on good restaurants once or twice a week. Not the healthiest way to go, but prices were just too expensive to do more than that.

Offline Natsinpwc

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3855 on: July 22, 2024, 10:03:43 am »
Ok. I looked and appears to be back open.

https://www.bluelagoon.com/

Offline imref

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3856 on: July 22, 2024, 11:31:52 am »
i hope you end up enjoying Iceland, everyone I know who has been there says that it is spectacular.

Offline Count Walewski

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3857 on: July 23, 2024, 04:29:58 am »
Yesterday we went to something called the "Lava Show" in Reykjavik. It's located on this peninsula that seems to be a redeveloped industrial harbor and today is full of all these big box tourist trap-type attractions. Like, there are no fewer than THREE places on this peninsula where you can go into a big warehouse-like structure and have a fake aurora borealis projected onto the dark ceiling above you.

Anyway, what they do is they take real lava taken from the slopes of an Icelandic volcano, they melt it, and then they pour it down a ramp in the middle of the auditorium. You FEEL the lava, even though you're 10-20 feet away, because it is 2000 degrees. Then, a volcanologist comes out and lectures about lava for about 45 minutes. He demonstrates by interacting with the lava. Like he'll talk about how lava interacts with ice and snow in Iceland, and shows it by dropping a big block of ice into the lava. He has a big steel pole (lava isn't hot enough to melt steel) and sticks it into the lava. The lava is cooling and hardening during the 45 minutes. We learned a lot.

Iceland is kind of back to a break-even point with me because of the "Lava Show" - today is the big day when we see the Golden Circle, which likely makes or breaks the trip. Tomorrow is our puffin tour and our visit to the Blue Lagoon. I'm worried it will be too rainy tomorrow for me to be able to take my nice camera out to photograph puffins.

Offline Natsinpwc

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3858 on: July 23, 2024, 08:27:41 am »
Are you able to sleep?  We had trouble getting to sleep even with blackout curtains last June.

Offline Count Walewski

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3859 on: July 24, 2024, 09:08:34 am »
Sunset is 11:45 PM here - thankfully I went to Alaska a few years ago and learned how to sleep in such conditions. It helps also that I pack my vacations with so much sightseeing that we come back tired to the hotel. One night we fell asleep without the blackout curtains!

Anyway, this morning was my puffin tour. 12 person RIB boat so we were able to get within a few feet of puffins. It rained heavily - I was afraid to have my expensive camera out in the rain for too long so I only took a few pictures. If it were sunny I easily would have taken over a hundred puffin portraits, we were that close. In this one you can see rain droplets on the puffin's back.

https://imgur.com/a/itdtdPO

Offline Ali the Baseball Cat

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3860 on: July 24, 2024, 11:16:47 am »
Nice photo.  Love puffins!

Offline wj73

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3861 on: July 24, 2024, 04:01:04 pm »
Bummer about the rain, but great photo! I’ve seen puffins in Iceland and Newfoundland. They’re so improbable with those fat little bodies and colorful beaks. Always a thrill to see them.


So, despite the rain, after seeing puffins maybe Iceland is a little less horrible?  :mg:

Offline Count Walewski

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3862 on: August 01, 2024, 12:14:40 pm »
Two months ago, my daughter brought a book home from kindergarten about the Liberty Bell. She quickly fell in love with it for whatever reason, asked us tons of questions about the Liberty Bell, asked for more books about the Liberty Bell, etc. So we finally asked her, hey do you want to go to Philadelphia to see the real Liberty Bell? She said yes and was so excited. We booked the trip for the first weekend of August since that was the next open weekend on our calendars.

Of course since then she has totally forgotten about the Liberty Bell and isn't into it anymore. But these Amtrak ticket and hotel reservations are not refundable and we are going to Philadelphia this weekend as a family and staying in a hotel mere blocks from the Liberty Bell. Maybe her passion for the bell will reignite when she sees it in person.

Offline Ali the Baseball Cat

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3863 on: August 01, 2024, 01:26:49 pm »
Well, if the spark doesn't take there is always the Franklin Institute...

Offline imref

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3864 on: August 01, 2024, 02:27:57 pm »
Count, if you have time, go into the Comcast HQ building and take the elevator to the Four Seasons at the top. There is a beautiful cafe if your time/budget allows. The elevator rides 60 floors up on the outside of the building. The view is spectacular.

Also, the Barnes Foundation is one of the best art museums that I have ever visited.

Offline 1995hoo

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3865 on: August 01, 2024, 07:08:45 pm »
I remember the Franklin Institute Science Museum being very interesting when I was on a school trip up there in the late 1980s. Don’t know how it may have evolved since then.

Offline Natsinpwc

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3866 on: August 01, 2024, 10:27:01 pm »
We went Franklin Institute on several class trips when I was a youngin. Was always great. Many years ago.

Beautiful weather today in Seattle. Sunny and low 80s.  Would be nice if son had A/C in his condo he rents but so be it.  At least we were out most of the day. Wife and I walked around town this morning including Olympic Sculpture Park. And then we took the ferry to Bainbridge Island  with son and his family.  Nice place. Looks like you can get a nice little house for around a million. Got to take the bus back here after the ferry and ride with some of the homeless. And one family had their pitbull with them on the bus. Very cool.

Offline imref

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3867 on: August 01, 2024, 11:25:35 pm »
We went Franklin Institute on several class trips when I was a youngin. Was always great. Many years ago.

Beautiful weather today in Seattle. Sunny and low 80s.  Would be nice if son had A/C in his condo he rents but so be it.  At least we were out most of the day. Wife and I walked around town this morning including Olympic Sculpture Park. And then we took the ferry to Bainbridge Island  with son and his family.  Nice place. Looks like you can get a nice little house for around a million. Got to take the bus back here after the ferry and ride with some of the homeless. And one family had their pitbull with them on the bus. Very cool.

heat index was 94 at 11 PM in DC just now. Enjoy Seattle!

Offline Natsinpwc

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3868 on: August 01, 2024, 11:53:47 pm »
heat index was 94 at 11 PM in DC just now. Enjoy Seattle!
We are flying back Sunday on the red eye to Orlando. Looks like we are headed into a tropical mess.

Offline Natsinpwc

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3869 on: August 01, 2024, 11:54:23 pm »
Blue Angels are in town.  Saw them on a flyover while on the ferry.

Offline imref

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3870 on: August 02, 2024, 12:13:59 am »
We are flying back Sunday on the red eye to Orlando. Looks like we are headed into a tropical mess.
yeah, definitely want to keep an eye on https://www.nhc.noaa.gov

Offline varoadking

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3871 on: August 02, 2024, 09:36:35 am »
Blue Angels are in town.  Saw them on a flyover while on the ferry.

You sure it was the Blue Angels...they are supposed to be in Seattle Washington this weekend...

That may have been another demonstration group, as they should be practicing in Seattle today...

The Thunderbirds are in Maine this weekend...may have been them...

Offline Natsinpwc

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3872 on: August 02, 2024, 09:49:35 am »
You sure it was the Blue Angels...they are supposed to be in Seattle Washington this weekend...

That may have been another demonstration group, as they should be practicing in Seattle today...

The Thunderbirds are in Maine this weekend...may have been them...
Yes. I’m in Seattle for the weekend.

Offline varoadking

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3873 on: August 02, 2024, 12:11:43 pm »
Yes. I’m in Seattle for the weekend.

There ya go...  :thumbs:

Offline Natsinpwc

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Re: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread
« Reply #3874 on: August 02, 2024, 05:07:42 pm »
There ya go...  :thumbs:
Heard them and saw one flying by here a few minutes ago. But time for a nap. Time zone change catching up with me.