Self-Guided Northeast Minneapolis Brewery Tour

Posted on September 30, 2021

Northeast Minneapolis is an eclectic area known for its art, restaurants, and – you guessed it – breweries! Minnesota has over 180 breweries, and 33 of them are in Minneapolis, making it a wonderful place to meet up with friends and try something new!

Join us as we take you to five of those breweries on a beautiful summer day. All within 2.9 miles of each other, this makes for the perfect walking (or biking!) tour of the city.

At-A-Glance Stats –
Fair State Brewing Cooperative to Sociable Cider Werks = 0.7 miles
Sociable Cider Werks to Indeed Brewing Company = 0.6 miles
Indeed Brewing Company to Able Seedhouse + Brewery = 0.3 miles
Able Seedhouse + Brewery to HeadFlyer Brewing = 0.9 miles

Fair State Brewing Cooperative

Our first brewery tour stop is Fair State Brewing Cooperative! With 20+ beverage options, this is a great stop to try something new! There’s something here for everyone, especially if your group likes different types of drinks.

Can’t decide which to get? Describe what flavors you like to the amazing bartender, who will perfectly match you with an awesome drink!

I can’t talk about Fair State Brewing without mentioning something that’s really special about them. The co-op was creating with collaboration and giving back in mind. How amazing is that? Here’s a blurb from their website:

“In 2016, we launched our community engagement arm, Fair State Cooperates. Each month we partner with a different nonprofit organization selected by our Member-Owners. In our partnerships, we raise funds through beer sales, awareness through social media, and involvement through volunteerism.”

Our suggestions –
The Roselle (kettle sour with hibiscus)
Big Doinks (IPA)
Fruityboom Frozen Slush (Mango Dreamsicle)
Non-alcoholic cold press

Pro Tip! Bring snacks or food and plan to sit outside in the beer garden!

Sociable Cider Werks

Ready for a cider? Stop number two brings us to Sociable Cider Werks! Here you can choose from 15+ types of beverages, including non-alcoholic options. Be sure to wander around and check out all of the fun vintage bicycles and bicycle parts. The spacious outdoor deck and patio are the perfect place to relax.

Our suggestions –
Squoze (guava)
Pinch Flat (hibiscus rose)
Training Wheels (scrumpy apple)

Pro Tip! Take a Tap Room tour on Saturdays - free if you bring a donation in the form of a canned food item!

Indeed Brewing Company

Welcome to Beerland at Indeed Brewing Company and Taproom! Feel free to wander around and take it all in. There are plenty of seating options both indoors and outdoors – shaded and sunny! Don’t forget to check out the gear shop for some great merch options too.

Our suggestions –
Strawberry Fields (sour)
Day Tripper (pale ale)
Pink Rabbit Pils (pilsner)

Pro Tip! Be hungry and ready for the best chicken you'll ever eat at the onsite food truck, Revival!

Able Seedhouse + Brewery

Note: This brewery has unfortunately now permanently closed.

Stop number four previously brought us to the beautiful Able Seedhouse + Brewery! Their values focused on the environment and the arts, and you could really see and feel that throughout this brewery.

Suggestions were –
Raspberry hibiscus wheat ale
Mosaic Ain’T So (American IPA)
Non-alcoholic Northstar Kombucha (cherry elderberry)

Pro Tip! Onside food truck Animales Barbeque Company is the perfect pairing to Able's amazing beer selection!

Headflyer Brewing

Our last stop on the Northeast Minneapolis Brewery Tour takes us to HeadFlyer Brewing. What a great atmosphere and way to end the day. Chill out on their deck or patio to chat, play a game, or reflect on all of the great places you visited today.

Suggestions –
Oh Baby Baby (kettle sour)
Hawaiian Sophie (pale ale)
Rye-U-Mah (malt forward ale)

Pro Tip! Play a game on their giant, handmade cribbage table!

Camping, Itinerary, MicroAdventures, Road trip

South Dakota’s hidden gem

Posted on September 1, 2020

Only have 1 day in eastern south dakota?

You can’t skip visit this hidden gem, Palisades State Park. Around 20 minutes from Sioux Falls, this park is a must visit.

Note: Something about the lighting off the red quartzite made the photos all orangey-red, and nothing could help them. View at your own risk! 🙂

Check in is 4pm, and a super simple process. With the global pandemic, you roll up to the ranger station, a park ranger comes out and takes your name and site number (if you’ve booked in advance) and checks you in and provides a park map. The entire process was probably less than two minutes, and we even needed to pay for a day pass!

Once we got into the park, we opted for setting up our site before heading out for the evening, knowing we would lose daylight if we waited to set up until we got back. Switching from full time tent campers to now glampers with our new (to us) Class C, it took us about 2/3 of the time to set up for the night as it would have if we had to set up a tent. Knowing we unfortunately only had one night at this park, we were off within 20 minutes!

After hearing from my sister that the Sioux Falls falls were a must see, we couldn’t miss it! This was the first thing we checked out once we set up for the night. The falls are in the city of Sioux Falls, so we spent about an hour and a half (round trip) checking them out—definitely worth the time and the stop!

The falls are massive. Definitely much larger and further spread than I would have guessed. And according to Experience Sioux Falls:

“The Falls of the Big Sioux River have been a focus of life in the region throughout history. Native American peoples were the first to visit the falls and bring stories of them to European explorers. They have been the center of recreation and industry since the founding of the city in 1856.”

After checking out the falls, we went back to Palisades State Park because we wanted to have enough daylight left to explore.

This park is so much more beautiful than I remember! I had last visited (also my first visit) around 13 years ago now, where a group of us went rock climbing for the day—we weren’t sightseeing that trip, so everything on this trip felt like I was seeing it for the first time!

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Fun Fact from my park brochure: “Geologists estimate the Sioux quartzite spires located in Palisades State Park are 1.2 billion years old.” Whaaaat! My brain can’t even fathom that. How awesome to be able to see and touch and sit on and climb something that old!

We started at the picnic area just past the 1908 Historic Bridge. This area overlooks the rocks and Split Rock Creek that flow through the park. It’s a wide open space to walk and climb around the beautiful rock, have a picnic, go swimming, or sit and observe wildlife. The sun was starting to set around the time we were walking around, which provided a beautiful backdrop to the park.

We spotted a trailhead not far from the picnic area that looked like it followed the creek. Sure enough, it did—an uneven/mildly scambly yet family friendly hike along the river starts at the Split Rock Creek Trail. This is a 1.5 mile trail that hugs the edge of Split Rock Creek and offers stunning views of water and rock face. If you’re lucky, you’ll even see some rock climbers along the way. We ended this hike resting on the most perfect sitting rock. We sat here fir a while in peace. It was nice. The park was pretty quiet for the most part during our stay, so it was especially awesome to be able to watch the sunset above the water without much disruption.

Perfect for those who prefer shorter and easier hikes, Palisades State Park has four hiking trails, three of which are all under .5 miles each. Split Rock Creek Trail is their longest hike at 1.5 miles round trip. This is the perfect park to meander around without an agenda to take in some views and listen to the birds. Such a hidden gem.

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After the sun went down, we went back to our campsite to relax and set the RV up and finish organizing everything for the remainder of the trip. This was technically day two of our six week road trip (we are counting our drive and overnight stay at my parent’s house as day one since it was day one of being away from our home in the Cities), but we still didn’t have everything in its place quite yet.

We loved our quick overnight at Palisades State Park and would recommend it for anyone looking for a park with water recreation, rock climbing, short hikes, and a peaceful night’s sleep in a beautiful campground 🙂

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Itinerary, MicroAdventures, Minnesota, Minnesota State Parks

A Snowy Weekend in Crosby, Minnesota

Posted on January 30, 2020

Earlier in January (1.17-19.2020), Eric treated me to a mystery weekend getaway. We do this from time to time, where one of us will book a mystery weekend getaway for the other–it’s so fun to see what we each come up with!

The only information given to me ahead of time was to “pack winter appropriate clothes.” Which, naturally, made me feel like we were going downhill skiing. Though he’s done a downhill skiing type of mystery weekend in the past–so what could it be instead? He wouldn’t repeat the same idea, would he? It’s fine if he does, but that would be out of character.

Eric is the type of trip planner who doesn’t like to plan. He usually has a general outline, with a flexible day to day. (I’m very opposite, but working on it.) He booked us at two different locations (I love it!) in the same area, so we could experience everything, but wouldn’t tell me what activities were planned or what type of lodging we had booked.

We heard a few days prior that the weather was about to be snow-pocolypse 2020, so we planned to leave early on Friday, around 12pmish. We are truly blessed to have full-time jobs that allow us to work from the road (or cabin, or hotel, or campsite, or wherever has WiFi). We couldn’t check-in to our first accommodation until 4pm, but we figured we would walk around the area (wherever that was) in the meantime.

Friday, January 17th, 2020

We set off and left our home in the Twin Cities around 12:30pm, and around 12:45pm it started snowing. Just ever so lightly. But as we kept driving northward, the snow got heavier and the fog and ice started making themselves known. Around 2ish hours into the drive, it was hard to see:

Eventually, after another hour or so of white-knuckle driving, we rolled into the cute little town of Crosby. We were greeted by this sign with a serpent, which I’m guessing was designated after their lake–Serpent Lake. Due to the weather and the requirement to drive slow (to, you know, stay alive), we arrived in Crosby at around 3:45pm, just 15 minutes before we could check-in!

At this point, I still had no idea where we were staying. We usually stay at Minnesota State Parks, so my brain was swarming trying to figure out which park was near here. Mille Lacs? No, we passed that. Crow Wing? No, passed that too.

Then I saw the sign: Cuyuna Country State Recreation Area (with an arrow pointing in the direction to turn to go there). Then we drove past it. Whaaaat? I realized we weren’t staying at a State Park this time–so strange! So after only a few more minutes of driving, we arrived at our cabin for the night: True North Base Camp. Yay! I had read about True North Base Camp just recently, so I was excited to experience it in person! Easy access, not only easy to drive to, but easy to enter (they have keypads!). We stayed at the first cabin:

They. Are. So cool!

The cabins are heated, but not until you arrive and turn the heater on manually. With that, we turned the heaters on and opted to go back into town to grab some food. First stop: Iron Range Eatery. I had the best vegan tacos, and Eric had the “real tasty” Big Cuyuna Burger. For bevs, I went in for the beautiful and dark Third Street Sugar Shack Maple Stout, and Eric had the Big Axe Brewing Axe Kicker Double IPA. So good.

We then learned there was a brewery nearby. Knowing we would be stuck inside the rest of the night due to the snow, we headed over across the street to Cuyuna Brewing Company. To my surprise, their Flying Finn Russian Imperial Stout does not have lactose in it–win! I ordered that, and Eric ordered the Hazy Hopricot IPA. They were both delicious. Once we had our drinks, we grabbed a table and one of the many games on their game shelf! After playing an hour or so of Trivial Pursuit, we decided we were done losing at the game and wanted to head back to the cabin. Before heading out, we purchased a growler of Cuyuna Brewing’s Mosaic Blueberry Ale.

Back at the cabin, we continued to play some of our favorite two player games. We started with Welcome to Your Perfect Home, moved on to Ganz Schon Clever, and ended with Sagrada. We’ve been sort of binge-playing these games for the past few weeks. Knowing we had plans to be outside for a reservation of sort the next day, we played games until 10pm or so and went to bed.

To be honest, we didn’t sleep well at all. The cabins are beautiful, but due to the heating unit (which was either ON or OFF), we woke up sweating at about 3am, but the floor was still freezing. We shut the heat off at 3am (again, because we could only use on or off), and woke up cold again around 7:30am. So we turned the heat back on. We finally warmed up a little and got out of bed at 8:30am. Due to the weird heat, and the flooring only being a concrete slab (there are two mats to stand on), unfortunately the floor had sweat due to the humidity and got everything that was on the floor wet. If we were to stay again in the winter, we would put things up off the ground at night.

Saturday, January 18th, 2020

Once we got out of bed, we had a quick breakfast, and Eric decided to bundle up and hit the cross-country ski trails. It had snowed for what seemed like two feet overnight, so there was a lot of fluffy stuff to slide around on. Knowing we wouldn’t be back before the 12pm cabin check-out, I stayed at the cabin and packed most of our belongings. The snow was a blessing and curse on this trip. Eric unfortunately wasn’t able to find the cross-country skiing trail and came back to the cabin after about 30-45 minutes. We were happy he was able to scoot around on the skis for a little bit at least though.

After he rested for a few minutes, we bundled back up, and were off! I still didn’t know what we were doing at this point. But we ended up at Cycle Path & Paddle (permanently closed as of 2021), where we rented fat tire bikes! We picked up the bikes and headed toward Cuyuna Country State Recreation Area. I had only been dreaming of trying fat tire bikes for years, and now my chance is finally here! Thanks, Eric! The best husband.

We were so excited, we threw on our helmets and hopped on the bikes to ride! We hit the trail and almost immediately quit moving. What. I thought fat tire bikes were made for the snow? Oh, the snow needs to be groomed? Oh. Well then. A couple and their beautiful large dog greeted us a little while later and politely informed us that they had also just learned you can’t go on the trails until they are groomed, which is typically 24-36 hours after snowfall. Bummer. Our bikes were due back at Cycle Path & Paddle before we would get a chance to even take them on the trail!

To make the most of our rental time, we decided to head back into town and bike around there. We put a total of 5ish miles on the bikes, and were totally exhausted. Those are hard to ride! We followed one road from Crosby Memorial Park until we hit a dead end, then followed another road until we somehow found our way downtown. At this point in the day we were ready for lunch, so we stopped (don’t judge us) yet again at Iron Range Eatery. I just couldn’t say no to the tacos–they were calling! Eric tried something new, the carne asada rice bowl. Of course, I ordered the vegan tacos again. Except somehow, even though I ordered the same thing just the day before, they were completely different. Much spicier. Equally as yummy. We both had their amazing bloody Mary’s (or two) before setting off to bike around town some more.

We found ourselves back in the area of Crosby Memorial Park, but instead were in the park next door, Franklin Park. Franklin Park is home to this amazing and massive Sea Serpent. The snow was so deep, but Eric just had to trudge out there for a photo op!

We had been riding around for a few hours at this point, and decided it was time for a short break. Coffee, anyone? Our next stop was the Red Raven bicycle cafe. Eric got a really good looking americano, but I like just plain coffee. This was the perfect stop after an active day of riding. We warmed up with our hot beverages, and decided we were done riding for the day. But first, it was time to check into our next accommodation: the Alley Inn AirBnB. This was a cute studio AirBnB connected to a daycare. Red Raven is directly next door to this AirBnB, so our ride would not have been too far; except, we first needed to bike back to our truck over at Crosby Memorial Park! We detoured first for a little ride onto the lake. Serpent Lake appeared to be a great place for ice fishing, as it was peppered with ice fishing houses throughout. A path was cleared for a few hundred feet, so we biked on that and back before stopping back at the truck.

The Alley Inn was cute, and I can see it being really perfect in the summer. It was quaint to have in the winter as well, but we did run into some unfortunate issues. It was cold. There isn’t a thermostat, so you aren’t able to control the heat. Unfortunately we were there a weekend where temperatures dipped well below freezing, and we were so cold. They do provide two (small) and not super powerful space heaters, which did not warm us up. We each took a hot shower to try to warm up, but once you step out of the shower, it’s very cold again. Then we turned the electric fireplace and both space heaters on, which blew a fuse, so you cannot run all three heat sources at once. Since this was our only issue, I would recommend going to this AirBnB, but would not recommend going when it’s cold.

One we settled in, we decided we were in for the night. It was necessary as we were so tired from biking around all day. We have been wanting to try these “just add water” camping dinners for a while, so we decided tonight was that night! We had the vegetarian chilli, which was just enough for one bowl of chilli for each of us. I’m not sure about Eric, but I was falling asleep while eating dinner at this point. Yet somehow, we decided to turn on Netflix and watch a random series until we fell asleep.

Sunday, January 19th, 2020

The next morning, Eric wanted to get up early to get one last bike ride in before we had to return them to the rental shop. We bundled up and drove back to Cuyuna Country State Recreation Area in hopes the trails were groomed so we could spend about an hour on the bikes on their intended trails before returning them. Unfortunately, the trails were not yet done being groomed. Instead of leaving, we decided to switch gears and do some hiking! This means we at least got to spend some time on the Cuyuna trails, even if it wasn’t on a fat tire bike. Hikers are allowed to hike on ungroomed/snowmobile trails during the winter. We followed the snowmobile trail up the hill to overlook Huntington Mine Lake. So pretty with the snow! If it wasn’t so cold, we could have stared out for hours. But our hand warmers were cooling off, so we had to leave. Womp womp.

As we were needing to be back in the Twin Cities earlier in the afternoon, we started heading back home around 11am. This time, it took us longer to get home than it took us to get to Crosby (which we also thought was long)! The roads were pure ice most of the way. We made it home late in the afternoon, but safely.

This was an amazing weekend. A much needed getaway after the holidays! We love getting to explore Minnesota! Our own backyard.

What are your favorite winter activities?
Have you been to the Crosby area?
Where are your favorite winter spots in Minnesota?

International, Itinerary, National Parks

48 hours in Iceland

Posted on April 14, 2019

Did you know, Icelandair has a really cool option where you can stopover for up to seven days for free? This unique feature allows you to have what is essentially an extended layover in Iceland at no additional cost.

So, you decide to take the leap and extend your vacation to include the free stopover option–this is great! But, you only have a quick weekend, or two nights, to explore this country as fast (or slow) as you want.

While there are so many combinations of itinerary options on how to spend 48 hours in Iceland, I wanted to share with you the itinerary my sister and I used in January 2019, when we took advantage of the Icelandair stopover option on our way back home to Minnesota, USA from Oslo, Norway.

ICELAND DAY 1: HOURS 1-11

This is more like a half a day, really. We arrived at Keflavík International Airport in the last third of the day, just after a late lunchtime. We reserved our spot on the Flybus a couple of weeks in advance. The Flybus staff were great to work with, and so helpful with any questions we had. The total time between when we got off our airplane to when we arrived at our hotel was around an hour and a half, give or take. We bussed as a large group of around 50 or so from Keflavík International Airport to the Flybus hub in Reykjavik. Given Reykjavik is 49 kilometers from Keflavík International Airport, the ride took around 45 minutes. Once we reached the Flybus hub, we divided into smaller groups of maybe up to 10, and were shuttled from the Flybus hub to our final destinations–hotels, hostels, etc. My sister and I shared the bus with approximately three other visitors, and were the last two people to be dropped off. Our second shuttle driver was so fun and helpful with directions and recommendations for our short stay. He even tried to teach us a few Icelandic words! Mostly, how to pronounce the street names. I need more practice.

Our hotel was situated on the harbor, tucked between the cityscape industrial look of apartments and restaurants and the beautiful sculpture walk that follows the Reykjavik shoreline. The view out of our hotel was stunning, including the most beautiful, rustic old ship being restored, dwarfed by views of mountains in the distance. An eco hotel, Icelandair Hotel Marina was modest and refined. Only blocks or a short shuttle ride from all of our “must see” locations, it was the perfect accommodation for our stay, and at a great price.

Once we were situated into our room, we opted for the in-hotel restaurant, Slippbarinn. We highly recommend the two dishes we shared: the sourdough bread with dip and chicken flatbread, which had a flavorful peanut butter hummus, pesto, roasted seeds, and my favorite—avocado. Yum.

Given we arrived at our hotel late afternoon and ate a late lunch/dinner, we opted to chill the rest of the night until our next outing by having some hot chocolate in our cozy room. Around 8:30pm, our Reykjavik Excursions bus rolled up (this company does it all). Seeming to be a theme, the two of us who were going on this excursion from this hotel were picked up by a smaller shuttle, then brought to a bus hub to meet with a larger group of about 50 folks who also purchased this adventure. After about an hour’s bus ride, we arrived at Thingvellir National Park. Beautiful park—I’m sure of it. This national park was the destination to see one of the most magical sights, the northern lights. Aurora borealis. Polar lights. Pure magic on a 20 degree (Fahrenheit) night.

The good news is that there was hot chocolate on the bus. The bad news is that it was extremely cold and windy. The great news is that the northern lights showed themselves, which is not necessarily a nightly occurrence, and we could see them with our eyes! Fascinatingly, you can’t see the northern lights with your eyes super well, though. In fact, they don’t look at all like what you see in the pictures! This is because of how your camera picks up and processes the lights when you take that photo. To your naked eye, they appear to be somewhat dim and milky in color—the same color your cereal bowl milk looks like when you finish your Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

Unfortunately, my Nikon didn’t make it on this trip, and unfortunately again, iPhones aren’t great at capturing the northern lights due to their inability to shoot in manual mode. HOWEVER, fortunately, our guide allowed me to take a photo of his photo to share with you all (below). Also, in the one area where Android wins (hehe), Android phone users can shoot in manual mode and pick up the northern lights! Lucky ducks.

We stayed in Thingvellir National Park for around two hours, staring in awe at the sky. Not only were the northern lights dancing around, but the stars were so magnificent. You could gaze into the deep, dark sky for hours and get lost in its magic.

Our ride from the national park to the bus hub was so peaceful. If any discussions were happening, they were solely focused on the sky and what we had all experienced. I maybe fell asleep. Once we transferred from the large bus back into the smaller shuttle buses, things got interesting. It was around 1:00am, for whatever reason, our shuttle driver dropped us off about six blocks from our hotel. Why? Not totally sure, but it was weird. Luckily we had rented a pocket Wifi unit from Wifivox and were able to find our way back to the hotel. We learned that night that Iceland, or at least this part of Reykjavik, doesn’t shovel their pedestrian walkways.

DAY 2: HOURS 12-36

Our one and only full day in Iceland! We woke up around 5am, ready to take on the day and explore all of Iceland! Just kidding. We woke up at like 9am, missed breakfast, and were only barely awake due to not getting back to our hotel until close to 1:30am. BUT, we had some delicious pastries and coffee from nearby coffee shop, Reykjavík Röst. We had a full day planned, consisting of two places and two places only: Perlan – Wonders of Iceland and whale watching. Actually, we knew we for sure wanted to go to Perlan, but we stumbled upon a responsible whale watching tour group and couldn’t say no! We had originally planned to wander around the city, but I’ve heard that seeing a whale in its natural habitat is a once in a lifetime, magical experience, and, after seeing one in real life, we couldn’t agree more.

Perlan – Wonders of Iceland has a free shuttle from Harpa, making it so easy to get to from our hotel–just a quick ten minute walk and a 10 minute shuttle ride! We even had a few minutes to spend exploring the inside of Harpa and their gift shop before the shuttle arrived. Perlan was an awesome, interactive museum for those who would love to learn more about the geology and history of the country. We could have spent hours wandering around, reading, playing, and exploring. Perlan has a really cool (HA—get it?) ice cave exhibit as well, allowing you to wander through and learn about the natural ice, glaciers, and what the patterns mean. Here you can learn and feel the interactions with volcanoes, earthquakes, and tectonic plates. Built atop one of the tallest hills in Reykjavik, Perlan offers breathtaking views of the city and country. Binoculars were installed outside to capture a stunning glimpse of the mountains and water in the distance.

Mom kept suggesting that my sister and I should go on a whale watching tour on this trip also. Initially hesitant as we weren’t sure if this was the best idea, based off of the negative stigmas an activity like whale watching has, we decided to do some research. We were delighted to find that nearby Elding Whale Watching tours were ethical, responsible, and sustainability focused. According to their website, “Elding also is the first environmentally certified whale watching company in Iceland and is now the only Earth Check Gold Certified whale watching company in the world.” Wow. What an experience. Have you ever been whale watching? If not, add it to your bucket list. It’s definitely back on my bucket list–I could be out on that boat all day if it meant to just grab a quick glimpse of those magnificent creatures. Being it was winter (January after all) and cold, the tour company offers free use of their waterproof and extremely warm overalls. I would definitely recommend not skipping on that–even though everyone matched and looked like giant red Oompa Loompas, boy was that extra layer of clothing necessary when you’re out on the cold, windy body of water.

We departed on the 1:00pm tour with our guide, Otto. There were maybe 75ish other people on the tour with us; however, it never felt like there were that many due to the amount of space on the vessel. There were multiple decks to observe from, all with great sight lines to the water and land in the distance. My sister and I had just ordered our lunch from the canteen, when suddenly the guide exclaimed “Oh! We have a beautiful humpback whale!” The lady working the canteen said she would hold off on making our lunches so we could have this experience of a lifetime, and we ran outside. About two or three minutes later, we were able to see the whale! What a beauty. It was so exciting to learn about the sea life and whales and history of whale tours and Iceland coming from such an enthusiastic and energizing guide. I wish I could describe the rush we got by seeing this whale doing its whale thing, frolicking around the water, eating and just being amazing. It was so cool to see the birds swarming around the water, a sure sign the whale is going to breach the water to blow some air or show its tail. I wish I could explain how refreshing the fresh air, mixed with wind and excitement from the other passengers felt, and how great it was to step back inside to actually eat that lunch you ordered 45 minutes ago and think about what you just saw.

But I can’t.

There aren’t great words.

Just feelings.

We had dinner at RIO Reykjavik. It’s not that I didn’t like the place, but after seeing a whale, I just was thinking about that and not as much about how amazing the tacos were… so you’ll just have to grab a bite there yourself. Actually I had the chicken tacos (but they aren’t just regular chicken tacos like we have here in the United States), and it was the best darn chicken taco I’ve had in my life. It got to the table and I scarfed that thing down so fast I didn’t even get a picture of it! I’m sorry! But not sorry.

Day 3: Hours 37-48

Sigh. The last remaining hours of our time in Iceland. Literally we just spent the morning pulling ourselves together, grabbing a quick breakfast at Slippbarinn, and making the journey back to Keflavik to catch our flights back to Minnesota. The first Flybus shuttle picked us up around lunchtime, and we made the connecting bus back to Keflavik International Airport in time for our 3pm departure. We had a long evening ahead of us, as we then had a six hour flight to Boston, MA, followed by a two and a half hour flight from Boston, MA to Minneapolis, MN. Luckily this gave us enough time to sleep on the plane before jumping back into reality once we got home 🙂