“Is that a cloud? Or is that the Northern Lights?”, Johna wondered aloud with controlled enthusiasm. I quickly swiveled my bar stool to face the window behind us and squinted to see outside from Kex Hostel.
I recently spent 8 days driving around Iceland. Or, more accurately, being driven around Iceland by my friends whose driving skills are far superior to mine. No, instead of driving, I bring a random smattering of other useful skills to roadtrips: researching awesome and preferably offbeat stops along the way, negotiating discounts, frantically phoning guesthouses late at night to inquire whether they have an available room at an affordable price, crafting playlists of the cheesy pop and/or classic rock persuasion, getting un-lost after a wrong turn or three, finding backcountry campsites.
I had one full day to explore Chicago before BlogHouse began, and how did I spend it? About as predictably as possible: biking around the waterfront and scoping out the street art in Pilsen, a Mexican neighborhood in the Lower West Side.
By the time this post goes live, barring any volcanic eruption/disruption from Bardarbunga, I should be en route to JFK Airport to meet my roadtrip partners in crime. I almost hesitated to write about my plans for traveling to Iceland because it would be the saddest thing ever to have to say OH JUST KIDDING if I couldn’t go after all.
“THERE’S A VOLCANO ALERT FOR ICELAND!”, Becca texted me last week, just 11 days before we were due to fly to Reykjavik.
I immediately took to The Google, which confirmed that an orange alert had been issued due to “intense seismic activity at the Bardarbunga volcano [which]indicates the potential for a disruptive ash event similar to 2010”.
I don’t know about you, but the trips I take tend to be planned around one particular thing I’ve been aching to see or do. In the case of my 2012 road trip around the Big Island of Hawaii, the one thing I just HAD to do was the Waimanu Valley hike, on the Muliwai Trail.
As an outdoorsy and jaded New Yorker, I’m quick to cite lack of outdoor adventures as the main reason I should relocate. I just want easy access to beautifully scenic places where I can hike, bike, and frolic to my heart’s content, yannowhatimean?
On January 1, New York and I celebrated our 6 year anniversary. Except, unlike previous years, it didn’t feel like much of a celebration. I wasn’t happily toasting to another year of living in New York City – I was wondering how many more years I’d be ringing in here, and what would come next.
What’s an outdoorsy girl to do on a sunny summer day in a new city? Take to the water, of course!
The Chicago waterfront is both scenic and accessible, offering myriad activities and attractions on the water.
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