We made it! With little to no sleep we hit the ground running. We got our rental car and drove an hour to the via ferrate. A very nice lady gave us our gear and I took a picture of the map of the course off her Facebook page. I had emailed with her a couple times to get permission for us to run the via ferratta course without a guide. She was comfortable with our experience and was happy for us to do it on our own. She even told us of a couple new routes that they were not commercially guiding yet and would love for us to give them a try. We headed up the mountain. It was Mercy’s first via ferratta. I was thinking it was going to be an easy one because they run it commercially. I was surprised when there were several moves that were inverted and quite difficult. I’m guessing climbers set up the course for them to enjoy. I had to stop taking pictures in order to help Mercy through some of the more difficult moves. She did an amazing job and had to pull her body weight up and over several obstacles. The foot placement was also minimal and the girls were wearing snow boots. It was impressive to watch them on the course. Jodi did the whole thing without any of my help, as I was focused on Mercy. I loved that Jodi got to come on this adventure with Mercy, and today was our 27th anniversary. Mercy said she loved it. Afterward we walked through Reykjavik for a while before turning in. Jodi was asleep by 4p. Mercy and I stayed up until 7p. All of us would not wake up again until 7a the next day.
Mercy’s Take (9/5) – Daddy and mommy’s anniversary. Our flight landed in Reykjavik at 6:59a. On the flight from Phoenix to Minneapolis I watched Princess Diaries and a little bit of the cartoon Beauty and the Beast. On the flight to Reykjavik I watched Walter Mitty and then tried to get some sleep. I woke up an hour later, and we had 3 more hours left till we landed. I tried to get back to sleep. I was up an hour later and looked out the window because I wanted to see out as I had never been on a plane before. I looked out for 1.5hrs. The flight was 5hrs and 57mins. Psalm 3:5 “I lay down and slept; I awoke, for the Lord sustains me.”
I tried to fall asleep again but God had other plans. Remember when I prayed that we would see a whale without paying to get on a boat and maybe not see anything? Well, when I was looking out the window we were 2 minutes till we landed. I was watching the ocean when I saw bubbles. I watched them and then I saw a whale spout and then go under. I was so astonished that I saw one as the plane landed. I was so happy. Then we landed and took some photos before we could get off the plane. We got off and headed to get a rental car to go on the via ferrata (www.falkaklettur.is).
We had an awesome time on the via ferratta, then we prayed and walked around Hallgrimskirkja church and walked to the best hot dogs in Reykjavik. The hot dog place is named Baejarins best pylsur (bbp.is). Then we walked back to the car and checked if we could clock in, and now we are at the Hotel 201 at 5:58p. When we were in Minneapolis we had a 3 hour lay over so we walked around and went to the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory and got a chocolate covered apple. Mom and I ate lunch at Chic-Fil-A, and daddy had lunch at Panda Express.
