I'd bet it all on a good run of bad luck

It had been awhile since I'd had a good travel mishap, so I guess I was due. I just didn't realize yesterday that it was going to be a two day affair.

Yesterday I flew out of Denver to head to D.C. for our annual trip to the Outer Banks. I slept for the first part of the trip and then started watching some episodes of The Last Kingdom that I had downloaded onto my phone. I was totally engrossed and completely oblivious to what was going on around me.

At around the time we were supposed to land, we landed. I took my phone off of airplane mode and texted my mom.

"Just landed."

"Where?"

I found this response extremely confusing. I looked out the window and realized we were not at Dulles Airport. 

I took my headphones out of my ears and turned to the lady sitting next to me.

"Do you know what's going on?" I asked.

"Yeah, we were diverted to Louisville because of weather in D.C. They're on a total ground-stop. Nothing is taking off or landing there."

Oh. 

I felt like a moron, but also recognized that it was kind of funny.

"Are we going to be getting off the plane?"

"No, they're refueling and then we're going to wait until we get the go-ahead to take off and head to D.C."

We waited for a while. People were standing up to stretch their legs, chatting with their neighbors. Everyone was pretty chill. The flight attendants handed out snacks and drinks. 

The pilot came on the intercom and announced that the ground-stop had been extended another hour. Everyone was bummed but there was nothing to do but wait. So we waited some more.

After about 20 minutes, he came back on the intercom and announced that the ground-stop had been lifted early. Time to go!

We finally arrived in D.C. two hours later than we were supposed to. I was reunited with my children, whom I hadn't seen in four weeks. They astounded me both with how beautiful they are and with how tall they are getting. I gave my parents big hugs and kisses. I helped my mom finish packing the cars. We watched an extraordinary basketball game and then went to bed, preparing to head out early in the morning to beat the bad traffic. 

I went to sleep late and woke up early - about 3:45 a.m. Denver time. I drove with the kids in my dad's car and my mom and dad drove in her car. For three and a half hours, the drive was uneventful. Down I-95 past the sites of famous Civil War battles - Manassas, Fredericksburg, Spotsylvania. Stopping as we always do for breakfast at the McDonald's at mile marker 118. Through Newport News and Norfolk and Chesapeake, past the battleships and aircraft carriers. 

The kids slept and bickered and played Connect 4.

Then, about 15 miles from the North Carolina border, Zeke tried to adjust his seatbelt and got stuck.

He was in the front seat with me and had wrapped it around himself to move the shoulder strap so that he could sleep more comfortably. He unclicked the belt at the bottom but discovered that it was twisted around his body and he couldn't get it loose - the mechanism that catches the strap at the top (like in the event of a crash) was stuck and we couldn't get it to release. Every time we tried, it got tighter and tighter around his waist. He was in pain and freaking out. 

We came up to a section of road that had a wide flat median - I pulled over and ran around to his side of the car to try to help him, but nothing worked. He was getting more and more upset and I felt helpless to figure out a way to get him loose.

There was a police officer and a guy from the Virginia DOT nearby - they saw us and came over to try to help. We pulled and twisted. We even removed some of the covering to the section of the door where the belt mechanism was housed, trying to find a bolt or a button or something that would release it, but there was nothing. In the meantime, Zeke was in terrible pain and discomfort.

Finally, the police officer took out his pocket knife. 

"Say the word and I'll cut the belt."

"Go ahead and do it," I replied. "I don't see that we have any other option."

So he cut the belt and Zeke was free. 

The officer also summoned the emergency rescue folks, because apparently that's the protocol.

Zeke thanked him profusely and said he was OK, but the officer insisted that we stay so that the paramedics could check Zeke out to make sure he was fine.

Within five minutes, there was a big fire truck, an ambulance, and another police rescue vehicle pulled up around us. The paramedics ushered Zeke into the ambulance and checked his vital signs while the police rescue guys took down our information. 

It seemed like overkill, but apparently that's their process. 

"Well, this is a new one for me!" the police officer said.

"Tell me about it," I said.

Finally, we were given the OK to leave. The police officer even directed traffic away from us so that we could pull out into the road without any difficulty. 

A couple of hours later, we were at the house. We unpacked and headed to the beach for a bit before some bad weather rolled in.

Josie rides her skim-board before the storm.

All is well. It's raining and thundering outside but comfortable inside. Everything's fine.

But man, it's been a hell of a weekend. 

You know it's hard out here for a shrimp

 I am not a tall person. I think that is something on which anyone who has met me can agree.

In most areas of my life, it's not a big deal. It's not like I have to shop in the children's section or anything like that. 

In some ways, it's a plus.

I'm never taller than the guys I date, even if I'm wearing big-girl heels. One of them is a solid foot taller than I am. He is very useful for things like reaching items on high shelves or putting skis and bikes up on the car's roof rack. My shoulders are at the perfect height for him to drape an arm around me - I think he does it as much to have a comfortable place to rest his arm as to show affection.

Airplane seats are no problem. All of those enticements to pay extra for an economy plus seat in order to have more leg room elicit a shrug. My legs are short. They don't need extra room. 

Same with sitting in the back seat of a car. Push your front seat as far back as you want. 

I tend to fit in tight spaces. I can buy petite-sized pants that are the right length. I'm low to the ground, so my balance and stability tend to be good. 

On the other hand, crowds are terrifying because I'm squished and can't see anything. Overhead bins can be dangerous affairs. When I'm in a group photo, I'm so much shorter than other people it looks like I'm standing in a hole. Even my fellow shorties are taller than I am. 

I recently had a three-year-old look me up and down and say, "you know, you're really short!"

Oh yeah? So are you, pipsqueak.

This past weekend I stopped by the kids' dad's house to pick up some clothes that I'm going to bring them when we go to the beach next week. I pulled up in my usual spot behind his house. I went in, got the clothes, we chatted a bit, and I left.

We were still chatting as I got into the car. I started the engine and pulled out and immediately heard an awful crunching sound. 

Oh, fuck, I thought.

I got out and saw that I had driven into a large pile of yard refuse, including a tree stump that had been left out for garbage pickup. My lower front bumper was dented a little bit, but luckily the car was otherwise fine and drivable. 

And the frustrating part is that it wasn't like I hadn't been looking or paying attention. It was that I had been looking and paying attention, but I'm so damned short that even with my seat raised as high as it will go, I couldn't see it. 

"Dude, that sucks," he said,

"Yeah," I sighed.

Story of my life.

Beating jet lag in the Land of Fire and Ice

Back in April, Iceland said, "hey, world, if you're vaccinated, come hang with us." 

Because most other countries were heading in the opposite direction, lots of people with a hankering to do some end-of-the-pandemic travel said, "sold!"

In late April or early May, I made the decision to go in late June. I know of at least five friends who were either there or were going within three weeks of the time I was there. 

The requirements related to COVID were pretty unobtrusive. Show up with a vaccination card, take a rapid test after landing, and "quarantine" at your lodging while you await your results, which they send you via text within about four hours. 

Our flight landed at 6 a.m. Check-in time at our hotel in Reykjavik was at 2 p.m. So we decided to "quarantine" outside by hiking to see an erupting volcano, which just happened to be about a 30 minute drive from the airport. 

Technically not the type of quarantine the authorities had in mind, but we figured it was worth a shot. 

My only concern about the plan was that after an overnight flight during which it was unlikely that anyone would sleep much, we would be totally gassed. But that's why coffee was invented. 

On the way to the trailhead, we stopped at a gas station for coffee. The cups I saw sitting out were small, so I asked the guy behind the counter for the largest size coffee he had. He scoffed, "we have only one size. This isn't America." 

Duly chastened, I ordered two. 

We weren't entirely sure what the hike would entail because the lava flow had covered up some of the trails that people had been using to get the best vantage points. The estimates we heard were about 5-6 miles round-trip, which would have us finishing just in time to check into the hotel. 

It was rainy and chilly, but we were prepared. I had my rain jacket and rain pants and hat and gloves and waterproof hiking boots. We parked our little Suzuki Jimmy in the extraordinarily muddy parking lot, managed not to get the car stuck in the mud within 45 minutes of picking it up, and set off. 

What followed was one of the cooler experiences of my life. 

First was the lava field, still smoking and smoldering and glowing orange. It was extraordinary and surreal and beautiful. I was also struck by the fact that there was no crowd control - we could get as close to the lava as we wanted. No barriers, no warnings, no waivers to sign.

I didn't have a good sense of where we were relative to the crater, so I wasn't clear on whether we would be able to see more than what we had seen. Our initial foray up the ridge gave us views of the size of the lava flow, but not the crater itself. 

We saw some people who had hiked a couple of miles on to a high point on the ridge.

"Is it worth it to keep climbing?" I asked.

"Oh, yes, most definitely," they responded. 

So we kept going. The hike was not super difficult, but not easy either - a relatively significant gain in elevation and a path with no switchbacks to ease the ascent. Being at sea level after coming from Denver helped. 

Eventually we came to the point that was supposed to offer the best vantage point. And holy shit, was it worth it. 

You know that thing where you're seeing something incredible and you keep taking pictures of the same thing over and over, as if each time you're going to catch something you didn't catch before? By the time we finished the climb, I had close to 50 photos and video shots of the lava bubbling in the crater. And when I'm looking back at my pictures, I look at each one multiple times because it's just that amazing.

All along the hike, I kept marveling at how great I felt. I expected to feel exhausted after traveling and not really sleeping, but the more we walked, the more invigorated and awake I felt. I figured I would start to crash when we got back in the car, especially if we decided to go to the Blue Lagoon (a huge pool of milky blue geothermal seawater) before heading to the hotel. 

We ended up going to go the Blue Lagoon because why the hell not. We were chilled and physically tired after the climb, and it's a major attraction even though you're paying an exorbitant amount of money to lounge in a hot pool created by nature. They make it feel fancy by throwing in some goodies like alcohol and mud masks, which are essentially the silica goop that settles at the bottom of  the lagoon. It's a racket, but I didn't care. 

It was fabulous, which surprised me because I generally do not like sitting around in hot water. I don't like long baths or sitting in hot tubs or visiting hot springs. But between the sun coming out and the post-hike glow and the alcohol, we had a great time. We lounged around in the pool for 2 1/2 hours.

You would think that an overnight flight followed by a hard hike followed by hours of drinking alcohol while sitting in hot water would have brought on fatigue. But I felt totally awake. It was very confusing.

My travelling companion was not so fortunate. He fell asleep lying down on the floor of the lagoon (at a point where it is extremely shallow), and when we were driving to the hotel in Reykjavik, I made him pull over and let me drive because he was about to fall asleep at the wheel. 

We checked in and he went to bed. But I was still very much awake. So I went for a walk to see the Hallgrimskirkja and get something to eat. 

The church with a statue of Leif Erikson in front of it. The Erikson statue was a gift from the United States to the people of Iceland in 1930 to commemorate the 1000th anniversary of the Althing, Iceland's first parliament. Kinda cool. Also, these pictures were taken at 8:00 p.m. 

I finally went back to the hotel at around 9:00. I went to bed, thinking that the jet lag would hit me the next day, as it generally does on day two of a big time difference. 

Nope.

Over the course of the trip, I never once felt tired before bedtime. We stayed up later and later, to the point that when we got to Akureyri, we were hanging out at a bar well past midnight. 

And eventually I realized that it was because it never got dark. We were there the week of the summer soltice. During the night, the sun would dip a little lower in the sky, but it was always light out. My body was like, fuck it, if the sun doesn't need to go to bed, neither do I. 

To wit: 

The Jökulsarlon (glacier lagoon) at 9:15 p.m.

Akureyri at midnight:

Grundarfjorður (where you can see the famous mountain from Game of Thrones) at 8 p.m.:

So in the end, the answer was simple. 

The way to beat jet lag in the Land of Fire and Ice?

Go to the Land of Fire and Ice. And make sure you do it in June.