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They say the journey is more important than the destination.

Nope.

After a tearful goodbye with the diva dog on Thursday morning in Spokane Valley, followed by a failed test fit of our luggage into a mid-sized SUV, followed by a quick upgrade and a successful repeat of that same test in a Dodge minivan (unfortunately), we were on the road.

See, it saved us about $2000 to fly out of Seattle on Icelandair rather than fly to Seattle and catch the same plane. Quite unfortunately, that necessitated a 5-hour drive across the most boring part of Washington State in a crappy minivan that took up most of our day on Thursday. Still, the money we saved went toward some pretty awesome experiences waiting for us on days 2 and 3.

Compound the fact that this drive was on top of only three hours of sleep, and I figured that I’d sleep the entire red eye flight to Reykjavik.

Again, nope.

I had to sit next to Parker, AKA, Mr. Elbow Smash. My rib cage is well tenderized, but once we deplaned, the lack of sleep really started kicking in.

However, getting through immigration and customs had to have been THE easiest I’ve ever experienced! The border agent immediately commented on what a colorful family we are, smiled and joked with us, stamped our passports, and we were on our way without a single additional question.

Then, we were introduced to the cost of Iceland. $200 for a bus transfer to the downtown bus station, where they sell sheep heads as a delicacy (which I only found out later, otherwise I would have totally tried it). $20 for a taxi to our hostel/apartment. $70 for four sandwiches and drinks. $30 for four sodas and candy bars at a gas station.

However, after about a 4-mile walk around town and a mall, which included unintentionally trespassing through a construction zone (úps slæmur minn, construction guy!), we all crashed, our frail bodies finally overcome by the exhaustion. I tried to wake up Parker twice, and one time, he shouted at me that mom had tried to wake him up yesterday. Um, nope, same day, little dude.

In other words, jet lag is hitting us HARD. Here’s hoping for a quick adjustment, though.

Capped off our day with Dominos Pizza, which was a welcome island of relief after a long day of struggling with directions, language, and general culture shock.

Good thing EVERYONE here speaks English so well…

Anyway, today was our throwaway day, trying to recover and adjust, in prep for the REAL adventures, which begin tomorrow…