I have been to Iceland before, my wife and I had a long layover in 2014 when we flew to Sweden, we rented a car and did some driving, saw the Blue Lagoon, but mostly slept because I was exhausted. It was not a real trip to Iceland but was enough to sate my desire to get back. Couple that with the exploding tourism of the island, I really had no strong draw to go back. Then, in the way that life works, my friend Nate said he was going to go for a weekend and invited me to join, as no one else was going. "I've rented a room with two beds and a car, so that is all taken care of if you want to join." At that point, a weekend in Baltimore or a weekend in Iceland with one of my best friends, the choice was pretty easy. I plunked down $330, well my wife did for my birthday, and I was going back to Iceland.

We were here the last weekend of October 2017, so it was pretty cold, and mostly rainy while we were in Iceland. We took the shuttle from the airport to the offsite car rental place, picked up a cruiser, and headed to a few spots before hitting our hotel. Our first stop was Kerið, a volcanic crater. We arrived before anyone else, and promptly fell asleep in the car, as we weren't sure if it was open or not (it was). When we woke up, there were tour buses, 16 million people taking their selfies, and us. We spent about 30 minutes here before we moved on. The rain and fog really were not conducive to good photos, and the wind contributed to a very "get back in the car" attitude. This was also a bit of classic foreshadowing for the rest of our trip here.