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The Blue Lagoon and Other Respites

The Ocracoke Work Week came and went quickly and not without its usual frustration!  

The new kitchen island with the beautiful hand-painted Mexican tile never got installed; in fact, never even made it down to Ocracoke because the cabinet maker didn’t get it finished in time. Therefore, that project will have to wait until the next trip.....

The washing machine broke down after the first load which caused quite a bit of consternation (on my part) since all the bedding had to be washed.....

It took 3 attempted deliveries of 3 sheets of plywood to get one correct sheet to fix the boathouse floor which got warped during the Hurricane Matthew flooding......

2 porch chairs which had been repaired by the furniture company went missing.  Seems they got delivered to the wrong cottage.......

 The Doer accidentally drilled a hole in the gas line which precluded us from using the stove and oven until it got fixed by the gas company.....(so thankful he doesn’t smoke)

None of these issues are serious in and of themselves, except that, being on an island an hour by ferry from the mainland, takes time to schedule deliveries of things and we only had a week to be there.  So I had my annual attitude of “Is rental house ownership really worth it?” cloud my thoughts throughout the week.

Thankfully, it only takes one beautiful sunset or a long walk on a beautiful sunny day or a delicious seafood meal (and maybe a glass of wine) to restore my psyche!  We also met up with some friends that we had met a couple of years ago (the ones who own the cute fish camp cottage and the Assembly of God church that they moved and converted to a house, see previous blogs) and had dinner with them.  They were also on the island doing their annual clean up/fix up work.

By the end of the week, everything had been accomplished (except, of course, for the kitchen island), the house was beautiful, clean, and fresh and I can’t wait to go back for our vacay in June!
New bedding for the master bedroom! (Old bedding got destroyed by accident)



Gimpy, the Seagull hung out with us quite a bit during our work week at 10 Cuttin Sage.  He has a broken foot. He’s been around for a couple of years.



3 snowy egrets were in the canal one day. 



Marinated pork rib taco from Eduardo’s for lunch...yum.



This makes it all worth it!



 2 days after we returned home from Ocracoke, I was on a plane to Iceland with my daughter, The Teacher.  It was her spring break from school and she had asked if we could take a fun trip together.  So after looking into destinations like Disney World, Charleston, SC, Nashville, etc., I researched Iceland....it seems to be a happening place!  It would definitely be less expensive than Disney, so why not?  She was all for it!  We flew nonstop out of Baltimore (6 hours) and arrived at Keflavik Airport at  5:00 am in darkness and pouring snow.  She looked at me and said, 

“Why aren’t we laying on a beach somewhere?”.....  

 We spent 3 full days and had a ball!  We saw things that were “other-worldly” to us....waterfalls, geysers, hot springs, steam coming out of the earth, the point where the North American and European tectonic plates meet, slept in a bubble in the forest and ate great seafood (no surprise there!)  The seafood we ate, however, was not quite like Outer Banks seafood: we ate arctic char, minke whale and fermented shark.  The highlight for us was swimming in 2 lagoons:  The Blue Lagoon and the Secret Lagoon, outdoor swimming pools filled with geothermally heated water from the earth...100 degree water... and it was awesome.  The Secret Lagoon was the best because it was built in the 1800’s, the oldest pool in Iceland, and the landscape surrounding it was pocked with tiny geysers erupting every few minutes, boiling waterholes and steam.  Definitely want to go back!!!!




Me in the Blue Lagoon about 8:00 at night.




Thingvellir National Park where the tectonic plates meet.




Gullfoss Waterfall.



Our bubble (tent) right after we arrived for the night.



Our cute new friends from Singapore in front of their bubble the next morning. If it had not been raining we would have been able to sleep under the Northern Lights.


God has created a most amazing world!







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