We knew we needed to wait until the JFK flight arrived a little after 9:00 AM to get our luggage from baggage claim, or “reclaim” as they call it in Iceland. We had about 90 minutes to wait so we headed into the duty-free shop to look for some wine to purchase to take with us. We picked up four bottles and confirmed it was less expensive than the state-run store prices, which we had heard to be true before we left. We headed to self-checkout and the machine wanted to scan our boarding passes, which we no longer had on our phones since the flight was over. An attendant came over to help and told us this was the duty-free store for departing passengers, our was in baggage claim, and had a much greater selection of wine and beer, well who knew there were two stores.
We headed to baggage claim and the store was much larger and did have more selection. We found everything we had picked out upstairs and made our purchase, and did not need a boarding pass here.
We still had about an hour to wait on our bags, but the flight was actually a little early, and then baggage started coming out. It took a couple of loads, but eventually, we were happy to see our bags. It was nice that we had been able to track them on the Delta App, so we know they were scheduled to be put on the plane that was arriving this morning, the same flight we were supposed to arrive on yesterday.
We headed out of the terminal and called the CampEasy number for the shuttle to come and pick us up. We headed out to what we thought was the parking lot, but soon figured we had headed 90 degrees to the left from the way we were supposed to go. They said go past the four metal statues outside, but we did not see that the door we left headed in a different direction than the main exit doors, and that threw us off. We eventually made it and waited for our pickup, which came about 10 minutes later.
We had to wait on one other couple, but a few minutes after we loaded our luggage into the shuttle van, we were off to their rental lot.
We were given a tablet that was going to be our info guide and navigation device for our rental. We had to watch three movies about the rental, and some specific info to the particular camper we were renting.
After that, we verified all of the paperwork and signed the rental agreement, and were given the keys to the campervan. It was exactly as described and as shown in the photos for the Luxury 4 x 4 Camper. It was pretty big, and somewhat tall to get inside of. We spent some time looking through it, and then went to gather up all of the extras we had chosen to go with the rental, some for a fee like the Porta-potty and the gas grill, and some were free like extra bedding.
We took it all out to the camper and loaded it up with all of our luggage. We were planning on going to the two largest grocery stores, Bonus and Kronan, which happened to be in the same parking lot, go figure.
We bought most of the items we needed at the Bonus store, but also visited the other store mainly to see their selections, and also to pick up some Diet Coke for Stephanie which is hard to find here. We happened to see a whole 12-pack on the pallet that the person was emptying to place on the shelves, so we took the entire pack.
After that, we headed to get some lunch at a Subway in the same store area, it was just convenient and quick, but pricey.
I had thought there was a camp supply store nearby, I had read about it somewhere, but when we did a Google search, we could not find it, maybe it is called something else, but our search did not provide us with any results. There was one place, but it did to appear to be what I had thought, and it was more toward Reykjavic.
We decided to put away some of the food and unpack our suitcases while we were in the parking lot of the stores. That was when we found that a lot of items in Stephanie’s suitcase were damp to wet, mostly on one side. Apparently, Delta had left our suitcases out in the rain when we finally arrived that early morning. We were not happy. We set the damp items around inside the camper, hoping they would dry while we were driving with the heat on.
We headed out, deciding to go to the Costco in Reykjavic, mainly just to see what they had different from our stores and maybe to pick up a few items if we saw something we wanted to take with us that was not too large in volume. It was not too far of a drive and was in the same direction as the first campground we wanted to stay in tonight.
It was not bad driving the CamperVan, it handles well and does not seem too large at least from the driver’s seat. Most of it is behind us, so is is not much different than driving a large SUV. It took us a while to figure out where things were upfront.
We got to the Costco without any issues, but it was packed. We had to park way off to one end to find a spot large enough to park the van. It drives well but has a terrible turning radius, so it is hard to get it into a single-width parking spot without really making a large arc, and generally, there is not enough room in a standard parking lot for that to happen. We ended up mostly none spot but hung over a little into the next one. There were other large campers in this area and they were all doing the same thing, taking up more than one space.
It was a long walk into the store. It was arranged inside similar to a store in the USA, but with one noticeable difference, there is no wine section since all of the liquor has to be sold at the state-run store. We did not spend a lot of time there and noticed a few different items, one being packages of cooked octopus, and long tentacles inside of a sealed package. We thought about getting some to grill, but yeah not really.
Next to Costco was one of the liquor stores, so we headed inside to look around. We did see that we had gotten somewhat better pricing at the duty-free store, maybe 10-15% less. A 3L Box of Barefoot Pinot Grigio was the equivalent of about $54.00, ouch. We did not purchase anything.
Next door to that store was a large Bonus Grocery, so we headed inside, mainly looking for some white pasta sauce. We had seen some refrigerated tortellini in the Kroner store but had not purchased any because we could not find a white sauce to put on it. It was just like the other Bonus, no white sauce is all with their other pasta sauces.
We finally stopped at the Costco gas station and topped off our diesel fuel. I had read it was the best price for fuel in Reykjavic, and it must have been true, the lines were fairly long to get to the pump.
The next task was to find an ATM to get some cash for the first-night campground, they only took cash for payment. Stephanie entered “banks nearby” into her phone and there was a bank not too far away, at least by Google Map standards. It was in the same direction we were heading to the campground, so it was not far out of the way. We arrived at the location but did not see any ATM in the parking lot in the back. We headed around to the front and were able to tell that it was a bank building, and finally saw an ATM sign.
We parked and I headed inside to get some cash from the ATM. I was not sure how much to get, so I first put on 20,000 Krones, and it was the equivalent of about $150.00. There was a 300 Krone fee to get the cash. I thought that was too much to get, so I changed it to 10,000 Krones, and got a single 20,000 bill. I thought that was too large so I headed inside the bank to see if I could get some change. The lady in the bank took me back out to the ATM machine to show me another machine next to it which made change. It was pretty slick, you put in all of the increments you wanted, including change, and then inserted your bill, and out came the change. I selected 2,000 in 100 Krone coins, and the remaining as 1,000 bills.
With that taken care of, I headed back to the van and we headed out. I realized I had forgotten my cheap shower flip-flops we had purchased from WalMart at home, they just never got set together with all of my clothes. There is a WalMart equivalent store here, and we had seen a couple, but I had just remembered about the shoes now. Stephanie found one nearby in a really small town, so we headed there. At first, we could only find children’s sizes, but then we found adult shoes in a really small area of the store, There was one set that almost fit, but it was the largest they had, so we made the purchase. We found a small bottle in the store and purchased that in case we found some of the pasta later on. It is quick and easy to cook, perfect for camping.
Finally, we were set to head to the campground. It was not too far away, and we were there in about 45 minutes. We headed into the reception office and checked in. They apparently only had one space left with electricity and it was next to the small building with two toilets and a couple of outside sinks. I asked if we could be farther away but the other spaces were either already reserved or were for smaller campers. We paid and headed to the campsite.
The site was actually nice, and we found later that it was OK to be next to the bathrooms, even with all of the people there at times. It was convenient to look out to see if anyone was in line since there were only two toilets in their facility. There was a larger bathhouse in the campground, and it also had showers. The sites were all covered with outdoor turf, I guess to help when it rained to keep down the mud.
We backed into our spot so we would have our side door away from the camper next to us that had their door on that other side. The only place to plug into electricity was at the bathroom bounding, and we hoped our power cord was long enough. The only issue was that we were having trouble finding out where to plug into the van itself. We could see from the power cord that it was a small three-prong plug but could not find it anywhere. Finally, I just happened to see a really small plug cover on the front bumper, and when I opened it, it was the plugin. Our cord was fairly long and we easily reached the bathroom area that had the camper plugins. We could not have been much farther away, it would not have reached.
We set up our table and chairs outside and sat down to relax with a glass of wine, now cold from being in one of our two small i12V iceboxes. By this time, the sun was shining a little so we put out some of the damp clothes to dry.
After relaxing a bit, we headed to the bathhouse to take showers. The shower was nice and there was plenty of warm water. It was a bit tough keeping everything dry, there were not enough hooks for our clothes. Since there were only four showers, we shared one to lessen the number we were using.
After showering, we decided we would cook some pasta for our first dinner. There was a small kitchen next to the bathhouse, so we decided to cook there instead of inside the van saving or gas supply. We took some points and the pasta and sauce over to the kitchen to cook. We had to wait on a burner, there were two hotplates, each with a small and large burb=ner. One was in use and one was partially in use, but we learned that one burner on the one was not working. We had to wait a bit, but finally were cooking the pasta and heating our sauce. We had no strainer for the pasta and tried to use a lit to strain the water, somewhat successfully. We covered our pots with foul and headed back to the van to eat. It was a good meal, and we had some bread with butter to go with it.
We enjoyed a little more wine and then called it a night. Of course, it was still daylight outside, so we had to close all of our curtains, and then we had to figure out the bed, and the sheets. It was not too hard and we were finally settled in for our first real night of sleep in two days. The bed is about the size of a double bed, so it will take some getting used to since ours in king size at home, but tonight, we were too tired to even notice.
I did have to get up once in the night to go to the bathroom, and it was nice that it was so close and convenient.
Tomorrow, we will decide on our direction of travel, clockwise or counterclockwise, and head out.
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