Actually, it will be three adventures in one!  My daughter, Mandy, turned 30 a few months ago so I decided we needed to do something remarkable to commemorate the event.  It took a bit of talking, but I finally convinced her partner, Kevin, that he should join us.  We have talked about going to Ireland since we made some wonderful Irish friends while hiking the Camino Primitivo, so that was our first destination choice.  Then, while looking at possible flights, we thought we might as well go to Iceland along the way.  Back in the early 90’s I worked at our Navy base in Keflavik several times, but always in the winter, always with lots of snow and hours upon hours of darkness.  Needless to say, I didn’t see anything except the base.  So this was the perfect opportunity to rectify that.  This time around we’ll have hours and hours of daylight.  Then the talk turned to “Well, we’ll be so close to Scotland, Kevin and I ought to go there afterwards and hike the Scottish National Trail.”  Sounded sensible to me.  So while they head off to Scotland, I shall return to Denmark to visit my Danish family.  After all, my Danish dad turned 95 in February and I feel so lucky to still be able to visit with him.

But that’s not all….shortly after we began booking things, Mandy and Kevin’s hiking friend, Crosby (real name of Andrew, but we all refer to him by his hiker name) came for a short visit.  We started telling him our plans and suggested he might want to join us.  He perked up saying “I’ll have some vacation time then and I haven’t been to Iceland.”  A few weeks later he wrote to say he’d love to join us for the Iceland portion of the journey, then he’ll head over to Scotland to hike while we’re in Ireland, as he’s already traveled there and has limited vacation time.  So, there you have it!

I’ll be breaking down the blog into three segments – the first will cover the time in Iceland with the four of us, the second in Ireland with three of us and finally the third in Denmark with me alone.  You’ll have to use your imagination on the Scottish hike as Mandy no longer blogs.  I’ll do my best to post every day, as this old brain is better at keeping things straight if they’re fresh in my mind.  Plus, I’ll have my new gadget, my collapsible, blue-toothed keyboard, to make writing the blog on my phone easier. And Kevin is a fabulous photographer, so you can look forward to some amazing pics along with the posts.  I’m happy to have you “travel along with me” by following along.  You’re welcome to post comments along the way, as it’s always nice to hear from my readers.  So, off we go on this next adventure!