Just FYI I’m postponing indefinitely my plans to go to Iceland until whaling has stopped.

Iceland Resumes Hunt For Endangered Fin Whales

http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/iceland-resumes-hunt-for-endangered-fin-whales/

6/22/18

I used to go to Green Bay, Wisconsin in February and March (sometimes as early as January) and, as you might realize, it can get a little nippy there. But after doing this for about 10 years, the panic over “OMG I’m going to freeze to death!” calmed down to “Why is it so freaking hot inside?”

Most of the time I ended up in a long sleeve layering shirt with a snarky T-shirt on top of that and yoga pants. When I did go outside, I had a Patagonia down sweater, and for the occasional sleigh ride (it was a vacation) I just put on snow pants over my yoga pants or leggings; whatever I happen to be wearing that day.

Special guest star: barn kitteh at the Rock K Ranch

I have it on good authority from a Green Bay resident that Iceland is lovely and now I really want to try Wow Air and their basic fare (here are a couple of people who have done this: Pam Yang and Dariadaria) and I want to use my BoardingBlue bag which meets the free carry-on requirement for Wow Air.

I’m pretty sure it will carry all I need since I won’t be camping, I’ll probably just take a day tour to see some waterfalls, do the Blue Lagoon-natch, and noodle around town taking pictures. If I can manage it, I’d like to see the black sand beach – but that is negotiable. I also really, really want to see the northern lights, but I hear that can be tricky. Well, we’ll give it a shot.
(Suggestions for fun? Leave those tips in the comments!)

I have a comfy pair of Sorel winter boots (the Waterfall model from a few years ago – tested in GB) I can wear on the plane, my snow pants, I have a thin smartwool sweater for another layer, my Marmot rain/wind layer packs up super flat and I can carry my down jacket with hat and mittens stored in the pocket. I think this will be fairly easy to accomplish.

Here’s the BoardingBlue with my snow pants snuggled in:

And then my standard packing cube o’ stuff tucked in:

I’ll bring other stuff like flip flops and a swimsuit, my travel towel, packable daypack, etc, but there’s lots of room left in my bag… though not enough for the 40 Icelandic sweaters I want to buy, but that is another issue all together 😉

Excitement. I haz it. 😉

Just before Christmas and at the end of January I lost two members of my family.

Happily, I had reset everything in my suitcase after the first funeral so I just picked about half of my previous stuff, dumped it in my bag and went back home for the second funeral. Not having to think really made a huge difference since I was not in a good place at that point.

I did get a new bag to travel with for xmas so I took this with me instead.

The BoardingBlue Personal item meets JetBlue and other US budget airlines personal (free) item as it fits under the seat. It does so easily, moreover it holds quite a bit of stuff. (I was flying Southwest, so the carryon point was moot, but I like to test drive things when I have the opportunity.)

I think it only took up about 3/4 of the window seat under seat area. It has a bunch of nice features: small zip pocket for a small phone battery and a cable (you can see it in the photo above; it has the USB icon embroidered on the flap), a water bottle pocket (VERY IMPORTANT thankyouverymuch), it expands – though it exceeds the personal item size if you do this, and a zip that opens almost fully the length of the bag. You can see below there’s a flap just inside that snaps closed to hold things in while you get your papers, laptop or tablet from the inside pocket.

I packed a few merino shirts, some leggings, socks/undies/jammies, a funeral outfit and some walking clothes so that I could go out to escape the family zoo. I also knew that I would be helping clean out my grandmother’s house, and some things would be coming home with me, so not stuffing it full was good.

I really like this bag. They’ve managed to make it small enough, still have some cool features but not overbuild it so that you can use all the available space inside well. Granted, it wouldn’t work for batcrap crazy small personal item airlines (cough RyanAir cough) but does work for Wow Air, JetBlue, Frontier etc (I made a chart! Have a looksee…) so I’ll probably be using it for my personal item when I can only take a personal item.

<whining>Also if people I know would stop dying from horrible diseases that would be dandy so I can travel for fun and not funerals. </whining>

Please consider donating to ALS research or Pancreatic cancer research.