the joy of GPS

The whole trip was a rationale to supports Chris's purchase of a new (used, really) GPS device. Maybe one day, in a desperately confessional moment, he will reveal to Regan the number of hours he spent researching and setting up this toy prior to our departure. The Garmin handheld basically provided us with real-time location (within about 5 or 10 feet), detailed maps, speed, distance to destination, gas stations, and loads of less useful (possible?) information. Exhaustive online searching provided a source for free homemade GPS maps - a bit hacked but still very usable. Chris logged critical missing way points which he will upload as a community service to improve the maps (a good thai restaurant, the national prison).  Our routes on the map are marked in YELLOW.

The third traveler. Our Route, Part I: REYK, the Golden Circle, towards Vik (click to enlarge) Our Route, Part II: Vik almost to Hofn (click to enlarge) Our walks in Reykjavik. Although the path is curiously redundant, we were only drinking a small part of the time. Our glacier drive and snowmobiling. We took the same narrow road up and down, but the GPS requires line-of-sight access to the satellites. Chris had to press the device against the window of the van to even sporadically acquire satellite data. (even I can't believe you're still reading this). The pinnacle of geekdom. The running elevation of our journey plotted against trip distance. The highest point (@ mile 500) is the snowmobiling glacier trip.