Mary Beth’s Fossavatn ski marathon race recap

After a challenging season on many levels, culminating in my father’s death from cancer just a few weeks before leaving for Iceland, I was more than ready for a nice, stress free trip with my 11 year old son, Will. Initially it appeared that the worst of the Eyafjallajokull volcano had passed, after it closed down a majority of the European airports for an unprecedented 6 days. But the week before departure, like many good volcanos do, it began spewing again. This time, instead of closing European airspace, the Reykjavik airport closed for several days. As we watched very closely, it became clear that there was no way of knowing if we would be able to land in Reykjavik, as opposed to landing in the remote Akureyri with a stopover in Scotland, until we were actually in transit. Not exactly what I was hoping for. It all depended on which direction the wind was blowing. I contacted Icelandic Air the morning of our departure and they were still uncertain if we would be able to land in Reykjavik. It wasn’t until we arrived in Boston that we learned that we would be the first flight in many days to be allowed to land. We had a similar situation when we departed. The winds gods were definitely with us on our traveling days. We weren’t so lucky, however, on race day.br /br /