The houses were amazing in Reykjavik — lots of corrugated metal and simple shapes and bright colors. There are regular homes right in the middle of downtown Reykjavik, which is a really small city. There are only about 120,000 people living there. That’s literally smaller than Beaverton, Oregon.

We decided we would totally go back to Iceland — next time, though, we’d rent a car and drive around the perimeter of the island (the interior is uninhabitable) and camp and enjoy the outdoors.

Fun fact: The highest recorded temperature in Reykjavik (of ALL time) is 79 degrees farenheit. It was in the 40s when we were there. Luckily, it barely rained at all.

We swam at The Blue Lagoon, which was cool but turned out to be a major tourist trap. We got off our motorcoach from Reykvavik and then soon realized we were being herded down a path like sheep with the entire population of a Royal Caribbean cruise ship — yikes. On the ads for the Blue Lagoon, they show this beautiful blonde Icelandic woman bathing by herself in the thermal pool. Yeah, right.

Eric made one of his classic recipes - it’s pasta shells with pancetta, asparagus, green beans, shallots, creme fraiche and butter. It’s creamy, fatty goodness and it pretty much melts in your mouth. Yum.

I worked on my forearm muscles by whipping up some fresh cream to adorn our strawberries with for dessert. It was a great meal for the night before graduation. Thanks to Danny for taking all the photos in this post!

I was hoping to be able to offer a more culinary post about how I love the food service at the zoo, but we hit the zoo at a painfully slow time and they didn’t have the AfriCafe open when we went in for lunch, so I didn’t get my favorite ZooFries. They rock.

The polar bears have been my favorite since I was little, and I saw them lots and lots of times over the years, especially the summers I spent doing shows in the zoo with the Young People’s Theatre Project, and I have never seen them as active as they were yesterday. It was amazing! They were wrestling, diving into the water and playing like puppies. Totally cute.

Because of the dreary day, though, most of the animals had the same instinct that I had when the day started - to curl up and take a nap. All in all, a fun day, even if it lacked the requisite ZooFries. Maybe next time!

After the shoot, we walked around a bit and then decided that we wanted to eat at the highly-acclaimed Kenny and Zuke’s Deli, located between 10th & 11th on NW Stark.

Kenny & Zuke’s is like a New York deli, except better. I don’t know about authenticity among Jewish delis and all that, but it’s better in that everything is very Portland-y. They make their own pickles, only serve draught beers from Oregon and will make a float with one of 50 kinds of soda (including our absolute all-time favorite, Reed’s Ginger Beer).

We just happened to be eating a little early so we could make it to a 7 p.m. showing of Slumdog Millionaire, and we hit their happy hour at the deli, which featured $2.50 pints and some great menu selections - a couple of burgers and sandwiches, a bagel with lox or a big order of fries, for instance.

The happy hour burger was scrumptious (and wholly appreciated, since I literally haven’t had a burger in a year or two) and made from high-quality beef and served with some of their homemade pickles and fresh tomatoes. The homemade buns were killer, too.

Maybe the highlight of our meal was the Kenny & Zuke’s pickle plate. It was literally a platter of pickled things - my favorite was the cauliflower, and Eric liked the tomatoes.

Eric also got the Reuben sliders, which was a lot of Reuben and really tasty and gooey. Long story short, we went off to our movie well-sated and ready to go back anytime. Go check it out!

I spent my week living in a nice room in the West Wing at the MGM Grand, which has about 5,100 rooms in total.

It was such a big hotel that in order to walk from my room to the conference, which was also in the hotel, it took about 12 minutes (yeah, I timed it). That might not sound like a lot, but I’m a power-walker. I know it was more than a mile.

The photos in this post were actually all taken on the same day - my last day in Las Vegas. I took my camera gear with me to Vegas, but then didn’t even take it out of my hotel room until the last day when I had some time  to walk the strip and take in the sights. I was way too involved in the seminars and parties to be lugging my camera around.

On that last day, I visited my favorite Vegas hotel, the Paris Las Vegas. I’m a sucker for the French thing - and it was the first place I ever stayed in Las Vegas, way back in high school on a family trip.

I love the fake cobblestones and the Eiffel Tower, and all the chandeliers and croissants. I’m a sucker for the French.

I think this has something to do with me also wanting to learn French, and wanting to visit both France (again, for longer this time) and French Canada.

On a European kick, I got ambitious and walked all the way from the MGM to the Venetian (which I was told earlier in the day was “unwalkable.”) Yes, my calves do still ache, and there’s no end in sight. I did this three and a half hour walk straight, with a 25-pound camera bag over my shoulder.

Along the strip, I caught the Venetian’s gondolas, the Mirage’s gardens (from a distance), the forum shops at Caesar’s Palace (where someone spotted Bill Clinton the week I was there!) and the Bellagio’s daytime fountain show. Then I limped all the way to New York New York (across the street from the MGM) and bought myself a huge ice cream cone.

All in all, a great conference and trade show. It’s really going to make a difference in my photography business and gave me lots of new friends in the industry. Now I’m resting up to try to make up for all the missed sleep along the way!

In order to get here, we had to cross the snow-covered coast range…

…then we spent a couple days in Portland, eating Swedish meatballs at Ikea and eating at Portland City Grill, which has the best view in town.

Anyway, it’s nice to be traveling again, even if it’s nowhere foreign. More updates soon!

While we were in our old stomping grounds, Aberdeen, I had the pleasure of shooting a wedding with the fabulous Molly from Portrait Expressions and we had loads of fun (minus the bad shoes, which I don’t want to talk about - neither do my feet). You can check out some more wedding photos from my shoot on my photography web site.

Then we journeyed back, of course, and happened to hit the Oregon Coast drive right at sunset, which was quite magnificent. We even checked out one of my favorite Oregon Coast spots - the Hotel Elliott in Astoria! I’m writing a story about them, so needed to stop and take photos.

Now we’re back at the beach, where it’s very quiet and we’re buckling down and working hard! Eric made chicken parmesan for dinner tonight with green salad, which was quite delicious. More from our exciting lives tomorrow!

Tonight, walking home from the brewpub, we were looking up at the stars and decided it was time for a spur-of-the-moment photographic adventure. Well, alright, Eric had to twist my arm a little.

We bundled up and headed up to the top of the dune ramp and started to shoot - mostly the stars, but then we realized how pretty the ocean was and caught some really cool photos.

It reminded me of our night photography post from Buenos Aires, but this time it was about 20 degrees colder!

I had the curry fried chicken, which was totally unbelievably yummy, and Eric tried the Stormwatcher’s Ale sampler, which is not for the faint of heart but a very interesting window into how they make the beer. Rest assured we’ll be eating there lots over the next month or so.

We woke up this morning to sunny skies and an almost windless day. This is pretty unbelievable for the Oregon Coast in January, but we’ll take it. It’s put us both in a giddy good mood because it’s been awhile since we’ve had an abundance of sunlight, so we’re set up to have a productive and great day. We started it with a walk on the beach, and we’re hoping to do lots of beach-y things, like curling up by the fire to read and maybe watching a movie later.

Stay tuned as we tour the Oregon Coast a bit, enjoy ourselves out here and bring you lots and lots of photos and fun stories from this quaint little beach town.