Hveragerði to Laugarvatn - Day 2

Date: August 20th, 2009
Distance: 52km
Country: Iceland
Song of the Day: Bath of Fire - Presidents of the United State of America

Today was miserable. Woke up late, which frankly I needed. Combine jetlag with a couple of hours of uncomfortable sleep on the flight over, plus a long first day and you need 12 hours or so. It had also been raining in the morning, and I really didn't want to get up to rain. So I kept going back to sleep until about noon. I got up, had a few Pop Tarts (very glad I brought those), and rode off. It was windy and cold, but after a mile or two I warmed up and the cold stopped bothering me. The wind was coming right across the road and threatening to blow me into the ditch. There were a couple of close calls but I never went over.

My first stop was at the town of Selfoss. For about $1.25 I was able to get half an hour online at the local library. That is where my last post came from. I also stopped at the Bonus (supermarket) to pick up some supplies. The last thing I did in town was to get a hot dog. Mmmmmm, protein.

Now here is where it began to get bad. The wind had picked up to about 20kph and the road I was on turned north, right into the wind. Oh, and it was uphill. This was pretty much the rest of my day. Struggling up hills, even forcing my way down the hills into the wind. You should really not have to work to go down a hill on a bike. About 4:00 I got to the top of one hill, and in the valley below I could see trees. You have no idea how happy that made me. Trees meant no wind. Well, at least less wind. But it didn't last, there really aren't all that many forests in Iceland. I would fight the wind basically all day. The granny gear that I thought I would never use got a lot of use that day. I don't think I have ever spent as much time in 1-1. I was kind of glad that my bike computer isn't working, I didn't want to know how slowly I was going. (Dave, one of the guys I talked to before I left, said he turned his off once for the same reason.) The wind and cold all day really sapped my spirit. But I kept thinking that if I could make it in Iceland, I could make it anywhere. I got into the town of Laugarvatn around 9:00. The only thing that looked open was a pretty fancy restaurant. I still didn't have much money (no cards), but I was dying of hunger. So I just had some overpriced soup, and it was wonderful. If I had the money I would have gone through three bowls.

It was hard to leave the restaurant. The warm and calm that I had been in made the wind and cold outside that much worse. I pushed on to the camping, and just next to the main office was a burger stand. Damn. Probably could have gotten more for less there, but it was too late. I also paid 800isk for the (windy) camping with no shower. I pitched my tent and tried to align my tent with the wind. Just when I would get a good spot the wind would shift and blow the tent over. I finally found something in the middle and crawled inside. I went to sleep listening to the wind howling outside.

-Dravis