Me, Myself, And Iceland

By Brian Rueb

A High School teacher/photographer experiences a mid life crisis, takes a giant leap, and goes on a life changing three month adventure to make photographs in Iceland. It covers a little about the photography, and a lot about the kinds of things that happen to an individual mentally and physically while living out of a tent for three months.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781682225059

Book preview

Iceland…

CHAPTER 1

Why Iceland?

I get that question a lot.

"Why of all the places you could go did you pick Iceland?"

The short answer is--it’s all Bjork’s fault.

In the 8th grade I was deeply into music and finding bands that nobody else listened to. This involved spending a lot of time watching MTV (back when they played videos) late at night when they played less mainstream music, and even put on shows dedicated to music from other countries. I was smitten with a band from Iceland called the Sugarcubes. More importantly, I was smitten with the exotic Nordic beauty that was the singer of the Sugarcubes, Bjork. Almost like an elf from a fairy tale, she captivated me. One of the shows I had seen profiled Iceland and the Sugarcubes. I remember seeing a country that looked like no other. They were technically a part of Europe, but due to the remoteness and small population, Iceland may as well have been a different planet.

Even after 8th grade my attention always seemed to be drawn back to Iceland. When I got into photography it was inevitable that while doing a search for landscape images I would always stumble across images of a bizarre and barren volcanic moonscape. They were always pictures of Iceland. The more acclaim I got with landscape photography, the more people I knew sent me pictures they saw on the Internet,

Hey you should check these pictures out.

Nearly every time they were pictures of Iceland.

I traveled a lot in my younger years since graduating from high school. While I went to Europe on five different trips, never once did my plans involve Iceland. I always wanted to visit, but due to the remote location, and extremely high cost of travel in the country, it never made sense for these budget trips to include Iceland. Even though I never made it to Iceland on those early trips, I still tried to figure out some way to make it work into the schedule, just to SEE it. Each time I failed to figure out an economical way to make it happen, but it always strengthened my desire to see it.

Flash ahead to 2009.

While sitting in my chair at work early in the year I was reading a comment on one of my stories that informed me, "You really need to write a book. I’d buy it."

I never truly contemplated that someone would PAY to read something I wrote, but it seemed like a nice idea. I had wanted to write something a little more substantial and made a decision that it was time to write a book. I didn’t know what writing a book entailed entirely. In my mind a book was 250-pages, at least. I knew to fill that many pages, I needed a grand adventure; an adventure big enough and long enough that I would finish with enough material. A weekend outing wouldn’t cut it, unless said outing ended in a catastrophic tragedy. The first thing that came to mind was Iceland. I had been looking at a lot of images from the country in the recent months, and this was the perfect opportunity for me to finally visit Iceland.

The one advantage I had with my job was that it allows me a big chunk of free time in the summer. Normally that time was divided into two parts. The first half is always spent recovering from the previous school year. The second half of summer is a gradual building of dread and anxiety as I count down to the beginning of the next school year. Summer we saved money on daycare and fuel costs because I was home with the kids all day. I would find some time during most summers to get out and photograph, but never anything worthy of a book. It was usually a weekend or three days here and there. Whatever project I came up with would need to take every second of my summer from the second I got out of work until the day I had to come back. It had to be big. There was one glaring problem that struck me immediately.

I would need to figure out first and foremost how to approach my wife with this crazy idea.

My wife knew I was not happy with my job; she also knew how much I enjoyed photography. Luckily my photography had worked itself into a good second income source for the family. This meant she was more understanding when I was gone on hikes, weekend excursions, and the occasional week-long effort in search of new photographs. Those were little adventures in relation to the one I was going to ask her for now. I wasn’t sure how she was going to react to my request to take off for an entire summer.

It took a couple weeks before I found the nerve to ask, and even then I didn’t ask, I was a coward and sent it as an email to avoid stumbling over words, and more importantly not being within arms reach should she have chosen to turn into the incredible she-hulk and smash me. There was no two ways about it, asking to leave my family for over two months so I could wander around in an arctic country with my camera was crazy. I expected the worst.

I didn’t even know how to write a letter requesting something that grand. There certainly aren’t Hallmark cards for that occasion. There are no ‘YOUR’RE TRYING TO GET SOMETHING CRAZY OUT OF YOUR WIFE WITHOUT DYING’ Sections in the card aisle at Target.

I drafted numerous emails that I never sent for one reason or the other. Ironically, I had writer’s block. There was no way around it, whatever wording I chose was going to be ridiculous. My final email was quite dumb and lacked any real solid case for why I should be allowed to go.

"Hey,

You know how I write all those stories, and people like them and always tell me I should write a book? WELL, I think I’m gonna finally do it. I was thinking it would be fun to go to Iceland for the entire summer and then I’d write a book about it. Wuddya think?

OK, Love you LOTS, Bye."

I REALLY expected the reply to be something like, "Hey, you should go fuck yourself…oh and enjoy the couch. I might kill you. Bye."

Not that my wife is unreasonable as a person, I just expected she’d see the request for what it was, a pipe dream, and then give me a sarcastic smack back into reality that such requests should warrant. The minute I fired off the email I freaked out.

OH shit. I actually SENT that. Oh boy. This is going to be bad. I’m going to have to come up with a defense for when she fires back her response.

Are you out of your mind? I knew some version of that phrase was coming at me after the Go fuck yourself part. I had to figure out my next volley when I got my letter of rejection back. I knew I was going to get shot down. My next plan of action was that when she sent me the letter telling me I was crazy, I would start the negotiation process and counteroffer. I would try for five weeks. Five weeks wouldn’t be the best, but it certainly would be doable when compared with three months. I sat and waited nervously all day for the email to arrive. Work goes by slowly on normal days, on this day the time moved almost sloth like.

That afternoon upon returning from lunch, I saw it sitting in my inbox, a reply. I let out a deep breath and clicked to open it.

"Hey,

GET LIFE INSURANCE FIRST. I’m not going to have you run off and die and leave me without a way to take care of the kids. Otherwise, I guess you should probably do something like this before you’re too old and frail. We’ll just need to figure out how we’re gonna pay for this trip and all the expenses while you’re gone."

Wait-- WHAT?!?!

I was in awe. Life insurance was the only stipulation? That was easy, and probably something I needed to get anyway. I hadn’t fathomed that she would say yes, so other than a bit of daydreaming, I had done no planning. I didn’t want to get my hopes up and then have it not come to fruition.

Now it was game on. I had roughly 10 months to plan and fund this trip.

I believed that to make an interesting book the project needed a central theme or mission, something to tie the whole experience together. The first few days of my research I found out that a main road ran the circumference of the country. Most of the main attractions were on this road or near this road. I figured the best thing to do would be to walk that road- The entire road. I calculated the length of their ‘Ring Road’ and it came in at a little over 800 miles total. I did the math and surmised I would need to walk almost 18 a day to walk the entire thing during the time I had. For the first few weeks of the planning that became my central focus-- I was going to walk the ENTIRE ring road.

The original plan lasted only two fantastic weeks before reality set in. The more I researched the country the more places I wanted to see. I wanted to go to the western fjords to see arctic fox and explore one of the last truly wild uninhabited places in the country. I wanted to go into the interior. Some places on the ring road I wanted to stay more than the one day I would need in order to stay on pace. The more places I added that were off the main ring road the more distance I would need to walk on the road during a day in order to complete the goal. It never gets dark in Iceland during the summer, so in theory I could walk 24 hours a day and have visibility. I added in my changes, and recalculated the math, and if I went to the outside areas I wanted to see I would have to walk almost 38 miles a day in order to still walk the entire ring road. I’m not great at math…but 38 miles in a day is a lot.

I didn’t want to walk the ring road that badly. 18 miles a day was stressing me out; 38 was nearly impossible. I changed the plan to make it more about the locations rather than the walk to reach them. I began assembling a list of all the locations I wanted to photograph. I added in the iconic spots and added places far off the beaten path. I looked through countless websites, watched hours of YouTube video, looked on travel forums for shared snapshots from other travelers from areas that had potential but had not been photographed well yet. I looked through tour books, tour websites, and emailed people who had been.

I began emailing with friend and fellow photographer David Cobb who had done a big project in Iceland where he walked from the northernmost tip straight through the middle of the country to the southernmost point in over two weeks. He said the whole hike was amazing, but he highlighted two particular roughly fifty-mile sections of the hike that he thought I should not miss. I added them to my list.

When the first month of my planning concluded I had a list of nearly one hundred different places to see. I couldn’t pronounce any of them. To try and help organize them I printed out a map of Iceland and began putting pins where each of these destinations was located. This helped me to find areas that were particularly concentrated with locations so I could prioritize my time and spend more in these areas.

Planning the trip filled my mind and all of my spare time. When I wasn’t lecturing, or working, I was at the computer adding to my lists, adding new information, figuring out bus schedules, researching walking distances, and making sure I had a solid but flexible plan. I wanted to make sure I saw the areas on my list, but allowed some extra time to deal with any inclement weather I might encounter.

I began to try and draft up a budget to pay for this adventure. It was not going to be cheap. I hadn’t really considered my costs when dreaming about the trip.

Iceland has long been known as one of the most expensive countries in the world to visit. I had heard horror stories of travelers paying $20 for just a sandwich from Subway. In looking at the prices for hostels and hotels throughout the country, I began to get quite discouraged. If I were to sleep in even the cheapest hostel and eat the cheapest meals I could find, I would be looking at well over $175 a day to travel. Most hostels were $40-$60 a night; hotels were far more expensive.

I had to make my trip cheaper.

The first bit of good fortune I had sadly came at the expense of Iceland itself. During late 2008 and 2009 the country went through the largest financial collapse in history and the whole banking system went under a massive reconstruction. The effects trickled throughout Europe and caused major strife and conflict not only in the country but abroad, as Iceland struggled with loans it had made with countries like England. Iceland had avoiding joining the European Union in favor of their own historically strong currency. With the collapse, the value of the Krona dropped, meaning the cost of travel suddenly improved. My guidebook written in 2007 had the exchange rate at only 60 Krona to 1 USD. After the collapse the exchange rate was near 120 Krona per dollar range. However much money I was able to bring with me would go farther.

In addition to travel costs I also had costs at home to worry about. When I am not home, my kids need to be in daycare or day camps of some sort. During the summer I am normally at home and we are able to avoid extra day care costs. With me gone for the entire summer finding fun activities for the kids to be a part of that would keep them from 8am-5pm every day while my wife was at work was going to be expensive- roughly $300 a week expensive.

If I was gone, I would also not be able to teach any photography courses during the summer, which meant all the extra income our family was accustomed to having during the summer to fund our extra excursions and fun would be gone as well. If I was truly going to make this trip a reality I needed to come up with some creative ways to fund this trip.

The first order of business was to figure out ways to cut travel costs. My original plan was to stay in hostels as often as I could to minimize the effects the brutal and unpredictable Icelandic climate would have on my gear and my psyche. Hostels in most countries were, under normal circumstances, a cheap alternative to a hotel only running $10-$15 a night. With hostel prices in Iceland hovering around $45 a night on average lodging could be the first area I could save money.

With much sadness I decided that I would have to camp. That meant buying a tent that was lightweight, weatherproof, and large enough to hold all my gear and me. I would sleep in this tent for a week, possibly two at a time, rain, snow, or sunshine, and then stay in a hostel for a couple days at the end of each week to dry my gear, and recover from all of the mental taxation of living in a piece of nylon.

The idea of camping got me thinking. I would be carrying all my gear in a backpack. Theoretically I could carry at least a portion of my meals with me as well. If I planned my route and knew the hostels I would use ahead of time it might be possible to get the address, contact them, and then mail some boxes of supplies there ahead of my arrival. This technique was often used by through-packers who hiked longer routes in the US like the Pacific Crest Trail or Continental Divide Trail. These backpackers would send boxes of dehydrated food and meals to various outposts along these extremely long trails ahead of their hike so when they arrived, depleted of food their next set of rations were waiting for them and they wouldn’t lose valuable time and energy deviating from the trail to go find more supplies. I set to researching, which areas had hostels that were properly spaced and near places I wanted to photograph. It was about this time that the next bit of good fortune came my way.

I had begun writing about this trip almost the second I found out I was able to go. I was telling the world, Hey, you asked for a book…and you’re going to get it! I wrote for several different websites about the project and planning. Somehow one of my articles found its way on the desk of a woman in charge of marketing for a large chain of hotels in Iceland. Due to the collapse, the economy in Iceland was hurting severely. They were trying to get creative and think outside the box in the way they marketed Iceland to the rest of the globe. Any new ideas were seen as a way to benefit tourism, and thus benefit the economy.

Alla, who works in marketing at the Grand Hotel in Reykjavik, Iceland, had found my little article on a local news website and decided to reach out. She told me they would be happy to help with my adventure and give me some complimentary hotel stays in Reykjavik at the beginning and end of my journey. I was extremely gracious for the offer, and after several email exchanges I was able to talk more about my trip and negotiate several more nights in hotels in various locations throughout the country in exchange for use of photos I took during my trip. The hotel chain had locations that were central to the points I had already selected as refueling stations. The need for hostels was suddenly erased. I could camp and hike for a week and then use the hotels as a stop to recharge and refuel. Alla also said it was fine if I sent boxes to the hotels ahead of time to use to re-supply. This was a huge relief, and also alleviated a great deal of cost from my trip.

Another method I used to fund the trip was a promotion I ran on my photography site. I wanted to give the people who had supported me so wonderfully by looking at my photos and reading my other stories an opportunity in sponsoring a portion of the trip in exchange for original one-of-a-kind prints from the trip. They had the option to pick a general theme for the image (waterfall, landscape, seascape, or wildlife) then it was up to me to come up with an image for them on the trip. I sold these slots as $250 and $500 investment choices.

I made another investment option for anyone who wanted to donate money to the cause but wasn’t able to spend the $250 or $500 I asked for. The next way people could sponsor the trip was by donating money in $5 increments. For every $5 donation they would be entered into a drawing to win a signed and matted print from the trip. I also drew up a list of gear I would need for the trip -- everything from gloves and sleeping pads to dry bags, and cooking utensils. People not wanting to donate money could instead buy a piece of gear from the needed list, help the cause, and still get a matted print of one of my favorite images from the trip. These second level prints wouldn’t be one of a kind original prints, but it would be a high quality way for me to share my gratitude for helping to support the trip.

It was a slightly crazy idea, but one that I hoped would work. It had to work. The months after my ‘Project Iceland’ site went live were exciting and unnerving, as I waited and hoped monies would come in. The first weeks’ donations were sparse but slowly they began to trickle in. I was overwhelmed with the generosity of people, some whom I had never met before. Each donation, investment, and purchased piece of gear filled me with more confidence and anticipation for the trip.

In the end my idea turned out to be the driving force in what ultimately funded the majority of the trip and generating nearly $4,000 in cash, and also provided me much of my gear that I needed. Some of the gear that wasn’t purchased by someone online I was able to get donated to me from the various companies that manufactured it in exchange for some writing or photography.

The kindness of people who enjoyed what I did was overwhelming, and in the end it was largely because of them that I was able to make this journey happen. In addition to the sponsorships, I also saved a portion of earnings from every photography workshop I taught during the year and used that to help fund the remainder of the trip and cover the added costs of daycare I would have during my absence.

The months passed and I continued to fine-tune my route, gather intel on the hikes I was attempting, and tried to come up with a final itinerary that incorporated the places I wanted to see with enough flexibility that allowed for extra camping days in certain iconic areas in case of bad weather.

Winter gave way to spring and by the last week of March my trip was fully funded, and a plan was in place. Every time during February and March that I went to the grocery store I bought some dehydrated soups, or backpacking meals. I threw them all in a shelf in my pantry. By the end of March, I had collected a nice stockpile of backpacking food. I had my airline ticket purchased, and it was now just a matter of waiting until June 3rd so I could leave work and head to the airport.

It was going to happen! It was pretty exciting. Nothing but something completely unexpected could possibly derail things at this point.

That’s when Mother Nature got involved.

On March 20th the Eyjafjallajokull glacier began spitting smoke. This in itself was not necessarily something to be alarmed about. Iceland is full of volcanoes and has a rich history of volcanic eruptions and activity. The concern for me, and those I knew in Iceland was that this minor activity might be a precursor for something more intense, something trip ending intense.

From March 31 until April 7 the volcano spewed lava in several very photogenic fountains. My contacts in Iceland told me it was what they called a tourist volcano, pretty to look at but not really too dangerous for nearby settlements. Many people showed up to see it, but other than a few farms it had caused no real damage and hadn’t disrupted much in the country. Life went on as normal. The volcano actually brought visitors to Iceland to see and photograph this wondrously beautiful natural disaster, so it was actually good for the economy.

There was some concern for possible flooding as volcanic heat melted snow and ice under the glacier. The fear is ice would continue to melt until the wall of the glaciers was too thin to support the massive weight of the melted water behind it causing a massive break in the glacial wall. The result would be a violent torrent of house-sized ice chunks and water that would flow down the rivers towards the sea demolishing anything in its path.

I kept a close eye on the situation during this time, and actually hoped it would stay like this until I arrived. Volcanoes are pretty. It would be awesome to photograph. The first images of the eruption were beginning to circulate on the internet and they were amazing, which got me rooting FOR the volcano rather than against it.

On April 11th the tourist volcano unfortunately stopped erupting. Volcanologists suspected that while one part had stopped erupting it was only leading up to something larger. In lay terms, the indigestion had stopped; this baby was about to throw up.

April 14th Eyjllafjallajokull blew its load and shot ash and smoke high into the atmosphere and the attention of the world fell on tiny Iceland; first the bank collapse, and now the volcano. The ash cloud from the volcano could be seen from space and blew into the routes flown by most commercial fights coming to and from mainland Europe. Worldwide travel was shut down for the better part of the week. Jokes from England said, HEY ICELAND WE SAID SEND CASH….NOT ASH!

The new eruption caused flooding that destroyed a large chunk of the main ring road. News stations showed reporters standing on the edge of a broken highway as a raging brown river of silt, debris, and chunks of ice raged past on its way to the sea. Other reports showed smoke and ash-covered farms and people walking around in respirator masks, and farm animals obviously suffering from extreme ash inhalation. For the first time I began to wonder if all my trip planning might have been for naught. It would be just like Murphy’s Law to let me actually get permission, plan, and fund my dream adventure, and then have the entire country get destroyed by a volcano. I began to wonder if I should start planning a back-up.

Hey, I know everyone wanted me to go to Iceland…BUT, it’s on fire so I’m thinking maybe the Riviera sounds pretty extreme.

I kept in constant email contact with the people I knew in Iceland and they kept me abreast of the changes in the volcano. I read any and all news from Iceland on the status of eruption and how it was affecting air travel. The good news was that for the most part the ash cloud was blowing east, and only affected travel going to or from Europe. Most experts seemed to think that the eruption would die down after a week or two, but fear circulated that the Eyjafjallajokull eruption would trigger a much larger and potentially life-altering eruption at the nearby Katla volcano.

Katla eruptions historically have seemed to follow eruptions at Eyjafjallajokull. Katla was referred to as the nastier bigger sister of the volcano that was now sending ash across the European flight paths. I thought it was funny that the bigger, nastier volcanoes were referred to as she. If you went only by western media, you would have believed that the eruption of Katla was a sure fire bet. A Katla eruption, it was said, could be up to 100x worse than what was happening now. News reports feared that if Katla erupted it could change the way the world traveled for months, if not years, and actually change the weather of the entire planet. It was full on Mayan end-of-days talk, without the Mayans.

Great, I thought. I had waited for years to finally get the opportunity to go to Iceland, and see this bizarre landscape for myself, and in an ironic move the very landscape I was going to see would be the one to thwart my visit. Friends on the ground assured me that much of what was being said was not correct and that local scientists had no real reason to believe that Katla was any more ready to erupt now than it had been prior to the other eruptions.

After a week, the large ash cloud began to subside, and the volcano was again only puffing out small clouds of steam on a continuous basis. The worst was over. The first successful flights began to again make their way across the globe. The rest of the world waited and watched to see if Katla erupted. I again began preparing for my trip.

The smoke cleared, lava subsided, and the world was finally able to see what had really happened. Surprisingly the volcano had very little effect on Iceland. A flood had knocked out a chunk of the ring road, but the Icelanders, having been raised on volcanic destruction are used to that type of thing and within a week a new makeshift dirt road had been constructed to repair the missing section. Loss of life was very minimal, and other than some livestock and agricultural areas facing severe ash damage, the country went right back to pre-volcano life, just as they have done throughout their existence. Weeks passed, and the longer the Eyjafjallajokull volcano sat lifeless, the less people discussed the threat of a Katla eruption. Within a month of the eruption Iceland was again back to being an afterthought for most of the planet.

While the first eruption had brought in tourists to Iceland, the long-term aftermath was very negative. A majority of the people who had planned to visit Iceland that summer cancelled their plans either out of fear of Katla, or concerns the country would be ugly and ruined with the ash from the eruption. To try and persuade people to continue to travel to Iceland they began a campaign called Inspired by Iceland. The goal of the campaign was to put people’s fear at rest and showcase how beautiful the country was, even after the eruption. The promotion would showcase photography, art, music, culture, and all that was good about the small Viking country. I offered use of my photography and trip to help in any way.

While the volcanic disaster was definitely a concern for most all of April, I still set to preparing for my trip as normal. I knew a large part of my trip would entail walking. I had two 50-plus-mile hikes alone planned during the trip. Not to mention numerous other areas were remote, and would require lots of walking in order to reach them. It didn’t seem very fun, but walking was cheap, and cost me nothing. Bus tickets were expensive, and even though I planned on hitchhiking as often as I could I had no idea how to do it, or if I would even be successful. No matter what, I was going to be hiking a lot.

"Don’t you think you should, like, get into shape or something?" My wife asked me one night.

You should run or jog…try to get in some kind of shape so you won’t die when you get there.

I looked at her with a mix of disgust, and confusion. I didn’t want to get into shape. Getting in shape is zero fun.

Ya, I guess. I offered meekly

"Oh…and take the dogs too when you go -- they could use a run." She added in.

In the beginning I would laugh at her when she asked me the exercise question, and she asked often.

Pfffffshhh! No way! I’d scoff.

But…

The more she asked, the more I had to admit, she was right. Even though, by this point I had let go of the silly idea of walking the entire ring road, my estimate was that I would still be walking an average of 15-16 miles a day on most every day. I would try to balance the walking by hitchhiking, and taking buses (only when they were absolutely needed because of time or weather) No matter how you sliced it up, it was still a considerable amount of walking.

I’ve never been much for working out or exercising, but reluctantly I decided that I would set out a minor training program for all of April and May. The training would go as follows:

Jog three miles a day for the first week. I would add a half-mile every week until I hit five miles a night, hopefully by the end of April. Once I could jog five miles without stopping I would put on the backpack and add weights to it. By the end of May I planned to be able to run 5 miles (or more) without stopping with at least twenty-five pounds inside my backpack. This would turn me into an iron man, and prepare me for any task that lay ahead. My logic was that if I could RUN five miles with weight, I surely could walk fifteen. Plus, the dogs would get some much-needed exercise too. It was a win-win.

The first night I took our slightly overweight female Golden Retriever, Roxy, for the first jog of my training. We both looked like we wanted to go out for exercise prior to starting. We even looked beautiful for the first half a block. We had a good pace. I could hear the sound of my sneakers hitting the pavement in stride, the sound of her dog tags jingling consistent with our pace. We were moving. This was going to be easier than anticipated. I looked at the dog. She looked at me. We had an unspoken feeling of pride. Healthy bodies, here we come.

Two minutes into the run I started to feel it. That hot slimy feeling that comes up in the back of your mouth. A sign you body wants to vomit. Roxy was panting, as well. Human and dog brain were thinking the same thought. This sucks.

There was no way I was running three miles on this night without stopping. Shit, I couldn’t even run one HALF mile without stopping to walk and dry heave. We walked the remaining 2.5 miles that night, and returned utterly exhausted. I looked like a rotten tomato when I came back and the dog collapsed in a lifeless heap on the kitchen floor.

That good huh? My wife said as I proceeded to ignore her and inhale copious amounts of water.

I readjusted my training and came up with a new idea that on the next night I would walk the distance between two power poles (about 100 yards) then I would jog the distance between the next two, and then repeat. Run-Walk-Run-Walk. Then the night after I would run between four power poles and walk between two…until I could get up to running the entire thing. It was going to work out fine. I just was a bit overzealous with my initial assessment of my physique. I’d be back on track within a couple days. Gotta’ ease into it.

There’s just something about running strictly for the sake of running that I find very discouraging. Running should be reserved for those times something is chasing you with mal intent, or an event is being performed that will benefit from the speed that running provides -- like baseball. Running for the sake of running, even if guised by the moniker of ‘exercise’ does nothing but ultimately get you right back where you started…only tired, sweaty and ready to vomit.

By the time the second evening of training was nearly complete, Roxy wanted nothing more to do with me, and had sat down in defiance on the road, refusing to budge, as if to say…."Screw you, you can run all you want, but I’m not training for anything other than sleeping in a fur pile on the floor. If you wish to continue this bullshit it will be while dragging my lifeless fat body behind you." I walked the last ½ mile home and had to coax her the entire way with a pace barely above a crawl. The moment my pace quickened to anything above it, she would sit down and refuse to move.

Thankfully for her, the next two nights I would be switching with our other two dogs that are in better shape and not nearly as portly. I knew they would run as long as I did. Little did Roxy know that in three days it would be her turn again, and like me, she was going to have to get used to this training. We both needed it.

The next two nights, whether motivated by a better running partner or not I do not know, but I performed better. I stuck to my walk-run-walk-run pattern and even though I cheated a little in the amount of time I walked, I still managed to jog more than not jog. The other two dogs also enjoyed the time out. I began to feel that need to vomit later each night. I could almost make it half way before my body wanted to rebel against me.

Night five came and it was again time for Roxy to take up her position as my training partner. Cautiously she approached and I put the leash on her. We walked slowly outside to the sidewalk. When Roxy realized what was going to happen, she laid down flat on the sidewalk. No amount of coaxing or tugging could get her to budge. My own dog had abandoned me. Even she knew what we were doing had no advantage. She was done. The dog had done the equivalent of giving me the finger, so I took my oldest son instead. He performed better with no training than I had with four days of running each night. (Fun Note: Months after I returned, and even at the time of this rewrite years later, she still won’t walk past the end of the driveway. I ruined her forever.)

You’re not very good at this. My son said, Aren’t you supposed to, uh, RUN?

I tried to convince him that proper rest was a vital part of any good workout regimen. He wasn’t buying it, and blamed it on me being old.

Look, I’m doing better than you and I’m only 10! He would say. That was the beginning and end of his workout time with dad.

I spent the next three days switching between the other two dogs and trying to stay focused on completing the task. Telling myself I was getting in better shape, I was going to be a machine capable of any hike no matter how tough. I told myself I was improving it sure seemed to take me less time to complete the three-mile route I had set out. My math may have been faulty, and really if it takes you 30 minutes to complete 3 miles you’re no Kenyan marathoner. The only thing I knew for sure was that each day I felt fewer urges to vomit. That much I knew. Little victories are important.

Day seven we went out for a big dinner. I’m not sure why, but I figured it was a cheat day, and I could just go home and relax and enjoy my food coma. No such luck.

You gotta go run. My wife said.

No…no…I don’t. I rebuffed

"Yes, the dogs are excited to go, and if you don’t keep at it, it won’t do any good. Look how excited she is! she said, pointing at Callie, our black mutt, who was wiggling excitedly, looking at me, knowing it was the time of day when we go for our run".

Feeling guilty, and looking at the dog’s ‘I love you SO MUCH’ eyes, I leashed her up and set out for a run. It was like I had never ever run before. Five minutes into the run, I was dry heaving on the side of the road. My insides felt like they wanted to be outsides. There was no way I was going to finish. My side cramped up, and my mouth felt like I had sucked on the business end of a hairdryer while it was on. I just opted to lay on the sidewalk for a bit. The dog just sat there next to me with this dumb dog smile. Hey why you look so funny, we have running to do! she seemed to be saying.

I still had seven more weeks of training to do before I left. I couldn’t do this crap for seven more minutes let alone seven more weeks. If I ran the same track for seven straight weeks ultimately what would I have gained? Nothing. I would still start and finish at the same point every day. Nothing was chasing me, I wasn’t winning a game by running, and I doubted I was even going to make that big of a difference in my overall stamina. I obviously hadn’t so far.

I quit and walked home.

One week into my training and it was over. The volcano had more steam, gave more effort and lasted longer than I did. The next night when my wife reminded me to go run, I told her,

No, I’m DONE.

WHAT?! You’re going to be sorry! How are you going to walk fifteen miles a day every day when you can’t even jog three!? She questioned

That was a logical point. Trial by fire, I said. I’ll walk myself into shape. When I’m there…at least it’ll be for a purpose, and the scenery will always be different.

You’re going to be sorry. She said laughing. It’s going to SUCK on those first days!

We’ll see about THAT, I thought as I opened up a carton of ice cream and set down on the couch to watch television…we’ll just see about that.

April turned to May and as May wound down and I was in the last week before departure, I started to prepare my bag for the trip. The camera was ready, my maps, and lists were all packed. I had all my gear wrapped in weather-proof bags, and I had filled up a very large box will all my backpacking food, as well as a few smaller flattened boxes I would use to divvy it up into when I arrived in Iceland.

Working on the last day of school took forever. I watched the clock all day waiting for it to end. Even though I would have to return to the misery of public education in less than three months, there’s something satisfying about the END of a year. That satisfaction is juiced up even more knowing the END culminates in the trip of a lifetime.

My wife and kids picked me up after work ended at noon and we drove to the Sacramento airport. They engaged in small talk like it was just another day, but I couldn’t really concentrate enough to even form answers to their questions, my mind was ready for takeoff. We stopped to eat, stopped to use the restroom, and all the normal things one does on a two-hour drive. Each stop annoyed me as it lengthened the amount of time until I would be at the airport. Once I was AT the airport, in my mind the trip officially began. When you have small children they need to pee often.

We finally pulled into the loading and unloading zone at the airport about two hours before departure. One would expect that a farewell like this, with me leaving my family for months it would be more sentimental and drawn out. Thanks to the September 11th, the loading and unloading zone has become the NASCAR pit stop of farewells. The traveler gets out as quickly as possible, grabs their bags, pecks the loved ones on the cheek and then retreats to the terminal. The drivers quickly get back in the car and move off on their way before the law gets involved. The whole process takes less than a minute if done properly.

I got out as quickly as possible and grabbed my backpack, which I put on fully loaded for the first time. It was really heavy. I mean, REALLY HEAVY. The straps tensed on my shoulders under the weight of all my gear. I tottered a bit and picked up the large cardboard box filled with my food for the trip. I sat the box down on the curb and went to give my family a hug and kiss farewell.

Keep moving, sir…loading and unloading ONLY sir. Said a gruff officer who was monitoring the curbs watching me and just waiting for that nano-second I set down one of my items.

I gave the family quick hugs, told them I loved them and then watched as they got back in the car. I waved goodbye as they merged back into traffic and faded from view.

I thought to myself, the trip was finally beginning.

"Sir, you can’t leave that here." The guard said interrupting my thought and pointing to the large cardboard box sitting beside me.

Uhm, I’m not going to. I need that. I said as I cautiously lowered down to pick up the box trying to keep the weight of my heavy bag from shifting, throwing my balance off, and flinging me to the sidewalk. I grabbed the box, which was quite large, and awkward but not too heavy and entered the terminal.

In order to save money I had purchased my ticket in legs. The first leg of my journey took me to Seattle. My flight out of Seattle wasn’t until 9am the next morning. My friend Aaron who lived in Seattle was going to pick me up at the airport. We would go meet up with some other friends, eat dinner, and then the plan was to do some night photography until 2 or 3 am, and then he would take me to the airport where I would wait the remaining 4 hours until I could board a plane for Boston. In Boston there would be a five-hour layover before I caught my final flight into Reykjavik.

Aaron picked me up on time, and as planned we met some of our other photography friends for a late dinner. Dinner was great but I spent most of it talking about my trip; where I was going, what I had planned, about the volcano situation, etc. I’m not sure if everyone else was so interested in what I was doing, but I enjoyed talking about it. The more I talked about it, the more excited I got. It was ALL finally happening. In twenty-four hours I would be landing in Iceland and my trip would REALLY begin.

Rain was falling hard in Seattle and any plans we had for photography that night were done in before they even began. I was comfortable spending a few hours in the airport but I wasn’t thrilled with spending ten hours in the airport. Aaron kindly agreed to drop me off at a hotel with an airport shuttle service, and that is how I found myself at a Red Roof Inn with a vacancy sign near the airport. I would be able to get a room and a ride to the airport in the morning.

I was a little bummed. Dinner was more expensive than I thought and I hadn’t budgeted in a hotel for this portion of the trip. I had not even got to Iceland and my budget was already mucked up. The going price for a last minute room in a shitty, I-need-a-pre-flight-hooker-and-sketchy place-to-dispose-of-a-body-roach motel was $95.00. Luckily as a card-carrying AAA member I saved $5.00 off the price and managed to squeak in a final price of just $89.00. When the hotel names itself after the color of its roof, you know they really take comfort seriously. The room I had smelled like a casino, and looked like the clowns that worked there decorated it. I didn’t need a pre-flight hooker, or to dispose of a body, so the room served no other purpose than giving me a possibly bug infested place to lay my head for a few hours before going to the airport. I watched a bit of television, went over my maps one last time, and then settled in to sleep. The person next to me apparently did come to the hotel for some pre-flight hooker-nookie, because it was all I heard as I drifted off to slumber.

CHAPTER 2

I don’t recall ever falling asleep, but my alarm woke me letting me know that I had. I grabbed my things and set off for the lobby where I stood in line waiting to check out while the worlds dumbest human inquired about the shuttle.

Now….what time does da bus come?

Fifteen minutes or so ma’am.

Where does it pick us up?

Right outside these doors.

These doors? She says puzzled pointing at the only doors in the area.

Yes, it stops right outside under the awning.

Fifteen minutes you said?

Correct.

What’s the shuttle look like? she asked, still not convinced she could find it.

A fucking spaceship. I wanted to interject.

It’s a typical white 15-passenger bus with our logo on the side.

Oh…says Holiday Inn.

This is Red Roof Inn.

Oh Dat’s right…RED roof Inn. She said.

Now do we check out here? She asked STILL not satisfied with the morning’s events.

I waited for the clerk to pick up a baton from under the desk and smack her in the brain. But he was employee of the year, and handled it all far better than I would.

The upside to the interrogation was that it took forever and by the time I checked out, the shuttle arrived, and I was off to the airport.

My flights were all smooth. I boarded my morning flight without issue and my arrival at Logan International was smooth and without hassle. I briefly considered leaving Logan International Airport to go to downtown Boston and have some chowder. With only five hours between arrival and departure it seemed like a big gamble to me. What if I didn’t make it back in time? Given the amount of uncertainty, and a severe lack of knowledge of the Boston area, I decided to stay in the airport and partake of the exquisite food court selections.

I boarded my last flight on Iceland air. My excitement level grew instantly. This was an ICELANDIC airplane. It was GOING to Iceland. I sat down in my chair and immediately examined all the flight attendants’ nametags to try and discern if they were Icelandic as well. I’m amazed at how easily entertained and excited I am by stupid things. I’m not sure if they were all from Iceland or not but their names had accents over certain letters, so it had to be true. Once I was confident my flight staff was Icelandic, I began to look at the in-flight reading materials, and the wonderful in-flight entertainment device.

There was a special selection in the music part of the device full of music ALL from ICELAND! They even had a Sugarcubes album on there! How bizarre and strangely fitting! I listened to as many of the different Icelandic bands as possible during my flight. I wondered how many of these bands I would get to see in concert while I was there. I ordered a soda from the flight attendant. When it arrived I turned and read the can.

‘Made in Iceland.’

So. Fucking. Cool. My soda had been to Iceland before!

I couldn’t sleep the entire flight. I watched out the window as we flew over Greenland, looking at the patterns of fractured ice sheets underneath my window miles below. I strained my neck to look out towards the horizon looking for Iceland. Where is it?!

Ironically while I was flying, the hours didn’t seem to be. I watched Icelandic movies on my little TV screen. I had no idea what was going on, but it had to be awesome. I played the Icelandic trivia game on the in-flight television. I talked with anyone who sat near me that had an ear or appeared to be listening.

"Oh..you’re going to Iceland? I would interject. ME TOO!….How long are you going? Oh, two weeks…that’s great. I’m going for THREE MONTHS!"

See ME! Look how awesome I AM!

When the pilot finally came on the intercom to say we were preparing our descent into Reykjavik, I wanted to scream WHOOOOOOOOOHOOOOO, stand up, and do a jig, but I reined in the excitement and just watched as the tiny speck of land got closer and closer. The bizarre landscape began to finally take shape. The weather was grey and moody, just like I dreamed it would be. I looked out my window; a barren, flat, mossy volcanic moonscape, with a deep blue ocean slapping at the coast. It was strange and beautiful. My eyes darted back and forth to take it all in. Then I saw a golf course, which kind of threw the whole otherworldly vibe I was grooving on right out the window. They golf?

Oh yeah, I reminded myself, they’re people -- not mystic elves and hobbits.

The plane landed and I impatiently waited my turn to exit the aircraft. MOVE. MOVE. MOVE people! I exited the plane and then sped like a running back through the crowd and out into the hallway of the airport. I looked over every Icelandic poster and advertisement I could find. What is that? I want that? What is THAT…oh I WANT THAT! Ooh OOOOH Where’s THAT…I’m going.

Bad. Ass.

I was directed by security outside to a waiting shuttle that would take me to the baggage claim area and customs. I stepped outside and before boarding the shuttle I, for the first time felt the cool Atlantic air, and took in my first breaths of pure Icelandic air. I made it!

Customs turned out to be less interesting than I hoped. I wanted them to ask me about my trip so I could delve into details how I was here to help save the economy…and promote the goodness of the country. I wanted trumpets and fanfare for my arrival.

They looked at my passport, looked at me, looked back at my passport and stamped it, and then moved me along. My luggage came out very quickly, and I didn’t’ even have time to go wander the duty-free shop I had been eyeing while at the suitcase conveyer-belt. While leaving the airport I went through one final customs checkpoint where a guard asked me one very odd question.

Do you have any meat with you?

"Do I have any meat with me?" I repeated

Yes, are you bringing any meats into Iceland? he asked as it were a question people get all the time.

No. No meat. I said

He gestured his hand, gave a slight smile, and moved me on. I went out to the main lobby area where the shuttles services were located, and people waited to pick up passengers. Thanks to our Facebook interaction I was able to recognize Alla, and she me. It was nice to finally connect face to face after months of planning and emailing. She asked me about my flight, and if I was tired. I said no, I was ready to go. She asked if I would be interested in attending a birthday party for a coworker that night and then heading into town for the nightlife afterwards.

YES!

I loaded my bags in the back of the service vehicle she had taken to come get me and we set off for Reykjavik. On the ride to the hotel Alla pointed out different landmarks and important buildings in and around the outskirts of Reykjavik. She pointed out the home of the president, which looked very nice and was on a lush area of greenery next to a small bay.

There’s no fence or anything around it? I asked

NO…anyone can go there. She responded very matter-of-factly.

"You mean you can just go there?" I asked

Yes. Do you want to go there? She asked in a serious tone

I did. We pulled into the parking area of the house. I actually wandered around the president of Iceland’s front yard. Alla didn’t think he was home, but I could see people working in the kitchen window. For some reason my first thought was, I wonder if he gets Trick-or-Treaters?

I explained to Alla in the US there would be NO way that this could happen, and that it was really strange to me to be walking around the President’s yard. I really wanted to go knock on the door and see if he was home, and get a picture taken with him, and then upload it to my social media outlets.

Then I could say I MET THE PRESIDENT on the FIRST DAY!

Thankfully Alla said she thought he was in Europe handling the recent financial issues, or I might have gone and given it a go. We loaded back into the service van and set off for downtown.

We pulled into the parking lot of the Grand Hotel and I was blown away. It’s easily one of the top if not the top hotel in Iceland. It sits just off the main portion of town, a giant glass skyscraper, easily visible from anywhere in Reykjavik. I had seen photos of it online and it looked very nice, but really nothing prepared me for reality. I grabbed my bag and my large box and walked towards the doors. A giant revolving door acts as the main entry to