Iceland - Somewhere In The Middle of Nowhere

This eighth day of travel would not be nice. I thought perhaps we'd made a wrong turn and this was actually home but home was having great weather. On top of all the rain--real rain, not misty drizzle like before, we were having to drive on a lot of gravel roads and we were headed into the middle of nowhere.

By the time we reached the turnoff onto our last gravel road, the wind wasn't just howling, it was roaring. The rain was horizontal and we slowed to a crawl in order to navigate. On top of that, there were several spots of road constructioin. We would find out later that they were working on putting in an asphalt road. Too late for us.

We finally found our destination, Laugerholl Hotel, and turned up the drive. With the wind gusting, we were reminded of the warning from our car rental guy to hang on to the doors. While the roads might rip off front bumpers, the wind could rip off the doors. We tried our best to wiggle into our all weather coats but in hindsight, we should have gotten into our rain gear jacket and pants.

Hustling around to the back of the car, Bob opened the hatchback and grabbed his backpack and the suitcase and ran for the door. If he told me he was coming back to shut the hatchback I didn't hear him. I grabbed my backpack and struggled to get the hatchback closed. An even stronger gust of wind blew the back of my coat up and then swirled inside of the car catching two rolls of paper towels Bob used to clean windows with. The bag of towels twirled in the car for a moment before soaring above my head and flying off to who knew where. I finally got the hatchback closed but by the time I made it to the door which wasn't all that far away, I was soaked.

Our hotel greeted us with sympathy and showed us to our room. I wasn't sure what to do with my jeans. My clean dry ones were in the other suitcase in the car and I wasn't going back out for them. The comforter on the bed looked nice and warm so I got out my Kindle, took off my jeans and stretched them across the top of the radiator in our room, crawled into bed.and read while the wind roared and my jeans dried.

There was no way we were going to drive back to the nearest town for dinner. It was way behind us and over that now muddy wet gravel road. So we opted for the buffet dinner at the hotel. It turned out to be the most expensive meal we would have in Iceland, about $120 for the two of us. There was a sampling of several different local dishes, a nice Waldorf salad, and breads. We just kept saying it was all worth it not to have to drive out in the weather again. And we made friends with the British couple staying the night.

The hotel which has sixteen rooms was full with two vans of visitors who I believe were from Switzerland and perhaps Germany. We would run into the Swiss a few days later at another town when we stopped for coffee. That evening as we sat in the common room where the internet was, we listened to a beautiful baritone voice entertaining the rest of his group with song. These are the kinds of things that make your travel days special.

We awoke the next morning to bright sunshine and a landscape that was amazing. No sign of the stormy weahter we'd been through and the good news--the car had been washed clean of all the mud.