icelandic camping = misery, sort of

I had an Icelandic experience this past weekend. On Friday afternoon I took off with Quart, Cliff, and Alex on a camping trip. The weather was clear but cold. We stopped for pizza in the small town of Selfoss. It’s a typical village style town but has a feel of, well-offness to it. I often wonder what kind a world view someone who grows up in such a place carries with them. Educated and literate but so sheltered. Our views aren’t built on knowing the facts. Villages like Selfoss seem to me to live in a world without pain, at least not the kind that is bigger than the human scale.
We camped at a place that starts with a TH- sound but I can’t remember its name. It was just a few kilometers past Vik and 14 kilometers back into the interior down a rough road where you have to cross a river a few times. On the way in and for the first hour after we got there the Northern Lights were out and it was cool to see them so bright. There was absolutely no other light around except for the stars.
Quart taught me to play euker and as usual with me and card games the short bus commenst started rolling. I don’t pick up things terribly fast. But, then again teams I was on won three out of four games. I did pretty well after the first couple of hours…just hard to follow at first. I’ve never seen a game where cards switch identity and there are so many rules.
We slept in two tents. My three season sleeping bag kept me warm but I felt cold listening to the icy sleet start coming down just after we crawled off to bed.
The next morning we hiked through the fresh snow ice up a steep gorge and sledded down a hill that was really too steep and ended with a ten foot drop into the creek if you didn’t crash yourself in time. We walked up to the water fall then back out to the campsite where Alex and I launched each other off of a see-saw that stood frozen in the snow. Watching the video later it looks like we were filming an episode of Jack-ass.
After see-sawing we hiked up a really high, steep (50 degree) hill which was surrpunded by higher, craggier mountains. Eventually I got freaked out by longitudinal hiking along the steep slope and freaked out. The slope disappeared and I imagined a drop off. Just back from Baghdad (where my compound is taking a nightly pounding now) I wasn’t into dying. Adventure/adrenaline stuff always makes me feel stupid when I think I could die doing it. Oahu was a close call that I don’t want to repeat again. So with shaky knees I headed back down the slope.
We packed up camp and headed back out to the highway. We stopped at the black sand beach in Vik where I filmed a commentary about Iceland. All my commentary has to do with nice place to visit but I’ll leave it to the locals type phrases. We stopped at the lighthouse in Vik and took a short walk to a cool glacier (Solheimjokull) just up the road.
We got back and it was awesome to relax around the house. Then I went to a party and the pretty girl was there and I couldn’t help but start thinking about her again, even after that dream that did me in.