“Home is where the wifi is,” goes the saying. I guess this town is a little slice of home.
Before leaving the hotel I placed my camera on the windowsill and took a picture of myself against the blank hotel wall. I could crop this down and make something approximating a passport photo if I had no other option.
In the hotel lobby I managed to harass the printer into spitting out the last two pages of my bank statement, then a tiny passport-size version of the photo I took upstairs. The color was horrible. This would probably not work…
I rode two doors down to the bank, and hit the ATM outside it. I extracted 12,200 in Icelandic cash, then marched into the bank and had the teller wire it to the visa processing center. I asked for a receipt, which I added to the stack for the application.
Next I rode over to the restaurant and bought some pre-packaged fish for eating on the road, and then went across the main street and down a block to the post office. Time to send some gifts to some nephews!
I drew a little card to go in the box, including an anachronistic horned bicycle helmet:
Maybe I really should find some goat horns and glue them onto the helmet…
The package was expensive to ship, but nephews are worth it.
I also found a large envelope that was perfect for containing my visa paperwork. As I paid the bill I asked the woman behind the counter if she knew where I could get a passport photo. She led me outside and began pointing at streets and talking in Icelandic, so I handed her my phone and she pointed at an icon on the map that was right next to my hotel. It appeared to be the computer store I’d been looking at the other day.
I rode over there, marched inside, and repeated my question about passport photos to the clerk, a big bearded man in a smart red vest. He smiled and said, “come with me,” and waved his arm toward a door leading into the back. I noticed that he had a tattoo on his forearm reading “CANON”, in the same lettering used by the Canon photography company.
There was a full photo studio in the back room, with a neutral backdrop set up for taking passport photos. This solved my problem nicely! And no doubt it’s here because I was far from the first person to have this problem.
While the clerk powered up the hardware I asked him about the tattoo. “Yeah, I was drunk at a concert,” he said by way of explanation. “But this guy from Canon saw it on my arm and said he wanted my contact information, and then he sent me a whole computer in the mail!”
“Fantastic!” I said.
Snap snap, grin grin. Wink wink nudge nudge. “The photos will be ready in about half an hour,” he said.
I rode back to the restaurant and ordered a sit-down meal, thinking about how lucky I was to discover all these resources. Free use of a printer, passport photos across the street, a bank of the same kind required by the consulate right next door – with an ATM – a post office across the way, and then at the top of the hill a few blocks along the way to my next destination: The office where I need to drop off the finished application. All within walking distance if I didn’t have the bike. Or dumb luck? Or thoughtful civic planning?
I scooted up the hill to the visa office with my envelope. There was nobody in line.
Half an hour later it was submitted, and then all I could do with respect to the visa was wait. Maybe this office would sit on the paperwork for a few days before sending it to Reykjavík for evaluation; maybe not. Maybe they would reject the whole thing on a technicality. We shall see!
Back at the hotel I chatted with friends about American culture in Iceland. They were amused by my photos of the 50’s-style “Skalinn Diner”. Andrew pointed out that you’d actually need to look pretty hard to find retro American dining among the hundreds of restaurants all around the Bay Area back home, but it was there, in the form of Mel’s Diner and Fenton’s. Or you could go for the lowest-common-denominator modern version, with Denny’s and IHOP.
The conversation went kind of sideways from there:
Me
So is there any 50’s-style dining by your house in Crockett?
Andrew
Not on purpose.
Me
Hah! Maybe the big franchises are scared of the name. “Crockett.” Like, is that a verb? Is that something you do to food?
Andrew
It’s a weird name.
Me
It kinda sounds like the name of a detective from some old TV show.
Andrew
Yeah, there should be a 70’s TV show called “Crockett and Gooch”, and of course Crockett drives a pickup and wears cowboy boots.
Me
And Gooch is an orangutan.
Andrew
That drives a Trans-Am.
Me
And at the end of every episode, Crockett lights up a cigar and Gooch smacks it out of his mouth.
“Next week on Crockett and The Gooch: Crockett goes undercover to bust up an animal smuggling ring, and Gooch is incognito at the zoo. Can they catch the tiger by the tail before Gooch becomes a stuffed animal? Don’t miss this ape’s Great Escape! Wednesdays at six, on K-DIC: Your local loss leader.”
I told James about this, and he got in on the act:
James
Alternatively: Crockett And The Gooch is the most celebrated country radio station duo on this side of the Mississippi.
Me
Like, a wacky radio DJ duo?
James
“Welcome back to K-ROCK (k-rock) 106.5 (.5), for your morning dose of do-si-do, I’m Crockett and with me today as always is the Gooch (the gooooooooch).“
“We’re gonna be bringing you the rowdy rural rabble rousing country cowboys’ craziest concoctions for your commute, so get ready for “McGurket and the Tin-Whizzlers” new toe-tappin tune “I Just Ran Outta Beer, and the Truck Ain’t Real Near” comin to yooo on the 5 (on the fiiiiiiiive).”
Me
Oh my god. “Ya hear that Gooch? We’ve got radio DJ alter egos!” “Ook oook!” “Yeah, and it’s the perfect music for chasing down these drug traffickers!” “Oooook!” VROOOOOOMM. “Whoah slow down you crazy ape!”
James and I got to wondering: Did Icelanders’ exposure to American radio extend to crazy DJs? Because that would be awesome. I would love to hear an Icelandic take of a crazy radio DJ.
Sjanni is a great fellow and I wish I’d had more time to spend with him!
I was looking forward to today’s ride because it included a tunnel – the Fáskrúðsfjarðargöng – 20,000 feet of road straight through a mountain and open to cyclists.
I stopped in town for some breakfast and email with nephews. One of them was feeling despair over the state of the world.
It’s difficult to pay attention to work when the world is slowly ending. I can’t stop seeking information about the collapse. I wonder if I’m crippling myself by going to college to get a degree that might not be worth all that much and it might not matter if the country has burned down yet or been flooded or both. Also corporations are buying all the houses here so I’m fairly certain I’ll be renting my whole life. I’m sure my 20-something endocrine system isn’t helping here either.
I thought for a while, then emailed back:
Civilization and the planet will survive while you to spend some time concentrating on your own development and diversification. It’s a process and you don’t need to tackle it all at once or figure out where it should go. Take it one step at a time, one day at a time.
What I didn’t say at the time, was that I could remember being his age many years ago, and overhearing my sister – his mother – expressing the same frustration and despair. And I remember our Dad replying with pretty much the same advice.
That gave me two interesting thoughts: First, that young people are always prone to think the world is ending, because they haven’t been around long enough to see otherwise. So conversations like this will happen forever, no matter how good or bad things get.
And second… How much worse was this, centuries ago, when the world seemed to be at the mercy of inscrutable gods, and people usually didn’t quite live long enough to learn that the world would carry on past their own hormone-addled youth?
That’s the morbid angle on this “wisdom”: It truly sets in when you witness people your age – or even younger than you – dying, and then observe years, then decades, of the world continuing without them. And perhaps not into a future they would have expected, but in some way that’s real enough, and teeming with other living people who still have to deal with it.
This global pandemic business. Great for the soul, yeah? Ugh. Interesting times — who needs them!!
Today’s route appears to go straight up over a mountain! No wait, that’s a tunnel.
And there it was… The portal down into darkness. I didn’t realize until I got this close that the tunnel slopes downwards from here, for the entire run. A good idea for drainage purposes, and also for dramatic effect. It feels a whole lot like descending deep into the earth.
10 whole minutes of coasting silently downhill into the mountain. Very trippy.
And then, off I went. The slope seemed to grab the bike, and the cool air being drawn through the tunnel by the turbines on the ceiling streamed over me, making it feel like I was going faster. I had a brainwave and put on some music from the Skyrim soundtrack: The chanting and drumming of Sovngarde. I had plenty of time to play through the entire track, because 20,000 feet of tunnel is nearly 3.8 miles (6km). At a breezy 15 miles an hour on a bike that’s fully 15 minutes of creeping downward through solid rock, imagining that I’m on my way to some eldritch ruined city abiding in total darkness, teeming with ghosts and adventure.
I love being a nerd!
If you look close you can see the tunnel I came out of.
If you look close you can see the tunnel I came out of.
Once I was out of the tunnel, I paused for a look back. The exit was clearly lower on the mountain than the entrance, making the mass above it even more impressive.
The town of Reyðarfjörður was on my right, sporting some nice waterfalls and snacking spots, but I was too interested in forging ahead over the hills to Egilsstaðir, where the next room was booked. The wind could turn against me any time, and I didn’t fancy another late night on the road.
I was tempted to walk over and put my feet in, but I figured the water would be far too cold, and my socks would take far too long to dry.
If I’m reading the sign correctly, the motorist was only 16 when she died here.
The rest of the journey was a slow pedal against mild headwind, through a narrow and relatively featureless valley. I say featureless, but it was still very pretty. I listened to a podcast about world economics and kept on cranking.
I arrived at an intersection, and suddenly realized that for the first time in many weeks, I’d crossed my own path from 2019. Once again I was in Egilsstaðir.
Time to find more snacks!
Here’s a place that looks like it can serve up a lot of calories.
Snack-laden, I found my hotel and wrestled all my gear up several floors to the room, including the bike. It was good to be indoors and warm again, and the food gave me enough energy to put in some work hours before falling over.
I now had less than two weeks remaining in Iceland, and I was about 60 miles (~100km) away from the port city of Seydisfjordur.
I could have potentially sailed out a week earlier, but I wanted to give myself time to file visa paperwork in Egilsstaðir. I could pedal hard and be there in one day, but then I’d just be hanging around waiting for the visa office to open. So why now slow my roll?
I went back down the street into Stöðvarfjörður and got breakfast, then marched around the little park next to the Fish Factory, soaking up sunshine and drinking a weird soda.
The good weather continued out on the road. I kinda missed my cat, so I listened to Cat Sense as I went along. It’s a book I like to revisit, since a little more of it sticks each time.
I came around a curve and saw an island that my cat would absolutely love:
I don’t know what this island is called. Can’t find a name for it on any map.
See all those dots? Every one of them is a bird nest.
My destination was a guest house in Fáskrúðsfjörður – not so far away – so I pedaled slowly and enjoyed my snacks, and watched the prolonged magic-hour light give way to a comfortable gloom.
Another fishing operation, with Fáskrúðsfjörður in the distance.
The traffic was sparse all day. It seems odd that a country filled with tourists, whose highway system is organized around one giant ring, would have less traffic in one place than another. Don’t all the tourists eventually drive all the way around the island?
Turns out they don’t. The northeast part of the island is much less popular, and most folks turn around in their rented cars and head back rather than doing a loop. I was now in the southeast, and beyond all the big attractions. The only traffic was from locals, and tourists who were using the ferry boat, or actually doing the loop.
The calm road let my eyes wander, and I saw many an informative sign.
Building a road is often something that happens in long intervals.
I finished the last of my Warlock Holmes, and switched over to a book about Norse mythology. It was a bit clinical. Too many names and undifferentiated battles, not enough context. It was more fun to switch back to the Skyrim playlist and imagine a gigantic Odin stomping around the fields, drop-kicking sheep and blasting holes in the mountains.
A view all the way up the valley to the start of the river, where the glacier originally came down and carved it.
In the late afternoon I passed into a town advertising Petra’s stone collection, a popular tourist spot. I’d already toured a similar collection though, so I gave it a pass.
I’m not enitrely sure how to interpret the drawing on this sign.
One of the locals told me about a campground on the east side of town. They said the bathrooms there weren’t working, so I could just stay there for free if I liked. I rolled over there and it was a great patch of flat ground with a stand of trees to cut the wind.
The bathrooms were closed at this tiny campground, so the manager of the local store said I could stay for free. Very Iceland.
I appreciate the intention here, but this map is actually really confusing.
I warned the waiter I would be there for a while, and he shrugged and said, “You might be our only customer for most of the day. It’s really slow right now.”
That was good. My video meetings wouldn’t bug anyone.
I adore any store that sells a carrot cake with four layers.
Once again I’m the only diner in the restaurant. The tourist season ends really abruptly here…
I finished with those, then wrote code and ate snacks for about five hours. Eventually I switched to email and texting with the folks back home.
As the daylight waned, my sense of isolation grew, and it brought along a rare feeling of homesickness. My digital connection to loved ones felt inadequate. Good enough for a while, but not long-term. I knew this feeling would grow with time, and as it did, perhaps I would reach a threshold where all online communication felt as insubstantial as it really was, and I’d have to return home or lose my sanity. Making friends along the way isn’t a near-term option when you’re constantly on the move.
As I rode back to the hotel, I started obsessing about social media, in the impotent way I often do. Most people in my home country get their news from social media feeds now. And without really understanding it, they’ve become vulnerable to bad actors working from far away, who can change or just rearrange their information for some economic or political purpose. The centralized nature of large-scale social media companies makes it easy to interfere in consistent and opaque ways.
An image formed in my head, of friends and family gathered in a living room having a lively conversation. In the center of the room is a chair, and in it sits a person wearing an expressionless mask. The person hears every word of the conversation. Occasionally they raise a hand, and whatever person is speaking is suddenly muted. Their mouth continues to move, but instead of the words they’re saying, a political opinion from a complete stranger, or an advertisement for a carefully chosen product, goes into the ears of everyone else. No one notices. The mind’s eye pans outward, and we see similar chairs in every room in the house, including bedrooms and bathrooms. Masked strangers are stationed outside as well, and at regular intervals up the street. No one sees them.
It sounds like the premise for an outlandish horror film — perhaps something directed by John Carpenter and starring a charismatic pro wrestler. A scenario that people would, upon discovering in the real world, feel immediate revulsion at, and begin fighting. The strangers in the chairs would be knocked down and shoved into the street. And yet, this is effectively the world we occupy, and we collectively embrace it because we can’t imagine these anonymous strangers doing something counter to our interests. Or perhaps, we feel like they’re so powerful already that there’s no alternative…
Back at the hotel I tried to push the vision out of my head and relax. Something big would have to be done, some kind of regulation or trust-busting, and my latest round of obsessing wasn’t going to conjure a solution. I packed my gear for an early start, and wandered deep into the ambient music in my little fold-up speakers.
