It could have been worse, John.... a lot worse.

To start off, we're safe and dry as I write this, so it didn't turn out too badly. On the other hand, I wish our first full day in Iceland had gone a bit more smoothly

Our first AirBNB host from last night was an interesting guy, full of stories about being stationed all over the world with the US Marine Corps and Air Force (always trying to find somewhere with fewer trees - he likes Iceland so much he retired here and his entire family followed suit). We were then on our way to our first attraction - a hot spring which we completely failed to find despite looking for about 45 minutes along some pretty rustic gravel roads, in the rain.

No hot springs here

This was the majority of the picture taking for the day, trying to stay dry

So, on we went to Geysir - the original namesake for an exploding waterspout. While Geysir has been dormant for years, there are a bunch of hot springs and spouts in the area, and a "new" geyser named Strokkur puts on an awesome show every 5 minutes or so - we got lots of great pictures here! We were not brave enough to stand in the path of the hot spray, though some were.

Kablooie!

 The eruptions were so big we first saw them from the car about 5 minutes away! Here are a few more pictures:

So that part of the day was pretty neat. We also figured out that the DSLR had been set to a low quality setting early on in the trip - I'm grateful that this wasn't found out after we were gone!  We had a quick car-lunch of peanut butter and triscuits brought from home (you would not believe how expensive everything is here). We then went on to Gullfoss, a triple waterfall in a canyon just up the road. Check out how picturesque:

Eat your heart out, Niagara Falls

It was while we were looking at this beauty that the wind started to pick up, and I realized I left my lined coat at our AirBNB. Okay, so I'll layer and look funny for the rest of the trip, at least we are circling back to the same host next week and the coat isn't gone forever or forcing us to backtrack. So then we head down to the south end of the island to catch the ferry to Vestmann Island, where we have plans for our accommodations and dinner, and touring around the next day to see the lava museum, puffin sanctuary, etc, before heading back to the mainland and continuing around the ring road.

Except, as we pull in to the ferry at 8:30 for our 10:00 crossing, the ferry staff are leaving - they were making runs all day, but have cancelled the last one due to safety. So we're in the parking lot, basically in the dark, with no buildings around (and no food), with the wind starting to howl and shake our rental car, and we realize this is not good.

Cue panicked calls and messages to our host (who refused to refund our prepayment - luckily AirBNB agreed we did not possess the powers of levitation or teleportation and have since refunded most of our night's fee), and to hostels and accommodations in the area, all of which are booked or not answering the phones. Sleeping in the car amongst the bags and the gale-force winds is starting to look like a real possibility. Luckily, we reached our new best friends at the Hostel Gaulverjaskoli in Selfoss, who agree to stay up late to take us in at 11:15 pm.

We backtrack the 90 minutes in the car, finding the one gas station along the way that is still open and has food (a king's lunch and dinner of a loaf of bread and packaged salami totalling $15, later accompanied by our duty-free wine from Pearson), and we decompress. After we unpack the car, leaning against the wind all the way... hilarious video to follow.

 The rest of our accommodations are booked around the ring road, so we've missed our shot at the island. But as Justin pointed out (a much more seasoned traveler, and patient and trying to cheer me up despite my sulking), things could have been worse - a LOT worse. This got the first laugh of the ordeal from me, and an immediate idea for my first post's title.

 So now we're off to bed in our bunk bed, and hopefully tomorrow will be better. Hopefully even a LOT better.

Addendum - would you believe me if I said that I tried to post this for an hour last night with absolutely no success, and that we woke up to find that we'd left our soap and shampoo back at the first place as well?