The Long Journey, Part the Second (Notes from the Road)

Continuing the chronicle of our move from Portland to England...

We left Portland on a stormy Friday - all week there had been snow, then ice, then we were deluged with rain and wind.  The unusual weather kind of reflected how my life felt while in the throes of the move.

* * *

We leave everything to the last minute, it seems.  Despite completion of the herculean task of packing the shipping container on the previous weekend, when the day of departure came, it felt like we would never be done emptying and cleaning the house.  Which we finally were... two hours later than planned, of course.

* * *

We received a call about an hour before we drove away for the final time noting that the counter offer to the buyers' counter offer to our prior counter offer had been accepted.  We were going to sell our house!!!

In the chaos of the moment, it was an anti-climax that barely registered at the time.

* * *

Leaving the keys on the counter, closing the door, realizing that was is it - we really couldn't go back and do just one more thing.  Our time at the little shack on the prairie was over.  Very strange feeling.

* * *

We were driving to Seattle for our flight departure the next day, normally a 3.5 hour trip.  It took two hours in truly horrible traffic, and even worse weather, just to move 35 miles across the city to drop off our rental car.  It felt like Portland didn't want to let us go.

* * *

The friends (to whom we will be eternally grateful) that we planned to stay with overnight in Seattle told us they hadn't had electricity at home for over two days due to even worse storms up there.  However, we were welcome to stay if we didn't mind flushing the toilet with a bucket.  We booked a hotel instead and arranged to meet them for breakfast the next morning.

* * *

About 30 minutes from the end of our now nearly 6-hour drive, we received a call from the hotel.  They'd just lost power too.  We were welcome to stay... if we didn't mind flushing the toilet with a bucket. (I wish I was joking.) We booked another hotel.

* * *

Despite the fact that the Seattle airport had been all but closed two days earlier (due to ice), we lifted off on Saturday afternoon after an uneventful trip to the airport and a smooth-as-silk check in of the two suitcases each that we would be living out of for the next six weeks.  I heart Iceland Air.

* * *

We touched down in Reykjavik at 6:30 am local time (11:30 pm Pacific).  The frigid Icelandic sky was black as ink, with not even a hint of dawn.  I'd never been this far north before.

* * *

We rode the packed, but silent coach to the bus terminal, and transferred to a minibus for the drive to the hotel.  By now, it was 8:30 am.  The sky was still completely black.  There was no one on the street and few lights on in the houses. It was quieter than Portland at three in the morning.  Eerie, almost.

* * *

D and I asked the coach driver when people tended to get up and head to work in winter, since the mornings were so dark.  "Sometime after nine," he told us.  We glanced at the time and asked, "Where is everybody, then?"  He looked at us like we were daft and said, "It's Sunday!" (The residents of Reykjavik have a reputation for partying hard - very hard - on the weekend, and need a nice lie-in.)

D and I had both been under the exhaustion-addled impression that it was Monday already.  It hardly seemed possible that it was only Sunday morning, given all that we had experienced so far.

* * *

We were staying at a little non-chain hotel where one needed a pass-code to enter the building.  No one was at the front desk to let us in when we were dropped off.  It was about 30F (-1C).  We were stranded on a empty street, with our pile of luggage... hungry, cold and nowhere to go.  After waiting around for 20 minutes, I was swiftly losing any shred of humor or poise I had left.

* * *

Eventually we were let into the hotel to check our bags, but couldn't check in early.  We left in search of someplace, any place, to get some food.  After a half hour of aimless and increasingly resentful (on my part) wandering, we finally settled into the corner booth at a bakery that had only just opened its doors for the day.  We had endless hot drinks and pastries for several hours - which did wonders to improve my mood - before we gratefully checked into the hotel and collapsed into bed for a nap.

(to be continued)