Oh my, there’s an embankment back there!

I imagined camping in Iceland would mean sitting outside in my chair, enjoying a drink, and relaxing beneath the stars. Instead, there was rain, cold air, relentless midges, and a chair too small to enjoy any of it. When the wind started whipping my tent around, I abandoned it for the car. For my final two nights, I booked a hotel.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, I also backed the rental car onto an embankment. It was a dumb accident, but strangers helped me get the car back on the road. The next day, I drove 30 kilometers along a gravel road on the side of a mountain.

Oddly, the embankment didn’t feel like the failure. Abandoning the tent did. The accident was something that happened to me; the tent was a choice I made.

Photo: Night 2 in a tent. I hadn’t quite figured out tent and car placement yet.