 Two days ago, we put the Blazer on the market, fully expecting the sale process to drag on until we just took the sign down and drove the thing home like it never happened.
One day ago, the Blazer was sold, paid for entirely in cash and notarized by a kid in a blue polo at the UPS store. I would love to elaborate on the suspicions I harbor about the Blazer's new owner, particularly about the ease with which this gentleman was able to procure such a large sum of cash while simultaneously attempting to convince us to claim a lower price on the bill of sale for "tax purposes", but the UPS notary teen was able to encourage our buyer to behave properly (i.e. legally), so ruminating on gang affiliations would be in bad form. So. That's that. Here is a photo of Shelby being outrageous. It is meant to distract me from worrying about having sold the Blazer to the Latin Kings or the Sons of Anarchy or whomever else roams the good ol' RS. In other news, our lovely weather has been obliterated by a fierce winter storm that is currently working its magic on neighborhood roofs and recycling bins. Consequently, my daily bicycle commute has become, sadly, a daily Yukon commute once more. Since obtaining my little Cannondale, I have found it entirely unnecessary to have to drive at all, forcing Christopher to do things like haul my groceries in his BOB trailer while I pedal innocently along behind him. It's been glorious. This snow, therefore, is ruining all of my fun. I missed my bike shoved up against the "professional reading and/or junk" shelf behind my desk today. Of course, I should probably get used to frostbitten knuckles and slushy mud smears on my rear. Iceland is known for many things. Balmy weather is not one those things. From what I can gather, cycling Iceland will be about the same as cycling Wyoming right about now - unpredictable and windy. We are expecting temperatures no higher than 50 or so degrees, with chilly nights in the 30s, so our two person sleeping bag rectangle should come in handy for me to suck all the heat out of Christopher. I envision something similar to that weird flashback scene in that last Twilight movie Chris and I saw en lieu of an expensive dinner at a one-show theater in the Colorado mountains after a camping trip. You know, where the pale girl is spooning with the hot (literally, hot, as in heated, though this ability is unexplained) guy of Native American heritage while the pasty Albanian boy pouts at the mouth of a mountain cave. I'm the girl, and I think Chris will be the Albanian? I don't know. The simile is evading me now. I liked the part at the end where everybody was fighting and getting ripped apart, but I didn't like when it was all fake and nothing really happened. Buzz kill. Cute theater, though. Also, Chris took pictures outside of the mountain town where the Twilight screening took place. See? You should buy his work. Where was I? Sleeping arrangements, I think. My rather limited reading on the subject of Icelandic camping has been somewhat rewarding. It appears that Iceland subscribes to the much more civilized version of camping that the rest of Europe proudly upholds. On the days that we manage to cycle far enough, Chris and I will be lucky enough to bunk down at campsites that almost universally boast hot showers, low prices, and other such unheard of luxuries. (Suck on that, American BLM land.) This does require that we are able to slog enough miles to get from place to place, though. I say "place" because Iceland, like Wyoming, does not have cities so much as it has pitstops. Judging by the maps and the sociological descriptions, Iceland is basically Wyoming with slightly more tectonic activity. Riding 40 miles doesn't necessarily get you anywhere in Iceland, so there will be days when accomplishing our miles will only find us in or on an empty something (most likely a glacier) for the night. This is where the Twilight spooning, rectangular sleeping bag imagery comes back into play. Full circle, friends. I know what I'm doing.
I'll end with a shot of Chris and I riding sexily in Green River. Despite what it probably sounds like from the nonsense I spout on here, we really are putting ourselves through the ringer to get ourselves prepped for this adventure. Riding the perimeter of Iceland is kind of a big deal, as much as I downplay it to prevent myself from having a heart attack, and it is starting to sink in what our summer has in store. This leads me to a thought I've been having - does anyone know of a charity/institution/individual that would benefit from us taking donations for our mileage? In the same vein, do you think people would be interested in making donations for our mileage in the name of _______________? Some causes close to my heart are literacy, ADHD awareness, Asperger's/Austim awareness, and Prader-Willi Syndrome awareness. Thoughts? Lemmmmmmmmme know.
 Well, folks. The end of an era has come about. It is with resigned acceptance that Chris and I have put the Blazer up for adoption (read: for sale to an unlucky high schooler).
We are not handling this well...
It was time. We had been putting this day off for most of the school year. Then, the hinge in the driver's door fell out and Christopher had to enter through the passenger side...so we put duct tape around the door and continued to put this day off for most the school year. I had taken to assuming that Christopher was going to pull a Thelma and Louise with the thing and really make a show of it, but when I woke up this morning, the man had two magic markers and three For Sale signs spread out on the kitchen island.
And just like that, we were letting our "starting out" years rumble squeakily off, bluegrass twanging moodily from the crackling radio.
Fine. I will admit that a 25-year-old man responsible for educating young minds should not be crawling through the side door of his busted up Chevy to go to work. It reflects...oddly...on his character.
But that is the character that I fell in love with.
We all live in a world that thrives on social pressures. It just so happens that my nation of origin is one whose pressures are largely based on appearances of wealth (and Judeo-Christian idealism that would reject appearances of wealth, except in the case of oil magnates that love Jaysus, but that's for a different blog).
When I met Christopher, I found a man that lived his life in a state of utter transcendence, where a rickety Chevy was a means for making contact with nature and the gods and truck stop diners. Social norms of any kind, let alone the ever-complicated task of appearing wealthy, were of absolutely no consequence to this guy. When Christopher first talked to me, he didn't want to know what my parents did or where I went college. Chris wanted to know what music I liked (Old Crow, thanks for sealing the deal) and where my favorite place on earth was. On our first date, the very next day, I was picked up in that Blazer. We tromped through the snow on the banks of the Flaming Gorge, I picked out a windswept clifftop for our future home, and the night culminated in Christopher rather anxiously asking if I believed in soul mates. (I tried to play it cool and said something really stupid about old people whose spouses died and they met a new lady named Esther who liked bridge, but my heart was screeching something like "Hell yes, I believe in soul mates, tall guy!")
Look, the Blazer is a symbol, ok? It represents the day that our lives became awesome and I'm trying to get that across without sounding like a sap.
 That stupid car took us to the ranch where we found ShelbyDog under a house. That stupid car has driven us all over countless National Parks, BLM roads, and isolated patches of wilderness. That stupid car has driven us to airports that have jetted us all around the world.
A piece of my heart is with that stupid car, and I have half a mind to steal Chris' keys right now and go rescue the vehicle that drove me straight to enlightenment.
But, you know. Whatever. Anyway. Blazer, we love you. I will never forget you, especially all the times I couldn't get your starter to turn and I cursed your existence. You did a great job.
Thanks, bud.
Also, the "hello" part of the title refers to the fact that Chris and I both have our bikes picked for Iceland. I'm already riding the Cannondale Quick SL3 in size tiny, and Christopher has order the Novara Safari in size tall. We ride everywhere now. My legs rock. But that's for another day. Right now, remember the Blazer.
Ladies and gentlemen,
The nonsense has started. Having officially decided to forgo Thailand, sandy beaches, and tasty food in favor of an 831 mile cycle trip around the perimeter of Iceland (not warm, not sandy, food as of yet unknown), we are now in full-blown training for what we are about to undertake.
And by full blown training, I really mean shopping for a hybrid bike for a woman with a mere 26 inch inseam while hitting up the local spin classes and pretending that spin class approximates riding a pannier-heavy road bike in an Icelandic headwind. Let me tell you what, though...these old lady spinners would win that race. These womens be crazy buff! Chris and I look like dirty ragdolls in comparison to these Amazonian wonders. Spin class is ridiculous.
We are such fools. Exhibit A -
So, you can see we are Serious about this...or as Serious as Chris and I can be (which is why Chris got off his bike in the middle of spin class to take some photos for posterity).
If you know us well, then you know that we have been talking about Southeast Asia since the day after we returned, scarred and bedraggled, from our two month European campout. The question to be asked, then, is how we wound up with a pair of tickets to Iceland after months of reading extensively and jabbering on about Thailand.
The best we can guess is that both countries end in "land" and we got confused during an Orbitz transaction. You like how I did that up there? We're going to be famous. Anyway. The Plan We don't really have a plan. Did you really expect anything different of us? In this instance, though, it isn't because we got a plane ticket to one city with the idea of bumbling our merry way across a swath of continent to "see what we can see". This is the first time we have gotten a ticket to one country with every intention of staying within the boundaries of that country for our entire trip. That being said, we had to up the ante somehow. What could be easier than only going to one country? No border crossings. No navigating changing languages, changing standards of social behavior, changing attitudes towards women, standing in line, skirts above the knee. Nothing!
So we added bicycles. And the Arctic Circle. Oh, and a country the size of a thumb with less cities than the infamously bustling state of Montana. In short, it's going to be utter paradise. We anticipate a balmy 50 degrees, with a nightly reprieve from the heat as we camp out under northern skies illuminated by the type of aura that only below freezing temperatures can produce. Iceland summers are known for their rainy dawns-till-dusks, with the occasional snow flurries, for variety. Basically, I'm getting a mad tan.
We've given ourselves six weeks to get from Reykjavik back to Reykjavik via the Ring Road, which circles the ever-coastal perimeter of Iceland. If all goes well, we should be able to balance our glacier parties with steamy rock-outs on pebbly beaches where frat boy popsicles swim the white caps with humpback whales that also DJ the raves. Basically the same thing as Phuket...right? If I get to pick, I'm hoping to lose my right big toe to frostbite. It has a huge scar from that stupid time I broke my toe kicking a soccer ball in my parents' basement, and I could do without it. I hope I get to pick.
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