Woke up plenty early to avoid the work staff at the hostel. Headed out to the car to a snow covered ground, and more continuing to fall. Following the obligatory snowball session, made our way back onto route 1, headed farther north to Húsavík, which is reported to have great whale watching. A car-full of hungover people at 7:30 am is quite the quiet venue. Heading over a mountain pass, found it odd that the road was the only thing snow-covered. The rest of the scenery had not yet been blanketed. That quickly changed though, as we came down the other side and everything was white. Doing about 70 km/hr down a country road, the back seat was asleep, Isidora driving, and me spacing-out in the passenger seat. I suddenly notice that our car was traveling down the road at an odd angle. Welp, this should be fun. With zero traction, the car stayed on the road for a bit, then made its way onto the grass of the periphery as the back end kicked out. Still sliding, slowly, thinking it'll be kinda hard to push this back onto the road in the snow. My worries were quickly relieved as the car fell and came to a halt rear-end first into a large drainage ditch that was not really visible from our current sliding angle perpendicular to the road. With the sleepy back seat now awake and confused, we climbed out and back onto the road. Pointing to the sky at a 45 degree angle, it looked even more hopeless from the outside. But, within 5 minutes a guy pulls up and offers a cell phone to call the police. Apparently, his job is to drive around and help stranded souls like us, and he was just on his way to work as he passed us. Sit in his car and talk to the police, as I tell them the situation. They reply with, "We'll see what we can do." More waiting with our friend the road monitor man, as we try to find a topic in English that he understands. Fishing and the wonders of the 2003 Jeep Cherokee that he was driving were about all we could put together. He hands Peter some binoculars, as he sees a tractor heading up the driveway from an adjacent farm. Tractor makes its way over to us, and a guy in a jump suit, and dirt-stained hands gets out, and talks to the other guy in the car. Takes a look at our car, attaches a strap to it and then to the tractor, and pulls our little white compact out of the ditch like a toy. Assessing the damage, all we could find was a very small dent in the rear bumper, a loose exhaust pipe, and plenty of mud and grass. A bit bewildered by our car being completely fine, I offer both people some money for their help, to which they both vehemently refuse. The farmer heads back to his house, and road maintenance man continues on his way. Reflecting on the situation, this was pretty much the best place to go off the road. Everywhere else in the area had lakes or jagged rocks or mountain cliffs right off of the road. We managed to find a soft irrigation ditch on level road. With road conditions still worsening, we decide that we've used up our luck for the day, and head back towards Reykjavik. In good spirits from getting pulled out of a ditch within an hour of falling in, in the early morning on a back road, we made it back over the mountain pass and into Akuryeri for some coffee and breakfast. I took the wheel from there as the lack of sleep caught up with everyone again, and I figured my 4 cups of coffee would fill that hole for me. In about ten minutes, everyone else was asleep, and I was doing 40 km/hr in whiteout conditions; only being able to see the yellow reflectors marking the edges of the road. Straining my eyes to make out images in zero contrast amidst large mesmerizing snowflakes sweeping against the windshield, the caffeine in my body did not do much. And with no place to pull off because these roads have no shoulder, I kept slapping my face to maintain clear eyesight and consciousness. Made it out of the snow and back up to normal driving speed. Stopping for gas in Blönduós, we gave Peter a shot at driving. He got into first gear a hell of a lot better than me, but it fell apart from there. Stalling and not being in gear with a tractor trailer behind us, we rolled to the side of the road. Peter gives up and Isidora gets behind the wheel. Of course that's a cop with its lights on pulling up to us. A bunch of foreigners stalling in a car that we are borrowing from someone. The cop only asks for Peter's diver's license, looks at it, says, "Massachusetts", and hands it back. Peter explains that we were letting him drive to learn. The cop says, "So you let a woman take over instead?". Then says we look like a bunch of drug dealers. Peter, in a moment of pure genius decides to take out his camera and show the cop pictures of our car in the ditch from several hours earlier. I can only sit there in silence thinking, "Why, you idiot, why?" Well, cop tells us to continue on our way, follows us for a bit on the road, and then pulls off. Very weird, but whatever. Drive for the rest of the day, get back to Reykjavik around 8 or 9. We are beat. Everyone else in the house is drinking and about to go out, being that its Friday. After getting shit from the others for not joining in the fun, our troupe scattered off to various quiet places. Watched part of a movie and passed out.
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