After stopping by the Bonus supermarket for two bananas, a can of tomato soup, and a small loaf of bread, I finally set out to drive the entirety of Iceland, starting north in hopes of beating winter weather. I knew that there was a hostel, if not much else, in a little town called Borgarnes a couple hours away; and so it became my next stop and only concrete plan. This is the first photograph I took after leaving Reykjavík. As the landscape unfolded around me the farther I drove from the city, I started laughing. And laughing. Driving alone on winding roads (I had taken the long way around rather than pay the 1,000 krona to use the underground Hvalfjörður tunnel) past the characteristic mountains and fjords was so very much the Icelandic experience I'd played out in my mind for so long that I couldn't help but delight in its reality. I pulled over and ran down the road to this river, the wind whipping my hair in every direction, only looking up from composing the photo in my camera to acknowledge, with tears in my eyes and a grin on my face, the single pickup truck passing by.