Africa update... $$

Well, we just received more information on how much money we raised, and how much the trip is projected to cost. Fortunately, a good portion of the cost has been offset from the fund raising. Unfortunately, it will still be a bit expensive. The ball/silent auction fund raiser came up with about $10,500 profit. So, in that respect, we did quite well. But with the total cost per person of over $3000 to fly there, plus building materials, that puts most people paying about $1200 out of pocket. Because I jumped in on the project late, I'll be required to pay more like $1800 out of pocket. Ouch.

There's still time for me to do some personal fund raising, and my Mom has been hard on that trail at my old Church. They're having a free will donation this Sunday afternoon in order to raise more funds for me to get to Africa. I don't really expect a huge sum from that kind of activity, but every little bit helps. All this really means is that I'm really starting to hope that I don't get laid off from work for going on this trip... but I'd still laugh if it happened. Hey, you have to laugh or else you'd cry right?

I've never done much... or any fund raising before, so this is a completely new idea to me, but I guess because the funds are going through Zion Lutheran, anyone who donates can get a tax ID# and then they can write off that amount from their finances. Makes me think I should donate about $1500 to myself... ;-)

In other trip news, we received the first pictures of where we'll be staying. It's called the Bull's Eye Hotel. Look at the date stamp in the corner of the picture... that's right: '2007 4 13'... what are the chances of that? Of the other three hundred and sixty-four (and a quarter) days it could have been, it just so happened to be taken on my birthday of this year... Boy-oh-boy was I supposed to go on this trip or what?

Oh, it should be mentioned that I found the green stubbly prickly stuff in the foreground surprising... I know, I know.... not all desert... still, you know how it is.

Beard update:

Here's a late breaking news story on the recent modification of my beard... The beard was last seen before the Africa ball, and has since been missing. If you happen to find it, or have any information leading to it's capture there is a cash reward available. It has been approximately eight years since this portion of my mug has been reviled to the public. For obviously reasons. (*Smacks his lower lip onto his upper* "It feels so weird...")









In related news this man was seen dancing all night with this pretty lady. This is a crime in forty-eight states. Good thing he was in Alaska. Swing, Cha-Cha, Rock, and slow dancing was seen in varying quality and quantity; but oddly enough both parties appeared to be enjoying themselves. Only you can prevent this kind of mayhem from happening again. Should you choose to accept this mission, you will be required to drive/fly/swim/crawl to Alaska and witness the sights for yourself. They are truly breath taking, in more ways than one... ;-)

This message will remain on your computer until you clear your cache... and then it will self destruct.

Africa Trip - Health Center

So, as a few of you may know, I've been presented with an opportunity to go to Africa on mission trip to build a community Health Center in Kumpa, Kenya, which happens to be just outside of Nairobi. Everything is being arranged through Lutheran Hour Ministries, so all we're responsible for is raising money and getting ourselves to Kenya. Here's what we're doing:

First the back story: The village of Kumpa has no medical facilities and a pregnant woman started having complications and was unable to procure a vehicle to drive her to the nearest medical center some distance away. What ended up happening was that she died in the birthing process and the child could not be saved. This caused an outcry from the community to the government of Kenya who responded that the community was to raise the funds for a facility and the government would staff the building.

Currently, we have raised the money that we were responsible for building materials through a garage sale, private donations, and a silent auction and ball. We still have a need to cover some of the travel expenses, but it seems that the majority of the cost has been covered. There are about fourteen people from Zion Fairbanks going on the trip (including myself) and we leave from Fairbanks on January 15th to return on February 2nd.

It seems really strange to say, but it feels like I was supposed to move to Alaska when I did because I became involved with a group of people that got to know me for a month or so before an opening presented itself in this trip and they felt comfortable asking me to join the group. It feels like God has made things too easy for me in a lot of ways. First, my trip up to Alaska went extremely well. Then, I found a job within three or four days upon my arrival in Fairbanks. Next, Zion Fairbanks welcomed me quite quickly and introduced me to many people that have become my closest friends in Alaska. All these things combined together to make my decision to go on this Africa trip a non-decision. They only reason I could think of for not going was because... well... it's Africa, as I have never had a strong affinity for anything on that continent. In fact several of my friends in Lincoln called me out on this one. "Weren't you the one who said that you'd never go to Africa?" Yes, yes I was, but I guess that you can't rule out anything when your life doesn't belong to you.

All things considered, it will be a life changing trip with people I consider my friends to a new and exciting (and warm) place come January in Alaska. What more could you want? Let the wanderings continue...

Blue Leisure Suit

Remember back in the 70's when you wore leisure suits? No? Ok, so I wasn't born yet, but that doesn't mean that I can't live the dream. I don't remember old I was in this photo, but I was either in, or just out of high school when I wore this. Those of you that know me know that if I dress up, I go all out. I wore this same suit a few years after this picture was taken to my Fraternities Winter Formal. And yes, I rode on my motorcycle. You couldn't keep the horns from honking in my direction. It's a good thing that I had a full face helmet on, or else I would have ruined the moment with a huge smile instead of play'n it cool.

Now, I'm going to have the opportunity to wear this suit one more time. There's an Alaskan Formal for the Africa trip. Oh, yeah, I'm going to Africa. More on that later, right now all you need to know is that this suit looks good on me.

Bonfire

So, last night was officially a busy night. Let me start at the beginning.
It was Saturday, but because my roommate's vehicle got frozen into two wheel drive he had to park it in the garage at work in order to thaw it out. Everything went fine except he got left at work without the keys to the shop door and we went back to get his truck early (well, nine in the morning-hey, that's early for a Saturday). Then, as a thanks, he took me out to breakfast. I like breakfast, especially when its a meal so large that you don't have to eat the rest of the day.

After we returned to the house, I went through photos, updated this blog, and got stuff ready for next week (except for shopping, still need food) and all of a sudden, it was time to go to the bonfire over at a friends place. When we got there it looked like no one else had show up yet, until I shut off the headlights to my vehicle and we saw the glow of the fire over the hill. It was quite the impressive sight. When the cold started seeping through our boots it was about time for karaoke at the Pub on campus (I know... a bar on campus! It's so sweet!) All I really have to say about that is that the singing was awful, but the environment was a lot of fun.

Ok, so maybe it wasn't quite so busy of a day, but man, I had a great time.

My beard.

So, I've had a beard for just about as long as I could grow one and a few weeks ago I had to cut it. Now, I know what you're thinking; there's got to be a girl involved for my hansomification, but you would me mistaken.

The real reason was that I had to get fitted for a respirator for work, and you are required to be mostly clean shaven in order for the fit test to be completed. Basically if I don't want to breath in poisonous zinc fumes from galvanized welding, it is in my best interest to comply with the requirement.

The fit test was an interesting process. It consisted of placing the mask on your face and them spraying some really nasty smoke in your face as you breath, talk, and move your head normally to test the completeness of the seal. How do I know the smoke is some nasty stuff? You are required to breath it in at one point to see if it will make you cough. It did. I coughed up a storm for almost four minutes.

The great thing about the respirators is that you can't smell anything with the filters on. That means that when the guy that smokes three packs a day comes up to you and starts explaining your project you don't have the gag reflex to suppress. The unfortunate thing is the fact that the filters are large enough that the hoods don't come down as far as they should, so you have to pull some interesting maneuvers in order to see what you're welding. If I can get my hands on one of those tube sets that allows the filters to be worn at different locations, then I might just try to wear the respirator all the time. It'd look kinda funny, but I can defiantly tell that my lungs feel better after a day of wearing the mask than a day without it. The guys at work say that the air quality at Universal is really good compared to other shops in the area, but I still feel like it's a hostile environment to your health.

However, on the flip side of the health aspect, the experience and fabrication skills that I've been introduced to allows a lot of learning, even if there are long spells of mindless labor between those times. Not too far removed from my past experience growing up in a farm community. The swine buildings still need to to be washed out, or fifty parts of the exact same weld need to be laid down, but someone's got to do it.

Night time photography

Well, I've been in Alaska for a few months now, and I have had a couple opportunities to see the Aurora's, and each storm I've seen has been quite unique. The photos I've taken so far defiantly aren't amazing and I've got no chance of really capturing the awe of the lights, but these are my photos, and their pretty cool.

I still need to invest in a good tripod, and a better lens for taking photos of the Aurora, but for right now I'm still getting some pretty cool photos.

Trip fuel summary

I finally got around to entering in all the fuel mileage stuff that I
collected on my journey from Nebraska to Alaska. Here are the #'s:
Total Miles Traveled: 7063 miles (possibly only 6917.5 depending on
which calculation you use)
Total Fuel Consumed: 267.261 gallons (liters converted to gallons at
3.78541 liters per gallon)
Total Fuel Cost: $944.52 (adjusted to USD)
Average MPG: 26.33 MPG

Not bad for a 2004 Rav4.

Caterpiller on the sidewalk

Today I was out for a bike ride on the streets of Fairbanks when I looked down and saw a caterpillar trying in vain to move across the sidewalk. Not instantly recognizing the species, of course I had to stoop lower to investigate. And take a picture on my camera phone (that turned out to be crappy, of course).

Description: A two and a half to three inch body length of medium build that was black with yellow dots paralleling the middle of the back with red covering face and tail and a spine or horn on the head.

Upon further research on the internet, I have determined that it must have been the larvae of a Phoebus Parnessian. I never did find a photo of the Phoebus larvae, but I did find the photos for other Parnessians and it appears that their appearance can change through the larvae stage, as indicated by this website (search for Apollo).

Another good website that has some different information was www.butterfliesandmoths.com. It doesn't have the Phoebus iether, but it has many Parnessians including the Rocky Mountain variety that is supposed to be as far north as Alaska which is linked above.

I'll have to start taking my camera with me more places as you never know when you'll run into an interesting insect.

Day 30

Did you REALLY read them all? oh.. good job then. *pats you on the back*

As I am a sucker for even numbers, and this being Day 30, I have to
conclude that this is the final episode in the Alaskan Trip as I have
arrived at my destination. Having learned from Craig that I do not have
a job at his company as they do not have enough work to employ me, I do
not have a job currently. Nevertheless, I see this day as a good
conclusion to the trip and the next phase of exploration can begin: the
quest for a career. Perhaps it will not be a long term career, perhaps
it will be a temporary job that finds me first, but whatever the
employment I fell quite confident that I will be able to perform
admirably at it's requirements.

Since this is the final day of the trip, it is a day of reflection.
Upon reflection, I should have figured out a way to do this type of epic
journey sooner, more often, and in the near future again as I highly
enjoyed it. There were things that would have made it better: a
companion to look at the maps and guides while driving, a second opinion
for more places to view, or a better idea of the truly worthwhile stops
to make. These among other things could have lead to a more fulfilling
experience, but I find things changes to be almost menial and
unchangeable given the circumstances of this trip.

On my epic journey to Alaska I found myself in little physical harm,
with good people and experiences found at nearly every turn. Which
leads me to ask simply:

Where will you go on your epic journey?

Edit1: All of my photos are now online... how's that for taking up space? You can see them here:
Alaska Journey
Alaska Journey - Part 2
Alaska Journey - Part 3

As always, if you see any photos you would like larger (or even the full version), simply click:
On the photo to see it larger,
Then on the "more info" words at the right.
Let me know the filename, and I'll send it to you... easy right? I hope so.

Day 29

Beginning?

Once again I was awoken to a damp morning, and once again my stomach
gave up without a true fight. Now, any amount of rest seemed to be
stripped away from me at the realization of the saturation of my
surroundings. However, it was not to be an entire loss as shortly after
arrival at the Visitors Center in Fairbanks, the clouds parted reveling
a quite warm glowing sphere in their place. This sudden change in the
environment led to a number of photographic events in the plentiful
flower gardens located around the statue of the unknown first family of
Alaska.

After my photographic desires were subsided, my quest for knowledge
returned and I found myself in the Aircraft Museum located in Pioneers
Park. From the outside the gold dome, which the photographic part of me
lost the battle to photograph, looked quite small, but upon entering the
museum the vastness and tightly packed display cases attested to the
completeness of the museum. A number of hours later, my desire to learn
subsiding, I walked around the park some more to find a Pioneer museum
and a display on the Aurora's, which peaked my interest. The lady
giving the presentation encouraged me to go the the University in town
and see another presentation on the Aurora's that would be quite the
opposite of the presentation found at Watson Lake a number of days ago.
This will have to be put onto the schedule and attended soon as I don't
want to forget about it, or have it pass without my attendance.

With no desire to spend another night in the rain, I called up Craig,
who's company I was trying to get a job through, and requested a place
to stay for the night. He was quite willing to loan the use of a room
in his recently acquired house to me and I spent the night quite dry.

Will it ever end? oh.. I guess so... To be... concluded.

Day 28

Beginning?

Awoken in a similar, but not so temperature impaired condition, I again
attempted to out sleep the precipitation, and again my stomach refused
the fight. Again the tent was hung to "dry" on the interior of my
vehicle and I parted ways with the Hope campgrounds. Feeling less
adventurous today, but still in the mood for site seeing, I arrived at
the Palmer Glacier and Visitor Center. This one, being located close to
Anchorage was quite disappointing. The theater expected me to part with
my funds, and the museum portion was either geared toward children or
the uneducated in it's attempts to convey, repeatedly, the process by
which glaciers form. Again global warming was a key element to the
"educational" process, but the history of the area was more than
lacking, unless you take into account the last ten thousand plus years.

Back in Anchorage now, I stopped in to see the Pastor and his family
again, then went to the local supermarket to relieve the symptoms of my
cold and purchase a few needed supplies.

Then it was a mad dash to Fairbanks. Not that this course of action was
intended, but my right foot took over and it insisted on it's ability to
complete the rest of the desired course in adequate time for the rest of
the body to get it's required amount of sleep. With a short side trip,
I arrived in Fairbanks at midnight, to the relief of my now quite
exhausted body. Having seen virtually none if the city, I found a
nearly full campground and pulled out my still damp tent to sleep away
the wants of the day.

It was a day of spectacular scenery, however much of it was left without
as much as a photograph as the vastness of the area could not be
adequately captured using my camera.

Day 28 Distance: 489, Elevation: 33 -> 2444

Continue?

Day 27

Beginning?

I was awoken by a soggy feeling. During the night the rain had pooled
on top of the tent and when it could hold no more it had drained
directly onto the blue tarp that was insulating the tent from the
ground. While it did half of it's job admirably, the rain coming at it
from the tent had also been insulated from reaching the porous ground
and had begun to float the tent. I, being inside the tent and on an
inflated cushion, became buoyant, and while quite comfortable it did not
insulate part of my sleeping bag, the clean clothes, and my pillow from
the moisturizing affects from below. Thus I awoke with a bit of a head
cold.

At this point, I still figured I could out sleep the rain, but several
hours later my stomach reminded me that my attempts were folly and I
arose in a most moist environment. To say that everything was wet does
not include the forty-seven degree ambient temperature that the water
had risen to while pooling beneath my abode. Add in the ten mile per
hour oceanic breeze and you now see that wet was not the only obstacle
to my morning routine.

Having no desire to spend any substantial amount of time fighting the
elements, I laid my tent inside my vehicle to "dry" and found fast food
breakfast, which had now become lunch, the much desired meal of the
moment. My masochistic tendencies were realized when I found myself
ordering iced cream with my meal and found myself eating on a park bench
on the hill overlooking town. Well, it should have been overlooking
town, but again the fog had covered any recognizable figure over a
hundred yards away in an ever changing pallet of white. At this point,
as all the other tourists scoffed at getting out in the damp air to see
nothing, I found myself in awe of the wonderfully changing dimension to
the quickly moving cloud that encompassed the top of the hill. With my
lunch nearly gone, the pallet that I had admired was soon dissipated
with the warming sun and even quicker the heat of the day had arrived.
While this heat was no more than a cool sixty degrees, I found myself
slightly annoyed that I was now forced to look upon a static scenery of
the bay and surrounding mountains. Or it was the fact that now the
tourists had returned to look at the static surroundings. Thusly I took
my leave of them and continued my northerly course leaving the sun and
warmth behind.

MaryLou would be proud as I found a little roadside shop to spend some
time in and actually parted with some funds in return for a souvenir.
The item, however, was no trinket or bracelet to be simply looked upon,
it was a useful item with a purpose. It was another knife. There may
be a simple pattern to the way funds leave my tight grasp. So far that
pattern has been knife shops and museums. No one ever said that a
pattern had to be logical.

The day concluded with a short five mile trip up a mountain bike trail.
Due to my recently acquired cold, and the severity of the course I was
not enthused about continuing farther, though I'm sure the lake and
falls would have been spectacular. The other bikers I talked to at the
trail head encouraged me to try the course again, but from the other end
of the trail as it was the more gravity aided course.

The twilight hours were spent trying to ignite some of the wood that had
received a portion of the moisture in Homer and with little success, and
a hefty fine if any embers were found alive if not in direct
observation, I drained a gallon of water upon what coals remained and
retired for the night.

Day 27 Distance: 166, Elevation: 7 -> 1339

Continue?

Day 26

Beginning?

Since I was camped on the Spit, I had to check out the rest of it and
figured the best way to do that was to simply ride my bike down the path
and see the sights. Since my schedule today was so booked, I
interrupted my leisurely pace with some photos of derelict vessels just
off the path.

This place truly was a bone yard of vessels. Some had large holes in
the decks, others in the keel. All in all, I don't think any of them
would be fit for sailing any time soon, but I did wonder how they moved
them so far from the water. Some questions just can't be answered so
easily as I didn't have a chance to ask anyone. For some reason I am
reminded just now much of a stranger I am to water and sea life.

After looking through a few shops and spending some time on the beach,
which was covered with smooth river rock, it was getting to be about
time for lunch and I started heading back to camp. On the way there was
a shop that had a sign for hoodies and since I still don't have a good
hoodie, I decided I should stop in and see if anything looked worth
purchasing. One of the shirts that made me laugh was: "Homer, a
drinking town with a fishing problem." The guy that ran the shop was a
fisherman by trade, but he enjoyed crabbing the most. We had a chat
about "Deadliest Catch" and he said one of his buddies was on that show,
but he always told his relatives that he was the guy in the orange coat.

Now it was more than time for lunch, and I was still quite a ways from
camp, so I broke down and ate at one of the burger places that happened
to be right next to the hoodie shop. It happened to have good food for
not an unreasonably high price, but still more than I would have liked
to pay, which is zero, but that doesn't happen very often.

That afternoon I made it to the Visitor Center in town, which was closed
when I came into town yesterday, and I have to say that it was one of
the best Visitor Center that I've ever been to. It was half museum,
half discovery center, half theater, and just a very small portion of
the center was sovineers. The museum portion of the center was
dedicated to the marine animal wildlife preserve. It was a little over
bearing on global warming stuff, but it did have good history of the
area from the first Russian explorers to settlements and statehood.

To end the day, I tried to get a hold of Liz again and found myself in a
coffee shop, loitering, and conversing with the locals, who were more
than willing to let me continue loitering. The attitude of the people
here certainly is different from the lower 48 states. I think Jon said
it best when referring to the attitude that his Grandfather had towards
people: "They're all friends I haven't met yet." or something
paraphrased like that.

Back at camp, I had just gotten a fire going when the rain started. I
was sure that it was going to put out my fire, but at this point there
wasn't much I could do to save it. When the rain finally subsided, my
fire did remain lit, but it took quite awhile to get to a warming
condition. Before too long it was time for bed, and the rain started up
again and continued through the night. Not ideal, but my sleeping bag
was quite warm even if I could see my breath in the moist air.

Continue?

Day 25

Beginning?

After perusing some more of the shops today (and purchasing a knife...
had too, it was calling my name) it was time to head out to Homer.
Unfortunately, most of the day was quite cloudy and things didn't
improve much when I arrived in Homer as the fog preceded my arrival. I
did get a quick look at the spit from on top of the hill, but it was
quickly obscured by the quickly rolling mist.

On the positive side, there was a nicely kept garden of flowers that was
worth taking a few photos of while waiting for the fog to dissipate.

Most of the rest of the day was spent trying to figure out where I was
going to spend the night. There was one possibility of staying with a
friend, but it turns out that she had a job across the inlet so we were
unable to meet up. As it happens, this turned out to be for the best as
I ended up camping next to a guy that works for BP up at Prudhoe Bay.
He takes the data that the NDT guys give him and makes the work orders
assigning how many people and how long the repairs should take. Sounds
like a good guy to know if I wanted to find a testing position. Oh
yeah... I do want to have a testing position.

The rest of the night was spent talking to him, and his new girlfriend
(they met on myspace... go figure) and them trying to put her two boys
and his little girl to bed and me eating the food that he kept telling
me I should eat, which I did. By the end of the night I received some
canned salmon, smoked salmon, halibut, and a couple of beers. And this
was all after I had already eaten my standard five eggs for supper.

I think considering all the food I devoured and the connections made
today that I'll have to put yet another day down as a good day.

Day 25: Didn't record GPS info... whoops... it was bound to happen one day.

Continue?

Day 23 & 24

Beginning...

I got up yesterday, and after trying to fix some things on this blog, I gave up. I guess this internet was just too slow for my liking and I ended up going to the Visitor Center to find out about biking and hiking trails in Alaska.

As it turned out they didn't know of any off hand, but I got a ton of paper to read through, which I probably won't do, but it's nice to have anyway.

The trip to Anchorage was very scenic. Unfortunately, most of the places to turn off the highway where not the best and most of the photos I wanted to take where ruined by bugs on my windshield. Oh well, you'll just have to see it for yourself sometime ;-).

After getting to Anchorage, I looked up the Pastor lives here (Grandma met his mom and that's how I knew to find him) and found out that it was probably his church that I would have done the VBS through all those years ago when I came to Alaska before. He was generous enough to let me crash at his place, so I did last night and I will tonight as well. Turns out he and one of his sons like to mountain bike and we went out tonight on one of the trails in town that they like to ride on.

While on the trail, we crossed a few streams on bridges and there were the first salmon heading up the streams to spawn. A little later we saw a yearling moose. This trail wasn't very technical as far as mountain bike trails go, but it wasn't a crushed gravel path either, and the sights were great to see.

While in town we hit a few of the stores to ask about mountain bike trails. I ended up buying '49 trails in the 49th state' mountain bike guide. It has maps and descriptions, so I'm hoping it's as good as the fifteen dollar price tag. I guess we'll find out tomorrow as I plan to use it while heading down to Homer.

Day 23 Distance: 321, Elevation: 52 -> 3379

Continue?

Day 22

Beginning you say?

I'm trying to remember the start of the day... I really am, but it's
just coming up as a blank. I remember going through Haynes Junction,
and thinking that I'm a lot closer to Alaska than I thought I was and I
just might make it there today.

Then the road started to go, as in it was in need of repair. For the
first time the road went from a rough 70 mph roadway, to a 'oh crap'
road at 50 mph. The frost heaved parts were marked, but they still
jumped up at you and made you just drive slower all the time, which
wasn't bad, but it makes a long drive longer.

When I was approaching the Alaska boarder, I thought I'd stop early and
hit the boarder in the morning, but for some reason my foot remained on
the gas and I drove on toward the boarder. After a quick calculation,
yep I'll have enough gas, it was a short thirteen miles from the
Canadian Customs to the US boarder... why so far? I don't know, and I
didn't feel it was the time to ask. The old fellow at the boarder seemed to be in the mood for a chat, but I could tell he was just looking for something that seemed out of place, or to get you to slip up on something, but he seemed so relaxed at it that at face value it was a normal conversation. Even so, I doubt he would have liked answering questions as opposed to simply asking them.

With nothing more to ask, he let me through. Total time at the boarder (minus the wait) about two minutes. Now in Alaska, my spirit soared. Then there was a break in the clouds and the sun started shining. Not only was the weather cooperating, but the roadway was now a true asphalt roadway, not the rock and oil resurfacing that Canada used, but a smooth blacktop. Yes, it still had some places where frost heaves had made the road quite rough, but in general the tire noise from the rocks was gone, which meant I could keep my earplugs out.

So, as it all goes I made it to Alaska. I'm in Tok and pleased to be
here. Now, I think I'll catch up on some eating and sleeping. After that, who knows?

Edit1: I haven't downloaded photos from the last couple days, but all the photos up to that point should be in the Alaska Journey - Part 2 folder. Enjoy.

Day 22 Distance: 584, Elevation: 1627 -> 3330

Continue?

Day 21

From the beginning.

A score days ago I left my quaint little state and proceeded along a rather meandering path that has led me to the southern areas of Yukon. Here I shall remain... for the next couple of days... Until the great Alaskan wilderness consumes me.

Lets see, today I saw a few caribou, a passel full of mountain goats, (forgot to mention a couple days ago that I almost got my arm taken off by a bald eagle) one large ram, a couple herds of bison (or are they buffalo?) and... you've waited for it... my first bear. However, I did not rush out to fight this bear, after all it was raining when I saw it. Oh, then there's the fact that it was a cub black bear. I mean, it wouldn't be fair for me to fight a cub black bear I have to give nature some kind of advantage, so I proceeded on my way.

On one of the CBC stations, really the only stations that come in up here it turns out, I heard part of a program that stated that the average person, man and woman, says roughly eighteen hundred words per day. Then the station faded out, so I didn't get to find out what the point of that tidbit was, however, that didn't stop me from thinking about it today and deciding that I doubt that I've spoken that many words in a week. Comparatively, I'm sure that I've typed that many as I had to do some mental math while I was driving, which is rather relaxing I have found. Generally I figure that I type roughly eighty words per minute, but since I'm not typing in the usual comfort of a nice chair and instead typing while inside my small tent, or cramped between the steering wheel and my keyboard, I'll give myself a math break and say that I can only type sixty words per minute. That would mean that if I type for a half hour that I have typed the required eighteen hundred words that I am alloted to speak per day. Now I have typed... less than 400 words. Something tells me I have a long way to go.

This wonderful train of thought was interrupted by my arrival at a little town called Watson Lake, which is the town that has all the sign posts... well... posted. Now, I knew that this was a large collection of signs, but I didn't realize that it covered about three acres of land with poles roughly twenty feet tall. One could spend all day looking at the signs, which I was not about to do. I snapped a few photos and then remembered that this was also the town with a planetarium, which I had to see for myself.

It just so happened to be right across the street from the sign posts and the show on the Aurora's was just about to begin. I purchased a ticket and started preparing my brain for all the data it was about to receive by running through as much of the information I could remember before the show started. Lets see, the Earth is 92.8 million miles from the sun, it has magnetic poles produced by an iron core with a rotating molten mass that protects us from solar and other forms of radiation, this magnetic field can be excited by ions ejected from the sun through Coronal Mass Ejections which can also play havoc on communications equipment, when the magnetic field receives a strong enough push from these ions it sparks a reaction at the poles which becomes the Auroras. OK, I think I'm ready to receive more information... begin movie.

The lights darken... the music begins... and we see... Animals? Wait, what? There were actually two presentations: one was on wild life of the Yukon (I'd already seen everything in the movie except a grizzly) and the other was on the Auroras. Fine, but at least talk about the wild life... No? I've learned more watching Animal Planet, and that's just in the second or two it takes to flip past it when channel surfing.

Ok, finally, let the Aurora's presentation is beginning. More music... lots of the same Aurora with different backgrounds... Oh that one's diff-no... no it's just a different background. Now that one is green instead of red. Here's one that's kinda blue with yellow tips. Me thinks I've been had. Of the twenty minuet presentation, I think there were about five minutes of actual dialog, and about half of that was telling you to buy some movie in the lobby. After the presentations were over I had a chance to talk to the guy in charge, well in charge tonight anyway. He said that they used to have a presentation that was science heavy, but their main audience, the retired folks traveling in their RV's, couldn't relate to it and absolutely despised the show, so they dumbed it down and just have pretty pictures now so they have fewer complaints.

But I think I did learn something today, even though it didn't come directly from the show: Don't do stuff that old people are inclined to do. If they dumb down a simple presentation on the Aurora's, the must dumb down lots of other information in these touristy places, which probably explains why I've started avoiding the "Information Center" type places, they really aren't much help.

Tonight I've found another campsite just off the main highway. I haven't decided when to get up tomorrow, but as it's now ten at night and looks like it's about seven in the afternoon, I can tell it's going to be difficult to get some shuteye.

Day 21 Distance: 453, Elevation: 994 -> 4285

More.

Day 20

Where did I come from?

Oh, I forgot to mention yesterday that I found a campsite next to a babbling brook. Or rather, a raging river. Iether way I found myself singing "My Generation" by The Who all night and the stutters in the song matched when there was a bigger splash from the ripples hitting the bank. Strange you say? Well, all I know is I slept very well last night. I did wake up with the sun for a bit, but just long enough to look at my watch, declare quarter till six too early and soon I was singing to the river again, but I think my song sounded more like sawing logs.

When I arose from my slumber, it was about nine in the morning, a good time to get up and start the day. Not long after I put away all my tent supplies I remembered seeing showers in the lavatory and felt that since I was still covered in yesterday's (and the day before's) filth, that a shower was in order today.

Just before departing to the shower, with supplies in hand, some locals (I assume locals, they were speaking Canuck) stopped by while gathering wood and asked about my bike. One of them thought the rack was a fancy electric motor and wondered how it worked. I explained it was a bike rack after I figured out what he was asking and upon closer inspection the old timer agreed that it wouldn't make a very good motor after all. I think he had just seen one in a local store and his mind jumped back to that when he saw the orange mounts for my bike rack. We then had a good laugh about how skinny the seats on bikes were and I was off to my shower.

In the lavatory there were these curious boxes that stated "This box takes only one dollar coins." I figured I would see if the water worked without spending my dollar coin and reached for the handle. Sure enough, ice water poured out at a ferocious rate. As I'm not even to the Yukon yet, I decided that being so close to civilization, I'd spend my dollar coin in return for some warm water.

Now fully lathered, I started wondering how long the timer on the little box would last. This was the wrong thing to wonder as it must have been telepity and it clicked off and the ice water began again.

I had my uncivilized shower after all.

Feeling quite refreshed, and I emphasize the refreshed part, I took to the road. Shortly after three in the afternoon I arrived at Dawson Creek and after eating some lunch found the milepost marker and had my picture taken. I feel kinda silly for driving thirty miles out of the way to get a picture at a monument like that, but it looks like it was the place to be as I counted six large campers and about twice as many vehicles in the time frame I was at the monument.

About halfway through the day, I was planning on arriving in Fort Nelson and looking around a bit before camping on the other side of the city, but after nearly five hundred miles today, and being quite sore from my bikeride yesterday, I am now reclining in my tent less than fifty miles from Fort Nelson and I plan on seeing the city in the morning sunlight. I think this is the first time on the trip that I have arrived at a campsite before ten at night. It was eight when I drove into the campsite, and after eating supper and setting everything up, it's only nine-thirty and I'm tuckered. I think my body is still recovering from the bike ride yesterday.

Tomorrow should be another big day of driving, but I'm already starting to see a change in the landscape. The trees used to be quite tall and lush. Now the Black Elms (I think that's what they are... black somethings) are small and not nearly as lush. I expect much more change throughout the day tomorrow.

Day 20 Distance: 449, Elevation: 1358 -> 3799

Next.

Day 19

What? There was more?

After my bike ride, I jumped into my vehicle and hit the road. I continued down Canadian Highway 99 and I have to say that this is some serious country. There were several waterfalls that you never even saw until they flashed passed on the passenger side of the vehicle and more than a few were tall enough that I couldn't see the top from inside the vehicle. What's unfortunate though is that most of the road is quite narrow and stopping to take a closer look at the falls would have been extremely dangerous. So instead, many of the sights of the day stay with me.

Most of the day I was having trouble with the speed limits here. Once I got onto Highway 97 the speed limit was 100km/hour. However, most people seemed to travel at nearly 20km/hour more than that. Well, I don't want to hold up traffic now do I?

I'm looking to get up early tomorrow and get a few miles (km?) under me so that I can take my time once I get up to Dawson and the Alcan Highway. I'm expecting a few delays once that leg of the journey begins, so I'd like to make up as much of it now as I can.

Day 19 Distance: 394, Elevation: 656 -> 4206

Continue?

MTB - Pemberton

Do I really need to say it?

The sun woke me up today at quarter till six in the morning. Since I didn't figure the bike shop would be open this early, I rolled over and went back to sleep for a few hours. I finally rose about nine in the morning and on my way out, that helpful lady was there again. Of course I had to talk to her again, and I got the distinct feeling, from all the 'dude' and the rocker symbol she flashed me as I drove up, that she was one of those neo-hippies. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but my stereotype of the youth of Canada was a little bit off. Anyway, she was awesome. From her directions I drive right to the bike shop and looked around for a bit and then asked about the trails.

The guy that told me about the trails got me to buy a map from him for over $12 after tax. I was less than enthused with paying that kind of cash for a map, but since part of the trails are on private grounds, and sales of things like this map goes to that cause, I guess I can look at it like a park fee and then it wasn't as bad.

The trail recommended to me was Happy which was rated as a medium trail. For those of you that know the rock section at Platte River State park, almost the entire trail was just like that. Well, the rocks weren't quite as sharp, but it was that steep and completely rocky. To say I did well at the course is an over statement, in fact there were several sections that I just couldn't find a place to get back onto my pedals to continue the course, so I had a little hike mixed in with my bike in tow.

The biggest problem with walking, however, was the fact that you could scarcely see where you were walking for all the mosquitoes. If I thought the mosquitoes were bad last night, they were almost unbearable in the shadows of this forest. So after a few recovery steps, I forced myself back onto the bike to plod along up the trail. This was a great way to get in shape though, if you take it easy and walk, you get drained of your blood, otherwise you work hard staying just ahead of the mosquito herd.

After riding up several steep climbs, and walking a few others, I quickly referred to the map to make sure I was going the correct direction, and it seemed I'd made a wrong turn. No time to look at that now, the herd caught me. After I rounded another corner I saw in front of me what looked to be a wall. Now I knew I had made a wrong turn and headed back to the trail I wanted to be on. I had stumbled upon a black trail when I wanted to stick to the blue trails. Now back on track, this trail seemed like a breeze and I soon found myself at the lake, aptly named Mosquito Lake.

There were a few other bikers here, and after talking to them for a little bit, one of them recommended a black trail down to the parking lot. I thought I knew where the trail head was to it and could get to the actual black from a couple different blue routes. I must not have found the correct entrance because it was quickly apparent that I was on another black route. Meaning I did more hiking than I did biking, this time I didn't have much of a choice, I just had to wade through the herd.

Finally, time for the downhill. The black trail started out as a blue and I was moving quite quickly down the trail with little difficulty. Oh sure, it was more technical than most of the trail at Platte River, but only because of the rocks. Then came the black trail. I'm proud to say that I only had to walk down two parts of this trail. One was a huge granite slab with a steep drop off on one side, so I decided I wanted to keep the tire side down. The second I could have ridden through, but the trees in equilateral triangle fashion were just marginally farther apart than my handle bars, and given the speed I would have had going through them, my knuckles thank me for walking through this section.

When I arrived at my vehicle, I checked my watch for the first time since leaving and found that three hours had passed. Except for maybe a half hour at the lake, the entire rest of the time was spent biking, or hiking up hills. What's even more amazing is that my GPS says I went over seven miles. That makes this the farthest, and hardest that I've ever biked before, and I feel like it currently... I'm beat. I feel like it's time for a nap, or just drive about 400 miles to Prince George.

MTB Distance: 7.62. Elevation: 669 -> 1932

Continue with Day 19.

Day 18

Do not continue... start over.

Round two... Fight!

Called Canada... who would have guessed that after a holiday they had so many calls that I was on hold for almost fifteen minutes while breafast got soggy in front of me. Finally got through and transfered to BC where the lady sounded shocked that my Short Term Autorization to Transport for Non-Resident had been in there offices for a month and I hadn't heard anything yet. So I got to talk to the voice mail again. At least now I can eat breakfast, but I still have no idea if I'll be able to get into Canada today. At the very least I might have to ship my firearm back to my folks so they can ship it back to me in Alaska. Not ideal at all.

So, it's wait on Canada day, which is almost a national holiday, but at least they will call back, it just takes them some time.

I flip around the tube for awhile, never much on in the mornings, but just as I'm getting into a program, my phone vibrates off the table onto the couch. Lucky for me it wasn't the floor. Who left that thing on vibrate anyway? It's Canada, supposedly the lady on the other side of the speaker called me sometime (she didn't have a date written down) that some of my information needed clarified. Basically the "Temporary" part of the license means at most five days. Now I know, good thing it's written somewhere on all the paperwork I've filled out. As soon as I say that five days is fine I've got a new message in my inbox that says I'm go for traveling northerly.

After lunch, I packed up, said goodbye to Dee and Wally, and expected a large delay at the boarder. Not only because it's the day between Canada Day, and Independence Day, but because of the horror stories I've heard about Restricted Firearm transportation. When I arrive at the boarder there's a line of a few cars, but not as bad as I expected. Before the customs agent can ask if I have anything to declare I tell him what I'm declaring, and he just about rolled his eyes at me. I didn't have to tell you guy, but thems the laws.

After the standard, how long, what are you bringing, can I tax anything you have in your vehicle questions, he directs me to the staging area with the other agents inspecting other people that have been pulled to the side.

Almost immediately I'm asked to exit the vehicle. I don't see any of the other drivers doing the same ahead of me, this could get interesting. More of the same "Can I tax you questions." and a "Where and what state is your firearm currently in." question. Of course I've followed your transportation requirements and my firearm is double locked in the rear of my vehicle. Now we go inside the building, which thankfully is air conditioned. This part of the country is supposed to have a record high today or tomorrow of 88 degrees. It's July, and not triple digits, I'm so confused, but at the same time elated. Quicker than I expected, he calls me over and I sign the paperwork I brought with me as he fills out the bottom of the form and I'm sent right over to the casher to pay the $25 Canadian fee for registering a Restricted firearm. Then I'm on my way. Total time at customs, less than thirty minutes. I'm almost disappointed as I didn't get any "chill" time, but I don't mind that much and hit the road.

On to Vancouver. Wow, the streets are so narrow here I wonder how *ding ding* and a bicyclist zips down between cars. Now this city I like. There is a bike lane, but it must only be a suggestion. The other thing that caught my eye were all the people in full out punk gear and plus ten inch mow hawks. I expected this kind of scene in Seattle, which there was some, but not this dramatic. I couldn't get a picture of any of the punks because traffic was ridiculous. Even traveling at sub-twenty-five miles per hour I have to be careful not to hit any other cars or people. Just when I've given up trying to get anymore photos for awhile I see a problem developing ahead of me. This van, that looks quite touristy to me, opens it's side door and out jumps a middle aged Asian woman. I have nowhere to go and the guy riding my bumper isn't backing off with the bright read lights in his lap. Next thing I know her elbow or purse, I don't know which, smacks my drivers side mirror and almost collapses all the way in on itself. Now, I know that Asians can scowl, but the look I got when I glanced back in my mirror was one of pure contempt. Good thing traffic is moving through this part of town, I'm outa here.

If Vancouver was neat, Whistler was amazing. These two cities will be hosting the 2010 Olympic games, but they aren't very close together. I think the sign said 111km on highway 99 as I left Vancouver.

What made Whistler so amazing was the outdoor activities: skiing, boarding, skating, biking, hiking, 4x4's, rafting, the list went on and on. Then I saw the most amazing thing ever: A group of girls riding bikes with suspension front and rear in full out body armour and full face helmets. I about rear ended the car in front of me, I couldn't stop staring.

If I was out classed in Moab, I wasn't even in the same league here. There was a whole section just on the edge of town set up with huge dirt jumps, lifts that were for downhillers and so many bike shops and tour companies with trainers that it put small countries to shame. Most of the bikes I saw had absolutely enormous disk brakes and seven inches of travel front and rear. I poped into a bike shop just to see what some of these bikes where bringing here. One of the Specialized bikes was mildly priced at over $2000. Yes, it may be Canadian dollars, but I still choked on my soda a little bit.

I looked around for awhile, but this town was way too much for me. When I get good I can come back, but right now the gash in my leg is beating pretty soundly reminding me that I should look into some body armour and a new bike before I even consider the trails that are on the maps.

Driving down the road a few miles, I find a campground and as I pull into it, the ranger lady is on her way out. She lets me pay with USD (I was brilliant and drive right past the currency exchange when I left customs... I'll go ahead and say I was so distracted by the lack of time I spent that I forgot all about exchanging money) and then she noticed the bike on the back of my vehicle. As the mosquitoes dive bombed us I told her how I chickened out on trying any of the trails back at Whistler as I'm not good enough, and she suggested a bike shop in the next town where she knows the guys will be more than willing to find me an easier trail to tryout. I think she knew, perhaps out of experience, just how out of control Whistler can be.

So, for now, I think I'll get some rest and see how extreme the easier trails are around here.

Day 18 Distance: 261, Elevation: 0 -> 2303

Continue?

Day 17

What did I miss?

Today, July the 2nd, Monday... Had to verify some paperwork to make sure I could get into Canada easily with my pistol, so I got up early... well, not that early, 8:30ish, called Canada... Closed... something about Canada Day. I guess I'm stuck in the Seattle area for another day. What to do, what to do. I guess I could go to Mt. Rainer, I haven't been there yet.

The original plan was to find a short trail, walk around a bit, and drive around the entire park. We all know how well plans work, so as soon as I heard that Glacial Basin Trail had been washed out by obscene amounts of water (yes, it does appear to be about the same time frame as Glacial National Forest's washout) that knocked over trees, strewn boulders all over the place, and generally wrecked the trail so it had to be marked temporarily with yellow caution tape to follow, well, I just had to see it for myself.

The trail was originally about 3.1 miles long, but given the destruction and the new windy path it was by far the hardest and best trail I've ever hiked. For about three hundred feet you walk over a huge boulder pile right where the trail used to exist. Soon, you're dodging large trees that fell across the path. Before long you're almost ankle deep wading across streams left over from the washouts that come from somewhere above and crash down to the temporary path in little waterfalls.

The visitor center lady told me she hiked this trail, in it's current condition, in about an hour and a half, one way. With all the waterfalls and distruction to document, I found it pressing to get there under two and a half hours. I can't wait to look at those photos closer, but I'm guessing that you couldn't take a bad picture of that hike. Every few steps it seemed there was another waterfall, another boulder pile, or another flower patch that needed it's digital duplicate made.

After getting down in just under an hour and a half, my feet, legs, back... well, I was tuckered, and rather than continue around the park, I just drove back to Dee & Wally's place for the night and recounted my excersion to them. That wasn't a trail I'd suggest to most people to take, but for me, that was a good day.

Continue?

Day 16

What? I missed something?

I got up before most of the campsite here at Lewis and Clark State park, which is roughly one hundred miles from Seattle, so I could get into town before too much of the Sunday crowd could clog the streets of downtown.

Unfortunately parking was not nearly as simple as I would have hoped. I ended up just parking in a parking garage, which was probably the best choice because then my car was off the street. Since most of the towns have been good about bicyclist and bike lanes I thought about taking my bike with me to explore the cityscape, but decided that I was probably going to spend most of my time at the markets, or in museums so it would just be a hassle to keep track of while I was doing my thing elsewhere.

After parking my car, I took the elevator up to street level, brought out my GPS, and placed a point called "CAR", figuring I'd just wander aimlessly and see what I could see. This turned out to be a brilliant move. Soon I found myself down by the docks and the water ways for a really good look to the west. After enjoying the view, it was time to find these famous markets. I'm still not sure if I did more following people, or reading signs, both of which were leading directly to the markets.

Now, if I were my sister, there would never have been a need to go anywhere else in the city. There were little stores selling this, that, and the other thing you really don't need but think you do right now. Good thing nothing here is labeled "free" or else I might have spent more than a half hour walking through there. I did see the fish throwers, but after standing a corner, well, not so much of a corner as waiting for people to move out of the way as I think everyone was hoping to see a flying fish, and seeing none, flying fish that is, everyone in the area seemed to concluded that no one was buying fish and the crowds started to move gain.

Ok, enough of the shops and things, time to go learn stuff... where's the museums around here? Time to pull out the GPS. It says walk a mile that-a-way... deal. Funny, the Space Needle is getting really close now. Hey look the Science Fiction Museum is basically right underneath the space needle... who'd have guessed it. The museum also happens to be attached to the Experience Music Project and for $15 you can go through both of them. But, I may not ever get back to the Space Needle and I kinda wanted to go up there too... ick, $16 just to ride the elevator the 520 feet to the top... I'm going to the museum.

What a cool museum. Not only do they have lots of Blade Runner costumes, Dune gear, Battlestar Galactica costumes (then new ones even!), a Tron costume, a Mercury astronaut's suit, Darth Vader helmet, mask, cloak and light saber, but get this, they even mix in lots of history of Science Fiction and history of world events at the time this or that book or scientific discovery was made. Of all the movie gear that was there (and there was a lot) there was only one movie that I hadn't seen and didn't know anything about: The Fountain (2006). One of the screens had a preview of the movie running, and all I have to say is: How did I never watch that movie? That preview was sweet!

After going through that museum, I'm going to have to read more books. They had original prints of Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clark, Isaac Asimov, and many, many others including some original manuscripts and oh so many sketches and models built for movies and television shows. Of course it had large sections of Star Trek and Star Wars stuff, but I was mostly impressed how large the collection was on Dune and Blade Runner. They had the police car from Blade Runner, and all the major actor and actress costumes and weapons. Except for the backdrops, I think you could film the movie tomorrow using just the stuff they had in the museum. Dune wasn't any worse off. I'm not as familiar with that movie, but they had all the weapons to be sure. Even some that I had trouble placing at first glance. It was almost enough to make me want to go read Frank's books... almost.

After I made it through the Science Fiction Museum, I still had to go through the Experience Music Project, but as I'd spent almost four hours going through the museum, I basically breezed through the music section in a little more than an hour and a half. There was a large section dedicated to Jimmy Hendrix, and Disney that where quite detailed. True to form, they had many relics as well. The history of the electric guitar went way over my head as they had actual amps, guitars and basses from the 20s and 30s up to present time. And since it is in Seattle, they had another section dedicated to the history of the Seattle music scene.

As much as they tried to make it look like there was still a large music scene in Seattle after grunge, I was having trouble buying it. Their best example was the Presidents of the United States of America, which disbanded sometime in the late 90s, hardly recent. They did have a wall full of seemingly current light pole ads for local bands playing concerts around the area as one of the posters I recognized from a pole I walked by on the way from the markets, but I didn't ever find out for sure.

One neat area of the experience was a section that tried to teach you how to play the piano, drums, and guitar. Using colored lights and music you could pickup the instrument and attempt to learn to play it in a game like fashion. This was the section of the building that seemed to be pushed the hardest from what I remember reading on the internet when it was being built, and it seems like they pulled it off in a fairly user friendly fashion. While I didn't feel like jumping on and trying out the equipment, just standing back and watching some kids that obviously had no musical experience, I found that they could put a few notes together that sounded eerily like a song, if they didn't get impatient and just rattle on the keyboard. Who knows, it might be the kick start some of them needed to get lessons and learn an instrument for real.

The architecture of the building was just plain bazaar. I found the music area to be hard to follow, disjointed and illogical. To make myself seem even more Spock-like, I found the Sci-Fi area to be easy to follow even if slightly disjointed, and very progressive in it's setup from section to section. Maybe that's the creative vs intellectual sides battling each other, but I know where I felt more at home. And from the fact that there were very few movie clips and characters that I didn't instantly know going back to the 60s made me feel I'd made the correct choice on spending so much time browsing through the artifacts collected in the Sci-Fi museum.

All said and done, I'd go there again, and if you get the chance I highly recommend it.

Day 16 Distance: 116, Elevation: 0 -> 462

Continue?

Day 15

Read the whole thing.
Headed to Mt St. Helens today. I have to say, when you see all the news of the eruption on the TV, it looks like it's really straight forward on what happened where and how much damage there was to the surrounding area. However, when you see it for yourself the sheer distances you're talking about make it quite difficult to gauge just what went on in 1980.

The other thing that complicates the destruction and rehabilitation of the area is all the signs that say "Planted in 19xx" next too all the trees. I was furious when I saw those signs all over. Why would they plant new trees everywhere? All they're going to have is a bunch of trees that are all the same age and it will never be the type of forest that was naturally there to begin with. Plus the sheer expense that had to be put forth to plant all these trees by hand. They had to be planted by hand because of the ash layer that covered everything was not full of the minerals needed for the trees to grow. It wasn't directly harmful to them if the roots could get below that layer, but you couldn't just salt the surface with tree seedlings or seeds and expect a forest to spring up, the workers had to scrape down to the soil and place the seedling at that level.

Then I saw it by the Hoffstadt Creek Bridge on the way up the mountain, but didn't take a picture of it for some reason. If memory serves, it cost nine billion dollars to replant the hills surrounding Mt St. Helens and it wasn't completed until 1992, and the first trees will be ready for logging in 2010 or 2012. Oh, that's why the trees were planted so thickly and no care was taken for diversity in the forest.

Thankfully they didn't replant the entire area around the Volcano as there was a large portion directly around the summit that was set aside for science. This area has many little shrubs and flowers starting to grow on it, but very few trees and tree like plants. There were some evergreen trees in some of the crevasses that look like they were somewhat protected from the heat of the blast, but they are small enough that they look like new growth to my untrained and unaided eye. Other than that, the hillside is a bone yard of broken tree trunks and stumps that were left from the sheer force of the eruption. You wouldn't have wanted to be standing up there when it went, and the monument to the people that were shows that some where.

Now for things to get interesting. I was planning on camping at one of the many (ok about three) campgrounds in the near area to Mt St Helens and doing some hiking tomorrow. But by now you know how plans work, or don't. Being Saturday night between two major metropolitan areas (Portland and Seattle) every available campsite I found within about fifty miles was full. New plan for tomorrow: Drive closer to Seattle and spend the whole day downtown... ready... break!

Day 15 Distance: 237, Elevation: 10 -> 4311

Continue?

Day 14

Don't know where I've been? Read about it here.

Schrader and I went to the Japanese Garden today, and I have to say it was pretty cool. We got there on the MAX and took our bikes so we didn't have to worry about parking on a Friday afternoon, which would have been a problem. There were ample options for photos, so I ended up with almost sixty photos.

Today's photos have also been added to the Alaska Trip photo group so you can see part of what I've seen on my mystical journey. It has now grown into two albums as picasaweb only allows 500 photos per album.

First album of pictures includes the first dozen days.
Second album starts on day 14.

These pictures have all been resized to 800x600 pixels for your viewing convenience. If you would like any of the full sized, or modified photos that I have, please email me and I'll send them too you. Eventually I'll get around to picking out my favorites and put them in they're own directory in all they're glory.

Day 12 & 13

Do not pass go, head directly to the beginning.

The "MAINT REQD" light has been flashing for a few days now, I guess it means I need to get the oil changed. Suppose now is as good of time as any. Got Mobile 1 synthetic put in even though I don't know if synthetic was in before, but I plan on keeping synthetic in there from now on. I didn't really want to, but I got the oil changed at a Walmart Express Lube. Give me a break, it was right next to the gas station in town and I did call another service station that my GPS recommended, but they didn't answer their phone.

On the upside, leaving the parking lot I saw a Tahoe with the following bumper sticker:
"GUNS CAUSE CRIME
like flies cause garbage"

I wasn't too ninja taking the photo, so the lady driving saw me take the photo. I don't think she was too friendly because the other bumper sticker on the vehicle said:
"KEEP HONKING
I'm reloading."

I turned the other direction. We'll leave well enough alone.

So I'm driving down I-84 to Portland, and I'm having trouble breathing. I-84 is right next too the Columbia River, which is breath taking, but not so much that I should be actually having trouble breathing so I glance at my GPS to see what the elevation says. 380 feet and I'm still over 150 miles from Portland! This river is more like a huge inland lake that stretches for hundreds of miles. It's so slow moving that from the roadway I can't tell that it's a river at all. This state must be so flat that the river can't... oh, there's the dam. So that's what 'The Dallas' are... I get it now.

My GPS navigated me through Portland to Schrader's place almost flawlessly. I say almost because the last turn when it should beep faster the last quarter mile from the turn it didn't start until I had passed the corner. Crap... U turn and I'm there.

This place is really full of cars and people. They pack the houses in here, but inside the place is really quite spacious.

Now it's Day 13... It's raining... and since I'm not at all a superstitious person I think I'll just stay home today. I mean, my computer needs some software upgraded... and I have all these photos to go through... I've just got so much work to do that I've just got to stay home right? That's it... I'll just do that then.

Day12 Distance: 513, Elevation: 23 -> 4783

Continue?

Day 11

Do you start books in the middle to? Go back to the beginning.

Got up today and felt I needed a good breakfast, so I cooked a few eggs and tried not to leave any scraps for the bears to find. Unfortunately I don't know how large of a morsel is considered "bear worthy" but the pieces of egg that missed my napkin were quickly found by the squirrels around the area. I hate squirrels. Probably a bad idea to drop a boulder on these little varmints in a national park, but I considered it. Little mutton grabbers.

After pressing my luck with a wilderness hike yesterday, I stuck to higher traveled trails today. Namely the trails to St. Mary's falls. On my way back, I was taking the shot of the butterfly you see attached to this post, when it was scared away by people approaching from above me on the ledge. I thought at this point that the only reason for that butterfly to be scarred off better be for two hot chicks walking up. Sure enough, there were two of them, and not bad looking either. Apparently it was snack time, so we sat and chatted for about a half hour. I suppose that was worth messing up my butterfly shot after all.

Time to drive to the other side of the park. Sheesh, makes you wish they had a route through the middle of this park... oh, right, closed.

I picked out a nice circular path that would bring me around a lake and started walking. The forest on this side seemed quite a bit different. I'm no expert on forests, but I noticed that there was much less undergrowth, but a more complete canopy. I'd guess that this side was younger as the older trees hadn't yet died to allow openings in the canopy that allowed the undergrowth to flourish.

At the point the circular path should have turned to return home, I found a surprise waiting for me. No bridge. Well, there was a bridge, barley. Oh yeah, obscene amounts of rain. I continued on for awhile longer, hoping for another path across, but really I knew I'd picked another down and back path. Fortunately, to make up for the fact that I was back to not seeing anything else human on the path, a deer and it's fawn crossed in front of me. Then something I'd never seen before happened; as I watched, the mother deer nestled the fawn down in the shadows, and tried to get me to follow her. She stood for awhile, then rotated in a circle, then walked off, leaving her fawn hunkered down. An easy meal. Too bad I'd just had a snack and wasn't hungry for any native offerings, so I resorted to the next best thing: a good photo op with a captive audience. No need for that 70-300mm lens, I could walk right up to the fawn and take it's picture.

I want to make it to Portland tomorrow, so it's back on the road we go. After Missoula I figured I'd look for a place to camp, but I didn't figure I'd find one _IN_ a rest stop, but that's what the sign said, so I got off I-90 to investigate. Sure enough, there was a little road back to a national forest with camping just off the Interstate. How convenient, but at the same time terribly disappointing. No narrow roadway to follow for miles at a time, or confusing signs to interpret, or signs half destroyed by those people that hunt stationary reflective objects at point blank range with shotguns. Oh well, I guess this will do.

Day 11 Distance: 315, Elevation: 2733 -> 6017

Don't know where to go from here? There's always Day 12.

Day 10

Start with Day 1... if you dare.

Made it to Glacier National Park today and had planned to drive through the entire park, however last November it seems that they had an obscene amount of precipitation that completely removed the roadway through Logan Pass and there is no route through park. So, I'll have to be content to see the park from the east side today, and the west side tomorrow.

I spent a good portion of the evening hours hiking through bear country mostly because I hadn't had a good hike in awhile. It felt good to be going through a path where I didn't see anyone for over two hours. In fact I traveled nearly four miles total, down and back, on a trail this evening having never seen, or heard anything that sounded human, besides myself that is. I think I still classify as human, I'll have to check tomorrow.

I tried to get a couple of photos of flowers hanging over the path, but because of the canopy of the trees, I had some trouble. That and the fact that I never thought to change the ISO setting on my camera... DOH!... It's still set to 100, which is great for sunny scenery with lots of colors, but awful for the darkness of a forest, so even with an IS lens I couldn't get the photos to turn out quite right. Somebody remind me to change that setting, because I don't remember to do so. The camera can go up to 1600 ISO rating, so I know I would have been able to get the photo to turn out correctly upon hindsight.

As I was setting up my tent and filling out the campground paperwork (twenty bucks... what a ripoff!) the campground hosts drove up. I thought for sure I was in someone else's campsite and I'd have to take my tent down, and because it was quite windy and starting to rain I'd put extra effort into making sure that the tent and rain cover where properly donned. Instead Bonnie just wanted to tell me big tails of all the bear activity they had the last few nights. Something like three bears in the last four nights. I wanted to ask how they knew it wasn't the same bear every night, but thought better of it and didn't. She felt it her duty (rightly so) to inform me on food safety and whatnot. Nothing varied much from the pamphlets they gave you when you entered the park which amount to the same message as "Don't talk to strangers." Nothing in there about what happens if the stranger talks to you first. The one interesting thing she did say was not to keep toothpaste in the tent, as the smell can attract the bears. I showed her though, I didn't even brush my teeth that day.

By this time, it was basically dark, and getting quite chilly. Good thing I've got that warm sleeping bag. I zipped it all the way up for the first time ever, and slept with just my nose exposed, quite comfy really.

Day10 Distance: 286, Elevation 3579 -> 6719

Can't stop can you?