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Takayama Day 2

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I wanted to do a nighttime food tour, but found none online.  I did find a daytime food tour that went to the morning market and the old town.  I arrived at the train station meeting point early.  Hanging out in the hotel room sounded less fun than wasting a half hour exploring the train station. 

I saw a guy sitting on a bench with an official looking badge on so I asked if he was the guide for the food tour.  He asked if I was Rraine.  “How did you know?”. I was the only one on the tour.  I like tours because you get to meet new people.  I guess I get to meet one new person today.  Later I learned I was the first person to ever take this food tour.  The tour company has done history and walking tours for years, but just decided to add a food tour for the first time.

The first stop was a vendor at the morning market.  He sold espresso in tiny cookie cups.  The inside of the cup was lightly frosted so the frosting would melt into your espresso.  When done, you ate the cup.  Brilliant.

We went to a samurai museum where you could see what the castle in this town would have looked like.  Also displayed were clothing, tools, swords and other artifacts from the samurai times. 

I ate grilled beef on a stick, raw beef sashimi, ramen and finished up the food portion with pudding. 

There was also sake testing.  In one of the sake sellers, you can put money in a gumball machine and out pops a sake cup and a token.  At another machine, you can get additional tokens.  Then you take the tokens to a bank of pour machines.  Each token pours a sample of sake.  This way you can sample sake to help decide which one you want to buy.  Again, brilliant!

We also went to a memorabilia museum with items from the Showa period (1926 – 1989).  It was like entering an Americana museum from the 1950s and 1960’s, but with a slight Japanese flavor.  It was fun and something I never would have chosen on my own.

After the tour, I decided to go see the samurai castle ruins.  This was not the best decision of the day.  Of course, the castle was at the top of a huge hill.  There were several ruins locations at the top of the hill.  None of the Google maps names matched the park arrow signs.  So I had no idea which trail I wanted to pick to see ruins.  I picked one and hiked up to the false summit at which point I had seen no ruins.  My feet hurt, my back hurt and seeing ruins no longer seemed worth it.  Was I going to continue up just to say I did?  No. I admitted defeat and headed back down.  At least it was a pretty forest hike except for the very loud heavily perfumed French group of 6 that followed me down.

Finally down from the mountain, it was time to do the dinner hunt game.   First I went to the restaurant my hotel had recommended that was closed last night.  There was a sign on the door that said all seats were reserved for the night.  I went to a couple other steak places that were more ‘food on the go’ type places.  The next place I went to had a line out the door of about 20 people. 

I didn’t want to wait, but I also was tired of being told restaurants were closed or needed a reservation.  And a line often means good food.  So I got in line.  Every now and then one of the three wait staff would come out and excitedly call the next person in line like they had won the lottery.  It was a celebration each time a new table became available.  This made me want to eat here even more.  When I got closer to the front one of them came out and put some of our names, party number and where we were from on the list.  Whoo!  Rraine One USA!  A short time later, it was my turn to eat. I was welcomed with cheers.  I had a very delicious steak and a lemon sour.  It was so fun watching the wait staff interact with the guests.  They were so energetic and their joy spread out throughout the room.  It was contagious.  Thank you, other restaurant, for being fully booked.

On the way back to my hotel, I found a foot bath.  Game changer.  We need more foot baths in the world.  It was warm, relaxing, and clean.  I found a coin operated massage chair at my hotel.  It wasn’t as great as the foot bath.

Another Night in Ueda

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I decided to stay one night in Ueda since I wasn’t sure how I was going to get from the retreat center to Ueda or what time.  I didn’t want to have to rush to meet my train or miss it because my timing was off.  It would take me two trains and a bus to get from Ueda to Hirayu Onsen.  I was able to come back to Ueda with my teacher and friend by taxi.  I also got to have lunch with them before they departed to Tokyo and I departed to laundry

After doing laundry, I was only slightly early to check in to my hotel.  I was able to check in early.  I booked a massage for 6:40pm so I had over three hours to kill.  Sara and Michael had headed off to get ice cream when I left them so I still had ice cream running around in my brain.  I mapped ice cream and picked a location nearby.  It was a restaurant that served a lot of things.  Ice cream was not one of them.  They had shaved ice.  Close enough.  I got a mulberry milk ice.  The menu advertised it was high in antioxidants. I’ll take my toxic sugar with a side of antioxidants please. They cancel each other out, right?  It was stupid sized and delicious.

Then what?  I went to the art museum because the internet told me they had a great shop with things from local artists.  Lots of things, but nothing I wanted.  Since I was shopping now, where else coukd I go?  I went to two other gift shops.  They were full of boxed snacks.  When Japanese travel they buy these as gifts, either as a memento of where they traveled to or as a gift to others from their home town.  I think it’s a great gift idea, but I don’t have room in my suitcase for boxed mystery food.  One box had a picture of a green grape, another of an apple.  I was pretty sure both of them probably were sweet and might resemble the flavor of that fruit.  The rest of the boxes and bags were a complete mystery.  The rest of the things in the shops were sake, samurai themed toys, other toys, trinkets, t-shirts and hats.  There was a huge samurai theme since the Ueda Castle nearby dates back to this times of samurais.

After my massage, I went in search of steak.  I had seen several on my wander around town.  I went to two steak places that had people eating in them, but they told me they were closed.  It was a little before 8:00pm.  Even restaurants in Granby are open past 8:00.  I went to a Korean BBQ place.  Every item I would want was for a minimum of two people.  I gave up the hope of steak.  My next goal was to find a place that would serve me any food. 

I went to the street near the train station where I ate the last time I was in Ueda.  Two more restaurants were full of people, but closed.  I still have emergencheese in my suitcase, but I’m pretty sure I should throw that away, not eat it.  I think I’ll go to bed without dinner before eating emergencheese.  The last restaurant on the street welcomed me in and even fished an English menu out of the back somewhere.  No steak.  So, I chose a cabbage and pork omelet.  I never would have put those three things together on my own, but it was good once I scraped the dried fish flakes off the top.

Rain Day

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Rain was predicted for today.  In fact it was raining when I went down from my room to breakfast.  I debated if I should bring the umbrella and rain jacket or just the rain jacket.  The umbrella is just another thing to carry and the rain was light.  I chose just the rain jacket.  I should have taken both.

Today, I had scheduled a tour through the streets of Tokyo on go-karts.  I was quite excited.  I hoped the rain didn’t ruin the activity.  I headed over to the kart shop.  There were four others signed up to go with me.

It was no longer raining, but the cart guy said it was expected to start back up in the middle of the 2 hour tour.  I could get a refund or if I decided to go, they would lend me a rain coat, rain pants, gloves, goggles AND a rain poncho.  Under all that, how would I even know if it was raining.  I should have taken the refund. 

The group of 4 came in after me and didn’t know you needed to have an international driver’s license to go on the tour.  So they couldn’t go.  It was just me.  I expected it would be me and a guide in karts zipping around.  That didn’t sound as fun as a big group, but it sounded fun enough so I suited up in all the anti rain stuff and watched the safety video. 

There would be a lead car and a follow car so I just had to follow the lead car and not run any red lights.  After a hands-on tutorial of the kart, I was ready to go.  Wait, there was no guide in a kart going with me.  This suddenly went down on the fun scale to fun adjacent.  

It started off ok.  I was a little slow at first.  I didn’t want to gun it and run into the lead car.  I would start up slow and then speed up just in time to have to break at a stop light.  Apparently I was driving around with my hazards on because the guy in the follow car ran up to me at a stop light and asked if I was ok and then turned them off.  Ooops. 

The turn signal was trying to get the better of me.  I couldn’t see the toggle switch under the wheel.  I missed it quite a few times and I bet I was driving around with it on when I wasn’t turning from time to time.  I don’t even know why I cared.  The follow car had a clear view of the lead car over my head and knew when we were turning.

It rained a little harder.  The break and gas pedals were slippery.  My goggles were streaked with rain.  The rain jacket hood slowly slipped farther back exposing more of my face and allowing water to drip into the jacket.  I couldn’t tell if I was mildly wet or completely soaked.

I basically was flying slowly (felt fast to me, but probably was annoyingly slow to everyone else) in a bubble between the lead and follow cars so I felt safe-ish.  But I was sitting on the ground by myself completely exposed to the elements in a vehicle that is squirrely.  Water was everywhere.  It rained harder and harder and became more difficult to see or push the pedals.  I had dropped solidly into the category of pure un-fun – no fun anywhere to be found.

I raised my hand at the next light which was the signal to abort. Someone from the lead car ran out and asked if I wanted to abort.  Yes, very much so.  The lead car found a safe place to pull over and I was shuttled into the lead car.  I have no idea what became of the kart.  We drove around a bit.  Then we stopped for a photo at Tokyo Station, then went back.

I have a coupon for another time.  I still think it would be a lot of fun not by myself.  

I asked if there was anything they recommended I could do that was fun and not in the rain.  My plan was to go to a park after, but  that was solidly in the non-fun category now.  My feet and pants were dry, but my top was not.  Both TeamLabs and the Harry Potter Tour were recommended.  Everyone kept asking if I was cold – not in the slightest.  I had my rain jacket, but they gave me a poncho to add to the mix. 

I looked up TeamLabs – no tickets available.  I looked up the HP tour.  There were tickets, but it seemed far away.  To HP or not to HP?  I didn’t have the energy to come up with another idea.  I ordered a cab to the HP tour which cost the same as the HP tickets. 

They gave me a plastic bag to put my wet poncho in.  That was nice.  The tour covered a lot about how the movies were made.  It also had a bunch of sets that looked like the movie sets so you could walk through them.  Most of the instructions by staff were in Japanese, but it wasn’t hard to get the gist.  There were places where you could act out scenes or get your picture taken.  I tried them all, but, wow, I’m horrible.  Not that anyone around me was great, but each time I watched the video I just made, I cringed.  It wasn’t even funny bad acting.

The best part of the whole thing was that about 90% of the people, including the adults went into the gift shop ahead of the tour and bought a cape, scarf and wand.  The place was completely covered in giddy, excited people running around pretending they were wizards.  They were posing for pictures, waving their wands to do spells, and having the best time ever.

Halfway through the tour was a cafe and a bar where you could get butter beer.  I was quite ready to try butter beer.  I love everything butter.  I got the butter beer and popcorn combo.  The butter beer smelled like butterscotch, but didn’t quite taste like it.  It just tasted sweet.  It was fun to sit at the pub and have a butter beer.  It also came in a souvenir cup.  My poor husband is going to get a bunch of souvenir cups when I get home and not a single cat hat.

After taking way too many pictures it was time to figure out how to get back to the hotel.  The trains would take over an hour and would involve walking in the pouring rain.  I was in a zone Go Taxis were not allowed because there was a formal taxi stand nearby.  Go is like Uber.  There was no taxi stand anywhere in sight.  There was nothing.  I thought if I headed out to the street, I might get out of the no Go zone.  I got out of the zone, but no Go’s were available in the area.  I was  completely soaked now anyway despite the gift poncho.  I ask maps to find the train station.  I hoped my phone continued to work even though it was also soaked.  Wandering through train stations and riding trains for an hour and my clothes were dry again. Yay for quick drying clothes. 

This was going to be a good night to eat at the hotel.  No, it was closed for a private party just like every other night.  Back out into the rain.  I went back to the place I went the first night for more meat on a stick.

Planets and Towers

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The last time I was in Tokyo, I went to a light exhibit by TeamLabs.  I don’t even know how to describe it, but it blew my mind.  Digital light effects, computer generated, interactive, magical,…..  Since then I have gone to everything like it including one in Singapore by TeamLabs.  None came close to comparing.  So first order of business for the day was to go to their second installation in Tokyo, Planets.

Planets did not disappoint.  There were three exhibits that included water.  One was wading in a koi pond.  The water was up to my mid calf.  The koi were digital light images on the water.  They interacted with you as you walked through the pond.  Some swam around you, others skittered off when you approached.  When they ran into each other, they turned into flowers that floated off.  Pure magic.

I could explain more of the exhibits, but I couldn’t do them justice.  The pictures and videos below are just an approximation also, but enjoy.

After, I went to the small cafe outside.  They had a “bar” where you could sit with the orchids from one of the exhibits and get a sake or a tea.  I got a tea.  I sat in a dark room with a couple while the vases the orchids were in lit up on a slow neon fade. My tea cup also lit up. It was an odd, not quite satisfying experience.  It also came with a free orchid (no flower, just the plant).  More odd.  Now I’m toting a rather large green thing around that I can’t take home with me.  I hope my friend that I will see later in the trip or the retreat center I am going to will like it.

After stashing my orchid in my hotel room, I decided to head off to a park near the Tokyo tower. I walked from the train station toward the tower and saw a shrine along the way. I stopped in a cafe for lunch. The tower was close so I decided to take some pictures around there before heading to the park. I went in and saw that tickets to the observation deck were not very expensive. I bought a ticket for entry to the top observation deck. I had an hour to kill before my ticket entry time. So, I went up to the mid observation deck and walked around about ten times. I got a coffee, snapped some pictures and watched a movie about the war and the building of the tower. The park I was aiming to go to didn’t look too impressive from way up high. In every direction I looked, there was just city as far as the eye could see. No end to Tokyo in any direction. Then I went up to the top deck in a very crowded elevator. The views from the top deck looked a lot like the views from the mid deck so I did a couple laps around and headed back down.

All of this took the better part of a day. It was so nice to have a planned activity followed by wandering. I decided to wander to a different part of the city in search of ramen for dinner.

Ramen

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I decided to go to Shinjuku for dinner.  I looked for ramen restaurants on Google maps and picked one nearby the station that had good reviews.  Maps led me down a busy street and then turned me down an alley.  The alley was quiet and dark except for a place that was lit up and had a line of people in front of it. 

I had to wait in line for ramen?  Normally, I would not be up for waiting in line for dinner, but a line down the alley had to be a good sign.  So I got in line.

A lady came out of the restaurant and took tickets from a couple a few people ahead of me.  Huh.  How did they get tickets?  Was I in line for take out?  I hoped not.  I wouldn’t know where to take it.  The guy behind me hadn’t done anything so I just stood there, waiting. 

Two people came out of the restaurant and got in line up ahead of me. No one seemed bothered by this.  Oh…..something was going on that I didn’t understand.  After about 5 minutes the guy in front of me went in and came back out with a ticket.  I think I got it – kind of. 

The lady came out, asked him some questions, wrote on his ticket and took his ticket.  She then motioned for me to go inside to get a ticket.

I went inside.  It was a tiny restaurant that only sat 12 people.  I’d only been in one ramen restaurant before and it was tiny too, but without the line and ticket system.  There was a machine and it appeared to have menu items on it.  There was shrimp and miso, shrimp and tomato, and shrimp and dipping sauce.  I pressed the button for shrimp and dipping sauce, but nothing happened.  I pressed another button below it.  Nothing happened.  I stared at the machine for a minute, trying to figure out what to do next.  Finally, I see the lady who was outside and motioned for help.  She showed me where to put money in the machine.  Duh.  It was obvious after she showed me.  The machine lit up and I pressed a button.  A ticket popped out and then my change. 

I think I might have ordered ramen with shrimp, dipping sauce and egg?  I went back out and stood where I was in line.  The lady came to get my ticket and asked what size I wanted.  I said small.  Small apparently came with another topping, pork or something.  I understood “pork” so I picked that.  She wrote on my ticket and took it. 

I watched the system continue with the people behind me as I waited to go in to eat.  Now I was excited.  It was like dinner with a guessing game. Guess what happens next….. This is one the things I love so much about travelling – feeling kind of clueless or lost because something is so different than I am used to. 

When I got closer to the door, I noticed the sign for the restaurant.  It had a huge shrimp on it.  Aha, that must be their speciality and it explained the choices.

When it was time to go in, the lady told me “two” and motioned to a bar stool with a 2 on it.  As I sat down the guy in seat 1 got up and went to a counter behind the bar stools where there was a stack of cups and a water dispenser.  Suddenly I was so thirsty.  I got up, got some water, a packaged wet cloth for cleaning my hands and what I thought was a napkin.  It was the least absorbent napkin I had ever felt.  Wait, it wasn’t a napkin.  It was a bib.  I hadn’t noticed before, but everyone was wearing bibs.  I don’t think I’d worn a bib since I was a kid.  This was oddly super fun.

Proudly, I put my bib on, grabbed my chop sticks and waited for my food to arrive.  They gave me two bowls, one with noodles, lettuce and pork in it and one with the sauce and “shrimp”.  Watching others, I see that you take a little of everything and put it in the sauce to soak for a few seconds, then eat, then repeat.  The shrimp had the consistency of shrimp, but didn’t resemble shrimp in any other way.  The pork was excellent. 

Still not used to the time change coupled with a belly full of carbs I was exhausted. I decided that going back to the hotel and going to bed by 9:00 was the best plan.

Help Needed

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This blog post is for, you, my OG Subscribers. 

I am in the process of writing a book.  The book will be about what it was like to join a search and rescue team as a middle aged woman.  Also, about the beautiful and wonderful moments found in nature and the diverse people I have met along the way.

Unfortunately, writing a book in 2025 also involves having a marketing plan and having an on-line presence.  I’d like to bump up the number of people subscribing to my blog to help show publishers that people like my writing.

I decided to make some rain drop themed metal charm pieces as an incentive/thank you for any of you that are willing to share my blog with others so that I can increase my number of subscribers.  I have sample photos below.  Most can be used as a necklace pendant or other decoration.  I can also do key rings or a fidget spinner (also pictured below). 

If you can help me gain 5 – 10 new subscribers I will send you a charm.  10 – 15 new subscribers I will let you choose the style and metal (copper, brass, bronze, jewelry nickel) you want and make it specifically for you.  If you can help me gain 15 – 20 new subscribers, I will add a stone to the piece and/or make it in silver.  20+ subscribers, we can discuss another design, earrings, or whatever you may want that is in my jewelry skill set.

Once new subscribers sign up, I will email them to find out who recommended them and keep track.

Other ways you can help.  If you want to write a short testimonial about why you like my writing, I can gather those to give to publishers.  It would also help me for future blogs.  You could post a comment here or email me.  rrainefiore@gmail.com.

Upcoming:  1.  I am currently in Japan and will be sharing stories of my travels with you.  2.  Later, I will be posting a survey to help determine what I should put in the blog after Japan.  What do you want to read about?  3.  I will post some chapters from my book.

Caribou, Where Are You?

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Yesterday’s drive was great.  I only had a 4 hour drive, so I had looked up various places along the way to stop for beautiful views.  I was sure other stops would present themselves as well.

Because I wasn’t sure how often I would stop, I decided not to listen to the audio book.  It would be distracting to keep turning it on and off.  For the beginning of the ride, I was driving next to the Toad River.   It was that beautiful light arctic blue.  So, as I often do, I sang about it.  I can say it was one of my best songs. 

I do this all the time, especially at home.  I just make up songs about things going on around me.  At home, it’s mostly about our pets.  But there is also the Hot Tub Time song which hasn’t been heard all summer.  I predict it’s making a come back soon.  And the cheerful song I sing about how much I love grocery shopping.   I do not love grocery shopping, so the song helps me motivate.  I actually wonder how Richard is surviving without my daily songs.  I’m sure my pets are suffering.

All along the trip today were wildlife warning signs – Bison, Caribou, Sheep, Moose…..  Caribou?  I forgot Canada has caribou.  I want to see caribou.   The first sign was for sheep.  I saw no sheep.  I sang about it.  The next was for caribou.  No caribou.  I sang about that, too.  Bison – no bison – song.

A truck flashed it’s lights at me 4 times.  Warning! Something is coming.  There was no sign to tell me what it might be.  It was a mamma and baby moose on the road.  I just stopped in the middle of the highway until the baby decided to cross the road.  Then I drove slowly by mamma so I wouldn’t spook her.  She was not concerned.   No other cars came by or behind me while I was there.  A private audience with the moose. 

I drove by rivers and lakes and lakes that looked like rivers and rivers that looked like lakes.  I sang about them all.  After I passed the 5th or 6th bison sign, I thought, yea, no, there will be no bison.  By now, I decided the bison song would be best sung by a barber shop quartet.  Then…..bison……everywhere!  There was a huge herd flanking the highway.  Again, I sang.  Again, I stopped in the middle of the highway.  I rolled down the windows and had a chat with the bison.  I was probably there for 20 minutes and never saw another car.

Around lunchtime, I got to Liard River Hot Springs.  This was one of my planned stops as it got a thumbs up from my friend, Tim.  I drove up to what looked like a military grade electric gate, and it opened.  I paid $5 and heard the “rules”.  The area is fenced and gated with an electric fence.  I assume this is to protect us from bears.  Still, hot springs and electric fences seem at odds with each other.  I guess a run in with a bear and hot springs do too. I’m not complaining, though, because you had to walk about 5 minutes down a forest boardwalk to get from the parking to the hot springs.  The boardwalk turned out to be my favorite part of the hot springs.  The hot springs were lovely, warm, relaxing, and exactly what I expected.  The boardwalk surprised me.  It was quiet and looked like something you might see in a tropical place.  It was lush with water all around.   I saw a ton of dragon flies.  You could hear the trickle and drip of water as you walked.  I could hear little animals in the trees and the soft sound of leaves and pine needles dropping slowly through the trees.

Later, I stopped at a waterfall and a place in the river called whirlpool canyon.  Both were better than what I expected.  I took the obligatory photo and moved on. 

As I started pulling out of the mountains and entered more of a hilly area, I saw a bear silhouette.   It looked like a metal sculpture  you often see in Colorado.   It wasn’t a sculpture.   It was a real baby bear.  This time I pulled off the highway onto the shoulder.  I saw no mother.  Maybe this was a yearling newly on his own?  I rolled down the windows again and we had a chat.  It was a one way chat.  I told him how magnificent he was and kept eating flowers.  I was so close I could hear his munching.  He was enthusiastic about eating.  I hope he now knows how magnificent he is.  He probably already knew. 

I got to Watson Lake and checked into “A Nicer Motel”.  That was the name of my hotel.  From the look of the outside, I cried a little.  It looked worse than the Travelodge.  The inside was cute, clean and very very nice.  Relief.  Funny thing was the sign on the hotel next door.  It read “A Nice Hotel”.  I wonder if there was some neighbor rivalry going on here.

So far, this was my favorite day on the trip.    I am absolutely in love with myself.  I am funny and entertaining.  I sang, laughed, saw beautiful places, and talked to wild animals. And I think I created an entire album of new hits:

For a limited time only, for only $9.99, you too could own The Songs of British Columbia. With old-time favorites such as “The Bear Chant”, “Dude on a Bike”, and “Cheers Mother Nature”. Sure to become future hits are “Buffalo”, “Sheep no Sheep”, and “What the Fuck, Pebble”. And what album would be complete without “Blue Blue Toad River” and “Caribou, Where are You?”?

Toad River

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I slept hard and was awake at 6:00am. No need to stay here any more. I packed up quickly. Since I slept in my clothes from the day before, I figured what’s the harm in one more day in the car in the same clothes? I put on my shoes and went to the restaurant to get my free made-to-order breakfast. Maybe that would be the silver lining of the Travelodge. It wasn’t. It was made to order, just not to my order. Oh well, better get on the road.

Today’s drive I start on a section of highway that is quite remote and uninhabited. I’d read about it on line. There is much written about this section of road and the lack of services. There is at least one gas station, maybe two on this stretch of road. There are a couple of campgrounds and 4 or 5 lodges. The truck will not make the stretch of road without stopping at the one gas station, Toad River Lodge. That gas station also has a restaurant, lodge, campground and cabins. I booked a cabin on a lake. It looked like a lot of campground cabins, very basic. But, the view of the lake looked awesome. It is only a 7 hour drive today.

Most of the drive was in the foothills, lots of trees and rolling hills. Only the last 2 hours was on the lonely stretch of road. I filled up the gas tank in Fort Nelson. I also filled up a gas can in the back of the truck just in case. As I left Fort Nelson, it started to get more mountainous. This is more the terrain I was hoping for. The road was fairly empty at this point also which was nice – no more needing to pass cars. I was so excited to just sit by the lake. Along the drive I saw quite a few Moose crossing signs, but no moose. At one point I saw a sheep crossing sign and it was flashing. I came around a tight corner and they were just jumping off the highway mere feet from being hit by a truck coming the other way. They jumped vertically in the air and cleared the guardrail with very little effort. I would have loved to watch them longer, but this was not an area to stop.

My cabin is very basic, no frills. But it has a bathroom, is clean and doesn’t smell bad. First thing I did was take a shower and put on clean clothes! Something so simple yet it successfully erased last night and and put me back where I should be. I’m on a solo adventure to see beautiful things. Clean clothes and a burger in belly does the soul good. I am so fortunate in life. I let a hotel room fog that knowing. Now, I’m back in that knowing. After an early dinner, I sat on the porch of my cabin. The wooden chair is not comfortable, but I don’t care. It’s almost 8:00pm and the sun is dipping away. It’s getting quite chilly, but I don’t care. The air is fresh. The lake is glassy. The huge puffy clouds over the mountain are backed by orange glow. There are elk in the grassy meadow on the other side of the river. Earlier there was a large log in the river and I marveled on how I often look for moose and only find logs. Now, there is no log and everyone that walks by asks if I saw the moose earlier. There are two white swans that keep floating around and then getting all excited. When they get excited, they honk and fly back the way they came with their wings slapping the water loudly. I’m just sitting here listening to their honking as it echoes off the hills around me.

Travelodge

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Yesterday was another 8 hour drive. At about 6 hours, I am over it. It’s been like that on each of my 3 long drive days. I had trees on yesterday’s drive. It helped a little, but where are the mountains? I expected more mountains. I still found myself over it around hour 6. But, I’m in the car alone so I put the audio book on pause and just screamed for 5 minutes. After that I’m able to go back to the audio book for the remaining 2 hours.

All day today, I would look at the time Google maps was telling me I would arrive and it was an hour earlier than anticipated. This was good news, but still was perplexing. Google is never an hour off. How is that possible? I’d check again in an hour or so and it was the same. Did I put the right location in? Am I going to the wrong place? About 4 hours into the drive, it dawned on me that I must be going through a change in time zone. It’s still an 8 hour drive. I felt a mix of relief, disappointment and duh how stupid.

I finally get to Dawson Creek. I looked it up – has nothing to do with a TV show by the same name that I have never seen. I’m in British Columbia now. I don’t know when that happened. I never saw a sign saying welcome to BC.

I had a room booked at Travelodge by Wyndham. I had no idea Wyndham had bought Travelodge, but I assumed it was an old motel with a face-lift. I couldn’t be more wrong. It was an old motel. My room smelled like rotting carpet and other terrifying things. There was a metal strip that had been the transition from tile to carpet. It was now a sharp protruding one way ticket to the hospital. The carpet had huge bulges in it as it was no longer tight against the floor. There were two areas in the ceiling where there was obvious water damage and I was concerned about mold. The bathroom was clean, but I was in such a bad mood, that it was no consolation. I checked for signs of bed bugs and found none, thank god.

I decided to spend a couple hours in a park before going to dinner. Maybe I could get that horrible smell out of my nostrils if I sat outside. I found a few parks in town on the map and drove to one. The place where I first got to the park had no park entrance, parking lot or anything that stated it was a park. It was just woods on the side of the road. I drove to another place where the map put the little red dot when you searched for the park. Again, just woods on the side of the road. This time there was a sign with the park name, but no trails, benches or parking, just trees. This looked like the kind of place where you walk in, but never come out. I decided that hanging at the park was not happening tonight.

I drove back through town and saw a Staybridge Inn. It looked shiny and new like it may have been built in the past 3 years. I pulled in and sat in the parking lot and just sat there trying to decide if I should just go get a room and consider the Travelodge a loss. I looked it up on line and saw it was about $70 more than the Travelodge. I was frozen and couldn’t make a decision. I felt defeated. I sat there frozen for about a half hour. I finally drove back to Travelodge and told them how bad my room was. They gave me a new room. I decided if it was the same, I would just go to Staybridge. It was a little better. It had a strong room freshener smell, instead of the smell of a decaying building materials. I figure it was covering the decay smell, but it was a little easier to take. It had the same lumpy carpet, but it didn’t look like it would send me to the hospital. I only needed to stay one night. The next two nights on my trip were in questionable places. Maybe I should suck it up and be ok with this as it might not get better for a bit. It was just such a shock after the Hyatt in downtown Calgary. Although the Hyatt and the Staybridge were roughly the same cost per night……

I went to dinner – found a nice hopping restaurant with good food and gin. I stopped by the Alaska Highway Mile 0 sign to take a picture on the way to the restaurant.

When I got back to the hotel, it was about 9:00pm – go to bed early – get up early and get on the road sounded like the best plan. There were a few guys hanging out on the second floor. It wasn’t a deck and there were no chairs. They were just standing around outside their room. They had been there when I checked in. They had been there when I changed rooms. They were still there. I assume their room smelled too bad to be in also. When I got back in the room, I noticed the door didn’t close all the way. There was a huge gap at the bottom showing light through it. If I had noticed that before, that would have put me over the edge and I’d be at the Staybridge right now. But, now I was too exhausted from all the worry and negative thoughts from earlier. I locked all the locks on the door and shoved extra furniture up against the door. I left all the lights on, put on my eye mask and went to bed in the clothes I had worn all day. I had no effort left in me. Tomorrow would be a good day.

Banff and Yoho Lakes

On By rrainefioreIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

This was the 4th day on my Alaska road trip. Today I did a bus tour of some lakes in Banff and Yoho National Parks. I decided to join a tour because I didn’t feel like driving by myself and dealing with parking. One of the lakes we went to can only be visited by commercial tours so I wouldn’t have been able to drive there anyway. Also, being 3 weeks post ankle surgery, I wasn’t doing any hiking or more active sightseeing than what the tour would offer.

It was a 9.5 hour tour. I’m so glad I didn’t drive. All I had to do was ride and look out the window at the beauty. My tour had 25 people. Each stop we went to had a ton of people so what is 25? Our tour guide was also the bus driver. He was funny and full of great information on history of the area and geology of the area.

This was my first time in the Canadian Rockies and the views were amazing. I’d definately love to come back another time and stay at some of the lodges or campgrounds. We went to Lake Louise, Moraine Lake, Emerald Lake and a place on the Kicking Horse river called Natural Bridge. The lakes were various shades of bright blue from the minerals in the water. The river was a milky white. I had seen the blue alpine rivers in the past, but never milky white. It was mesmerizing.

The people on the tour were interesting. I met a lady as we were waiting for the bus. She was from Mexico and was there with her family. As we talked, she often apologized for her English. Of course, her English was great and we had no problem understanding each other. If I had to have the conversation in Spanish, it would have been a joke and she would have no idea what I was saying. And I would have no idea what I was saying either. I wish I knew more than one language. Within one minute of starting the tour, the guy sitting up front monopolized the conversation with the guide. He was a loud talker too so we could hear everything he was saying. The guide did a good job of steering the conversation to the history and geology he wanted to tell the group about even though the loud talker from Ottawa knew a little about everything and had no problem letting everyone know. I still wonder why Americans get such a bad rap for being loud and talking too much. Most travel I’ve done, it’s not the Americans that are loud and overly friendly. This guy was the epitome of the loud American, only he was Canadian. I sat next to a man that was there with his family. They were all there from the Philippines and had come to Calgary for the funeral of his sister and nephew who had died in an accident recently. On one hand, it was so sad. On the other hand, going to the lake (Lake Louise) that his sister had visited last seemed like a good way to grieve with your family. I also met a young woman from Korea that was in school for English and was traveling because she wanted to practice her English more before going back to school. Her English was perfect. I know no Korean at all. There were a couple of people from the US, a guy from Germany and some people from another Asian country.

I love traveling. I love to see different places, different scenery and to catch a small glimpse into what other people’s lives might be like. Sometimes in the differences, you can see a little about how we are the same.