Category: Uncategorized

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

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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.

A Day to Rest

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Yesterday, I took a day to rest. I stayed in Calgary, got a facial and a manicure. In the afternoon I walked to Prince’s Island Park, a great park on an island in the middle of the Bow River. I only enjoyed the park for about an hour. Everywhere I went I was followed by bees. I wonder if they liked the lotion used in the facial as they kept buzzing around my neck. They followed me as I walked along the River Walk to the park, at the park and as I walked back along the River Walk. One even stung me on the hand. He was not a Jolliebee and I wasn’t too jolly after either. The sting wasn’t too much of a problem, more annoying than anything.

It was warm and humid and I saw some people eating ice cream in the park. I asked them where they got it and they said they brought it from home. Huh? Who brings ice cream to the park from home? That did not help me locate ice cream. I did find a place in Chinatown that served Thai rolled ice cream. I never saw rolled ice cream when I lived in Thailand. It was delicious as I could get one of my favorite flavors – Taro!

The walk back from the park was very different than my walk the other evening. Most of the restaurants on the walking street were closed and empty. A night before everything had been so lively. There were still people walking around, but it felt a bit deserted in comparison.

Swaying

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We got off the ship this morning after breakfast.  We dropped our luggage at our hotel.  Since we couldn’t check into the hotel this early in the morning, we decided to head down town and find a place to get some coffee.  Plus, it wouldn’t hurt to catch up on emails and what was going on in the world outside of Antarctica.

It was quite remarkable that we could even walk after 9 days on a ship.  I remember in the past feeling rocking motion when on land for the first time in days.  But there was none of that.  We found a coffee shop with a big booth and set up to stick our faces in our computers for hours.  About two or three hours in the booth began to sway and rock.  It was moving so much that is was actually difficult to type as I had to hold on to the table not to fall over.  I found it interesting that while standing and walking, there was no swaying, but sitting was difficult.  I wondered if half the tourists in this town were currently holding on to a table or a wall somewhere as a lot of people in Ushuaia are here to go on an Antarctica cruise, or just getting back from one and holding on to their coffee for dear life.

The swaying continued most of the day but finally calmed down a bit by the time I went to bed.  I usually have to go to the bathroom once or five times in the middle of the night.  I got up at 0-dark-30 and as soon as I was on my feet, the entire room pitched at about a 40 degree angle, the wall in front of me sloping away.  I couldn’t stand where I was as I slid uncontrollably into the wall.  I slammed into the wall with quite a bit of force before the room started to pitch in the opposite direction.  I did manage to resist the second pitch, but had a bit of difficulty making it to the bathroom and then back to bed.  I’m so glad I didn’t need to get up again until morning.  By morning, the room had settled back into being flat and was no longer moving.

Polar Plunge

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Today our morning landing is to Pendulum Cove of Deception Island.  I didn’t know there was going to be a polar plunge.  Everyone else on the ship seems to know this was going to happen.  I was wondering how I didn’t read about it or did our travel agent leave out some information?  I had brought a bathing suit since our trip went through Miami and Buenos Aries so I was prepared.  I still felt unprepared.  It would be a short landing in the morning since the point of the landing was to do the polar plunge.  This is the type of activity that has never interested me.  I have never heard “polar plunge” and thought “I want to do that” or “that sounds fun”.  Bungee jumping is the other activity that comes to mind that I just don’t get why anyone would want to do it or how it could appear fun.  They asked who was interested in doing it so they had an idea how many towels to bring and how many zodiacs to have on standby for bringing people back to the ship.  It looked like almost everyone on the ship raised their hands.  The rationalization begins.  If I do this in Antarctica, I never have to do it again.  Who can try to goad you into doing a polar plunge when you can say, “well, I did it in Antarctica and I don’t need to do it again”?  Is it actually a polar plunge if you are not near one of the poles?  Maybe it would be fun.  It can’t actually be that cold – it’s warmer in summer in Antarctica than it is in Granby in winter.  Deception Island is a volcano, if it’s low tide, the first few feet of water is warmer due to heat coming from the island.  I have a bathing suit.  I’m 50 and I’m all about experiencing what I can.  Just standing on the ship before everyone went to their rooms to change clothing was tiring. Hearing everyone talk about it, the combination of fear, excitement and bravado was palpable.  Some girls were trying feverishly to guilt each other into it.  Some of the younger men were energetically showing off their testosterone levels.  As the zodiac was getting close to the island you could see the steam coming off the water.  The weather was overcast and breezy when we arrived at the beach.  The beach and the peaks around us were all a deep black color.  There are no plants and only a patch of snow.  The clouds hang low just above us so the tops of the peaks are missing.  It was quite ominous.  Other than the breeze, it seemed quite warm to me.  This will be easy if it stays this warm.  The rocky beach was cold on the feet, but it didn’t hurt the way I’ve experienced at home when your feet hit bare ground in the winter.  Still, I had no desire to hang out in the cold water for long.  The water was almost warm when you first walked in and I wondered for a split second if we had been duped and it would be more like a hot spring visit than a polar plunge.  Then the water got much colder, not as cold as I expected, but nowhere on the scale of warm.  I’ve been in cold mountain lakes where your breath is gone because the temperature actually compresses your lungs.  I didn’t experience that here.  Once it got deep enough to dip all the way in and it was cold, I dipped in and then turned to walk very very quickly out.  It wasn’t as cold as I expected, but there was no reason to hang out and splash around.  I expected it to feel warm outside for a while after as that is usually the experience I’ve had with coming out of the water into cold air.  It felt warm long enough to get clothes back on and then it didn’t feel cold at all.  The ride back to the ship was easy, my toes and finger tips were a bit cold, but my body was not.  I think about other places I could do the polar plunge.  I could do it in Grand Lake, CO where they have to drill a hole in the ice to get to the water.  The air temperature is probably around 0 degrees F and the water barely 33 degrees.  That sounds way worse than our polar plunge in Antarctica.  Still, if anyone tries to convince me to do a polar plunge, I can truthfully say I’ve done it in Antarctica and don’t need to do another.

Antarctica Scenery

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I have always been fascinated by ice.  I remember the first time I was able to see a glacier.  I came home with hundreds of pictures.  I love how it’s sometimes clear or white or blue, and every shade of color in between.  But of course, the blue is the best.  How wonderful to float by giant icebergs of so many sizes and textures silently knowing there is even more beneath the surface that you cannot see.  Although seeing thousands of penguins and hundreds of whales might seem like the highlight of going to Antarctica, I’d have to say the icebergs and the winter wonderland scenery was actually the highlight for me.

It was so amazing see glaciers or snow fields so thick that the snow on the island appears thicker than the land mass below it.  To realize that some of that snow and ice has been there for 15 million years and that some of that land mass hasn’t seen the light of day in that long – it’s hard to fathom.  The ice, snow, wind and waves produce an innumerable amount of shapes, sizes and patterns in the snow and ice.  You never tire of looking at the next iceberg or snow field.  Even though we didn’t see any glaciers calving, we could hear them moving.  Any time you sat quiet you could hear the low random rumbles of snow and ice shifting and moving.  You’d look off in the distance and expect to see the side of the mountain drop into the sea, but we didn’t get to see that.  It was still amazing to hear the movement.  You could see evidence of the movement in the avalanche debris on almost every steep slope and the icebergs small and large floating in every bay.

Seals

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Seals are not very exciting.  Most of the seals we saw in Antarctica looked like rocks.  If I showed you all my pictures of seals, you’d wonder why I had so many pictures of rocks.  Every once in a while, one would move and everyone would start snapping pictures.  Very rarely one would flop from one place to another.  That was exciting for about a second.

One day we went to an island that had a lot of elephant seals.  They were juvenile and the males were practice fighting for a later year when they will fight, often to the death, to own the beach of female seals.  Their practice fighting was more exciting than rocks, but kind of like watching teenage boys burping.  The females were just rocks cuddling.  They lifted their head or scratched their belly sometimes.  We stayed a great distance from the males.  But this excitement waned for me after about 10 minutes.  The males are not the cute big-eyed seals either.  There’s nothing cute about the male elephant seal.  Nothing.  So, eventually we found some penguins and sat down to watch them.  Now this is excitement and entertainment.

We did see some Weddell seals and some fur seals here and there, but they were just different rocks on a different island.  If you didn’t like this blog, tough, go back one blog and look at penguins again.  That’ll fix you right up.

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Whales

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We saw a lot of whales in Antarctica.  Most of the whales we saw were humpback whales.  We saw one minke whale, but I wouldn’t have known what type it was if one of the guides hadn’t told us.  It was just a smaller fin coming out of the water.  I was hoping to see some orca whales, but that was not to be.  The humpback whales were everywhere.  Just when you got excited and saw one, then you’d notice that there were 5 to 10 more nearby.  You could see them off in the distance almost anytime you looked out.  One day we even took a zodiac ride to watch them at a closer distance.  Even though there were so many, it was surprisingly difficult to get a picture of one, but out of the 40 or 50 photos I took of whales, I managed to get one that actually looks like a whale.  I did a little better on the video.  I’m not sure I ever need to pay for a whale watching tour.  I’m not sure this can ever be topped.

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