Only 35 more kilometers to the mythical bridge to the land of the free, and I'm home.
Made it back to AK for the first time in 27 years! Just drove over to Skagway with Caroline for the afternoon.
Made it out from five days in Tombstone Territorial Park — what an amazing place. Backpacking was excellent. In Dawson until tomorrow.
And we have a plane! Drive to Dawson tomorrow, and begin backpacking the following morning. I may not be able to update again until we're out of Tombstone.
Slept maybe an hour, so that's good. Overheard someone saying the delay is because our plane has a cracked windshield, so they had to find a different place. BFD, I've driven a car with a cracked windshield for months. Everyone knows it's only a problem if the cops pull you over, and how many cops are cruisers around at 35,000 feet?
Coping the Canadian way, with whiskey.
Attempting nap time.
...and really fast wheelchairs. Wheeeeeee!
Go Fish, where I waited 55 minutes for the best fish & chips in the city. Fresh off the dock.
Someone recommended that I do one salmon and one cod. I wasn't crazy about the breaded & deepfried salmon, but glad I did it anyway. The cod was sublime.
...and stupid rules like "You must be standing on your bicycle in order to use the bike path."
...horses that look suspiciously like people...
They have some heavy cyclists around these parts...
Stanley Park, jewel of Vancouver. At 1,000 acres it outdoes Central Park, and has the added bonus of being encircled by the ocean. I spent a good chunk of time walking the seawall that forms the perimeter of the park, and cut though the dense middle when I realized it was going to take too long otherwise.
In the interior, the swarms of tourists die off like so many mosquitoes, and massive firs and red cedars tower overhead. Everything goes silent and still, until emerging back out into the bicyclists and swimmers and loungers and hikers and walkers and strutters and slouchers on the other side.
I covered a good ten miles of Vancouver on foot today, and my legs ache. It's a beautiful city, sandwiched between the ocean and the looming, mist-shrouded mountains, but in the brief time I had, it didn't call to me the way some cities have. I'm not sure entirely why — it could be because I've been up since 12:30a local time, it could be because it was a hot, sunny day, or it could be because I spent almost all of my time in the tourist-mobbed areas fighting mad crowds. However, a definite part of it is that I hate the architecture, at least in the waterfront area. It reminds me of Miami. I've never been to Miami. It reminds me of how I've always imagined Miami — all the skyscrapers and condos look very new and shiny, lots of pastels and terraced levels. It doesn't have the subtle funkiness of Seattle.
Of course, that's all based entirely on my 7 hours on the waterfront, and it's probable that my opinion would be different of I had seen more of the back alleys and secret nooks of the city.
I just arrived back at the airport — after stressing just a little about getting back in time, some of which had to do with an hour wait for the best fish & chips in the city — to discover that my flight has been delayed three hours. Departing 9:30p local time (that's 11:30p for you Centralers, at which point I'll have officially been up for 24 hours).
Beating the sun west so far. Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Thunder Bay airport pretty empty at 4:15.
Tawny would really like to go also.
Rise and shine! It's 3:20 am here in beautiful Thunder Bay, ON. Time to go catch a flight.
All packed and the ready to go! The yellow bag is my carry-on, and is not coming backpacking. Everything else is. The Aquapac is a waterproof camera bag, which I'm going to try to hang from the hip strap of my pack. We'll see how that goes!
Bought the Rokinon lens to experiment with some astrophotography. I just finally pulled the trigger and decided to get it a couple days ago. It arrived today, so I won't have chance to learn to use it before I leave.
