Started the long drive home yesterday on the Glenn and Ruchardson Hiways to the ALCAN and then on to Haines where I hope my wait list status is elevated. If not, we drive the added 1250 mikes to Vancouver.
What an absolutely wonderful drive it was in splendid weather, which helped somewhat to distract me from thinking about the absence of my equally wonderful travel companion of almost two weeks. Snow peaked mountains all around us, lakes, rivers, turns, twists and hills at every bend of the long empty road, fall colors bursting all over as if in a fireworks display to celebrate my trip so far. I had forgotten how beautiful this drive was.
I stopped more than usual along the way because I simply could not resist. Photo op signs were posted every few miles, and they were correct.
I was looking forward to some rhubarb pie at Jeannie's Java at the intersection of the otherwise empty Richardson Hiway, where I stopped in 2000 and 2013, but she had run out. Sadly, she told me the owner of the land is evicting her to sell the land for more money. Greed trumps joy here too.
I was planning to make the ALCAN last night and camp on the Tok River, but after I just missed coming close to a huge moose 10 feet away from me at dusk, and after I discovered that my new hi-tech headlight is out, I decided to bivouac at a wonderful deserted camp on Eagle Creek. The temperature went to freezing, but the crisp air, cloudless sky, countless stars, silence and absence of all human light except my headlamp provided a different kind of warmth that made up for the cold. Besides, inside my Northface VE-25 summit tent, it was probably warm enough to sleep in my lightweight tent, but I didn't dare.
If anyone else was somewhere hidden in the camp and reading this blog, I hope you didn't mind hearing the endless sounds of Luciano Pavarotti singing Nessun Dorma wafting through the forest last night and this morning. VINCERO, VINCERO, VINCERO, he belts out, and that is precisely how I feel about this trip. What joy it has been and, for nine days anyway, fun.
The Defender took more than 30 turns to start this morning, where it usually takes 3 or 4. Funny thing was that, even in this deserted, cold place, I didn't care. One thing I have learned well on these trips is that there is a solution for every problem, and people around to help in a bind, if you can find them that is.
Donner is recovering from his maladies nicely. And what joy it is for me to see this magnificent dog run free in the forest, after his having been chained for four years in LA backyards. If I could read his mind, I'm sure it would tell me, I WON, I WON, I WON.
Long Lake on the Glenn Hiway. Irresistible.
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