lights out.

game over.

We drove like maniacs to reach the ol Spring by Friday, giving us time to clean and repack all of our crap into my wee wee car so that I could make it down to Austin in time to start the ol school-e-o.....man was it strange to drive that tiny thing.....it seemed like we were going so fast at just 50mph....center of gravity is so weird.

so we made it to Big Spring pretty late and had not eaten dinner yet....rolled up to la casa de mis padres
and surprise....no electricity. Welcome home....good thing I had all of that camping gear and some leftover pasta in the car. So we busted out the lanterns and camp stove....and.....out of gas. Nooooo. Everything closes super early in BS, so we were sad, but then I had the brilliant idea of using the grill to heat the pasta....ummm it tasted just like smoke.....gross. and welcome to Big Spring.

The next day was spent packing and cleaning my tent....Chris thought this to be the most absurd thing ever.....but oh well...it was a happy tenty.

And honestly, I don't think i have ever seen my parents so happy to see me.....not because they missed me, but because they missed their CAR. Freaks. Now I miss her....sweet sweet SunnieBee.

10,823.4 miles ......yo. and remarkably, we never had one car problem.....go Denali.

So now we are home, back in Austin....nestled in our own beds. The crazy thing is that I keep waking up in the middle of the night panicking, wondering where the heck I am....I guess i have to be constantly moving to feel settled.

And there it is....to Alaska and back in 2 months and some change.....speaking of change....thanks mom!

We would also like to thank everyone that was so kind to offer us crash pads along the way....it was real...it was fun.....real fun.

It is hard to believe that our country can be so beautiful.... an amazing experience.... one I will never forget..... and one I will enjoy revisiting in my mind from time to time.


F I N I T O

Box Potatoes and Electric Storms

It was 3 days of hard driving to get Vancouver....we decided to drive back on the AlCan the way we came since the other road apparently had a lot of construction going on.....and oh my god am I glad that we did. There were signs posted everywhere warning people about the fires all around....KEEP DRIVING....DONT STOP. [Seriously....smoke was pouring out from the trees all around us as we speed along the AlCan. The animals had all sought the safety of the road as a natural fire break.]

We were able to stay one more night at Liard hotsprings [It was only a mile out of the fire zone, so we lucked out to find a campsite, as we arrived at about 10 pm]....nice dinner and another dip in the ol steam bath.... night soaking. This time I was not as frightened of the bears, so we stayed out past “dark”....it still didn't get completely dark....beautiful full moon. [twilight set in around midnight. The hot springs lay at the end of a long, meandering boardwalk that hovers above a swamp. The walk takes about 15 minutes or so, and the moon was illuminating the path, along with the surround trees and plants. We were in awe of the full moon that was floating above the treeline while reflecting light onto the water near our feet. We finally arrived at the hot springs, changed and hopped into the steaming waters.]


So I am soakin, soakin, soakin, floatin, enjoying the awesome sulfuric smells around me....mmmm. [There are three ponds in the area available for soaking. The first is near the changing rooms, and there are stairs that lead down into the hot steam.. This area is the hottest and the water slowly drifted downstream over a small man-made wooden waterfall. To the right, stairs lead downward into the second pond. We made our way down these stairs. The moon was slowly shrinking as it rose over the tall dark sentinels which encircled the pond. Twilight was fading into quasi darkness, and all was silent aside from the gurgling water.]

Then I noticed a streak across the sky...I jokingly said to chris that it must be Aurora Borealis since it is the one thing that I have been so bummed about not seeing. He looked up and said yeah right...its just smoke. [It did look like smoke floating by from one of the fires for about 20 minutes.] Then it became brighter and more pronounced...a solid streak of light..... “ I dont know Chris, I think it really might be....what else would make the sky look like that?” And lo and behold, the sky exploded into an array of colors....it was pure magic....I honestly cannot describe what we saw.

[I'll try. First, the single etherial white streak that was bounding across the sky began to widen and split into two streams. The center of the streams stretched and thinned the light into a soft pale white. This nascent magic energy delineated itself clearly from the ordinary heavens.. A defined shape appeared momentarily. An oval canvass perfectly situated between the darkened treetops waited for a moment, breathed in, and sensing it was in the proper place, it began the show.

Bursts of light and color exploded towards us from the center of the oval. Hues of blues, reds, greens and violets ebbed and flowed from the elegant pale light. One hundred and twenty seconds of transformed reality. We are blessed.]



Northern Lights....check.

It really was the coolest thing I have ever seen....ever. And I gotta say that experiencing it while in a hotspring is the way to go. Awe-some.

It still gives me chills to think about it.
[From Liard Springs to Vancouver was another 2 days of hard driving. 10 + Hour days were ahead of us with perfect conditions...But...]

We have learned that It is probably not the best idea to visit a place the year before they host the olympics. why you ask....

CONSTRUCTION. there will be road construction....and not just a little bit....a LOT. I swear they were repaving every inch of B.C. [Every 15 miles there was a 30 mile stretch of construction, repaving, regraveling, retrenching, retouching, re-everythinging the road.]

One thing that we noticed about the road workers in Canada is that they are all really young compared to workers in the states, and many of them were female....at least the ones holding the stop signs....we reckoned that they must be the girlfriends of the blokes on the heavy machinery.

And then they will be doing construction in the city to beautify it a bit. Oh what fun it is to wait in big long long long line. Real fun...

But you gotta love Canada for their lack of cops.....lets see....4,000 miles, and 4 cops sighted equals drive as fast as your little heart desires.....(but dont worry mom, we never broke 100....promise). [It was eerie how few officers of the law there were on the roads...Canadians really drive fast.]

[The night after Liard Hot Springs, we were told a nice campground to stay in by a visitor information center girl...Bear Lake. Sounds great right? A lake, with bears. Probably beautiful. Quiet. Well...Not so. We drove into the town of Bear Lake and it was a logging town. The kind that had stripped all the trees off the hills. Especially the trees nearest to town first. No worries though, we just cooked some tasty pasta, had a glass of wine, and moved on early the next morning.]

And we made it.....Vancouuuuver.


Downtown action, Amazing brunch, walks through Stanley park, garden brides, Yaletown dining, a bit of jazz, rejection salsa, drinks in gastown, Chris having a heart attach over seeing Gursky in the museum...he still wont shut up [GURSKY!}, Wall.E, good street food, interesting china town, crack heads, and sleep about sums it up.

Here is chris's impression [Vancouver has character. Art, music, life. Vancouverians seem to know how to live. Most were friendly, I enjoyed their numerous districts in the city, each with a different sub-culture and scene. Did I mention Gursky was shown at their very fine museum?]


Over the Bay.

After 3 days in Vancouver, we loaded ol sunnie up onto a ferry and headed to Victoria where we concluded our time in maple land.




Victoria was beautiful.....chris found this hostel online that had some pretty cool photos of the room we reserved. Well my friends.....don't judge a hostel by the photos on the web....they can be a bit deceiving, or Really deceiving....we felt like we were in a converted brothel. The Chinese woman running the joint gave us a 30 minute intro into the place including a remedial lesson on how to lock the door and how to prop the door open. Then she gave Chris the password to the internet...he glanced at it, looked at me with a lifeless expression and revealed it to me. It must have been 30 characters long.....we cracked up. [It would take the NSA 10 years to crack that code]

there was a sign in the bathroom that said...make sure to clean up your hair before leaving the bathroom....or the turtles will get you!!!!
Classy place. [So strange.]

We walked around the warf area, had a nice little organic dinner, walked some more, had some sunset cocktails at the Empress hotel, then found a pub that was offering 2-4-1 burgers....we were in like flynn. We ordered our food and beers and I popped off to the washroom and when I returned Chris has a mild shit-eating grin on his face....Im a bit confused, then he points over to the table across from us and says...guess where that guy is from?

I dont know....Austin? Nope, guess again. Houston? Guess again.
Not Big Spring. Bingo. What? Really?

Yep....we are taking over the world....one soul at a time. Anyone heard of one Skip Anderson?
He said he was only born there and moved on along....but kinda funny anyhow.
OH Big Spring.

And it was on to
Washington, where even the bridges are green.

Ferry time back to the US of A. Washin Washington.

So approximately 5 minutes into Washington we have already seen as many cops as the entire time we were in Canada.....hum. Welcome back.

We headed round to the Olympic peninsula for a little taste of the rain forrest and beaches in these parts. We camped out at Mora and headed down to Rialto Beach...right across from La Push...maybe you have heard of it? It was really crazy....Huge Huge logs everywhere.....Your driftwood, floating underwater, breaking into pieces, pieces, pieces.....just driftwood hollow and of no use......blah blah....silly Scots. [The driftwood there is really quite unique. Imagine miles and miles of beach covered with tree trunks smoothed over from years of erosion.]

Had an amazing sunset on the beach....there were all of these cool rock stacks just off shore that made for some pretty cool photos (if you happen to be shooting with a Nikon D2X).


You know what I really really love? The smell of the sea. That salty, sea-weedy, fishy smell all wrapped into one. I love that. I should have bottled some to take home. Instead I stole like 7 pounds of rocks. I also love rocks. They make me happy. [So strange. We have since lost .2 miles per gallon for our MPG.]

The next morning we drove up to the Hoh trail (passing a little town called Forks, maybe you have heard of it?) Who da Hoh, Chris is da Hoh.


Hey guess what it does in a rain forrest.....it rains. We got a little wet. I made chris hike in the rain since he revealed that he never had before. Ha, take that. [The nice thing is that it doesn't matter if it is raining in the rainforest because the trees don't let rain to the forest floor. So I didn't even get very wet. :)] It was beautiful. It was like being in the Ewak forrest...I was just waiting for Yoda to pop out at any time.


Giant trees. Giant mossy trees. Moss beards are cool by the way....I don't care what Chris says. [Fine I'll post it.]


Saw a few elk, but after seeing signs in the bathroom that said beware of elk, several people have been attacked, it kinda freaked me out a bit. My plan was going to be to trip chris and run if we were attacked....I think he could use a good elk lashing or two.

We then decided to have movie night in the tent. We browsed through my hard drive and decided on this Twilight movie.

Well looky there.....it turns out that it is based in exact area that we are in.....if only we had watched it the day before we might have taken the time to explore Forks and La Push. We were pretty impressed at how accurate everything was in the movie....La Push really is on an Indian reservation, and Forks is a real little town....I guess the author is from around here. Anyhow, it made the movie a bit more entertaining for us. Actually, that is the second time we accidentally watched a movie while almost on location...we watched the Proposal while in Alaska....funny that one.

Aberdeen.....think box potatoes. [13 dollar box potatoes. Get out of the 50's people! Especially if you charge $13 for something nostalgic like box potatoes.]

We then decided to head over to seattle, so we got on the computer and tried to find a room. Not gonna happen....2 hours later we still had no room. Turns out the Yankees were in town.....those damn yankees. We had to stay in a hostel in Olympia for the night instead. It was cute. Then we had our splurge night or 2.....mainly because we got the last hotel room for saturday and sunday....really.

Seattle....think mini NY with a cross of SF. Cool. Really Cool.

I saw the oldest book store, fleas in dresses, the space needle and a Frank Gehry building, Pikes market....which in my opinion was a lot more hype than product...but we didn't stay long, another art museum....with Imogen Cunningham, the Capital Hill area with a fine cup of joe, and last but not least.....a night of salsa dancing....Salsa Brava. Chris was one happy boy. And I only ran into and elbowed 7 people...it was a good night.....the band was fantastic, and it was all free! Go Seattle.

Now sadly, our time has just about run out. We are on the home stretch.

Chris's brother was very nice and hosted us for 2 nights while we gave Sunniebee a bath and went to sample some wines from the region. Eastern Washington is the new Napa. Thanks Chris's brother....

We are now quickly heading to Big Spring where Chris will get to meet “the crew” because apparently there are birthday festivities going on. Your in for a hoot Mr. And we will sadly have to part from Mrs. Sunnie.

Up in Smoke.

Don't anchor in anchorage.


We stayed in the fabulous City Garden B&B the first night....it is without a doubt the nicest place we have stayed so far. Decorated to the T.....not a beat missed.....great location and a great host.
We were then very sad....we were seemingly smart and called ahead and reserved a room in this other place, that was not nearly as nice and almost the same price...boooo. You see...sometimes it pays to just cruise up and take your chances Chris. [eyes are rolling.]

We spent the next rainy day in the museum there....mainly learning about gold....how it is formed, extracted, and gazing upon a variety of masterfully crafted pieces from all over the earth.
the earth....what a grand gift. [the exhibit was really cool. there were large chunks of gold, small crystalline gold, and fine crafted pieces from each major civilization since the incans.]

then I was able to visit with my friend Bridget (Hawaii marine turtle pal) who lives here now with her hubbie and 2 (I am sure amazing) little ones. Hi Bridge....wish we could have hung longer! It was really good to see you again!

And Chris was able to go salsa dancing....[sweeeeet] we were driving downtown to our favorite restaurant in town (Glacier Brewhouse)...well, its the only one we went to.....and chris sees a neon sign with SALSA lit up....he cheered with glee....yipeeeeeeee.
He found some Russian action that night....yeah baby! [2 russians in fact. hey, alaska is cold. apparently they were both trained in ballet, so they were fun to dance with.]

Doh! (slap to the forehead)

Homer.


Were going down to Homer just for the helofit. (If you say hell of it really fast, it sounds like halibut)

It was raining when we arrived....then cleared up....just for us.

Chris's favorite thing about Homer was the food...and I aint gonna lie....that green curry halibut was the buz-om [i think she means bomb, which in modern lingo means it was great.]. (the waitress on the other hand is in serious need of a massage (or smack in the face)). [Smack in the face is modern lingo for mean.]

My favorite thing was fishing for halibut...for the hell of it. And the Salty Dog saloon where they brew their own beer and serve it in Sobe bottles [they don't brew their beer there...they brew it at Homer Brewing Co., and 1 sobe bottle was a measly $7.50]....the label even says that they will kick your ass if you make off with one of the bottles...now that is recycling folks! [i wonder how sobe feels about that?!]

Unfortunately I did not win the derby, ( at the beginning of each fishing season the Homer Derby officials tag a few halibut and if you catch one, you get the price marked on the tag.....and the big jackpot goes to the lucky soul who reels in the biggest catch of the summer) but I did catch 2 little guys that gave my arm quite the workout. Actually...I caught about 7, but kept throwing them back in hopes of the BIG one....he never came, so I settled for these 2.


I tried to get Chris to join me.....he was not having any of it....he sure didn't complain when he was eating the fish though! [it was tasty. i was spending 6 hours on the images from Denali while she was fishing, for your view pleasure.] I am pretty sure that we are human thermometers at this point....I even began to get these bad headaches....mercury poisoning!!!!. Unless Chris is trying to poison me so he can make off with Sunniebee and hide in the Alaskan wilderness...oh wait...he wouldn't last a day. [yep, i'm a city boy.]

Bar time with a drunken local that kept passing out and waking up and asking Chris the same question over and over again [wow...yeah...think fighter. a bad one...the one that gets beaten up everytime he picks a fight...]....Chris obligingly answered every time after viewing all of the fresh wounds on this dudes forehead and hand....uh, yeah.

It was annoyingly funny. [he finally gave up, put his head down on the table and fell asleep even though the musicians were playing with their amps turned to 11. oh, and they were good.]



Su Su Seward. [Named after Seward, you know, William H. Seward...Secretary of State Seward under Jackson, the expansionist.....He was the guy who made the whole deal with Russia for the purchase of Alaska. At 4 a.m. on March 30, 1867, Seward emerged from a meeting with a desperate for money Russian minister. The Russian minister left with 7.2 million ($100 million in today's scratch) in his countries pocket. Seward was mocked heavily by the public and the media for having purchased such a large piece of unknown ice.]

It was raining when we arrived in Seward....then cleared up....just for us.
Actually, it was flooding rain...for about 2 weeks...then we arrived and brought miss sunnie.

Blue sky? what better than a little boat ride? We took a fiord tour up to Aialik Glacier ( really, how many glaciers can one person see....geeeeze). [It was awesome! The below glacier is 3/4 of a mile wide at the water's edge.]


Perfect day.

3 types of whales....humpback of course ( I mean, who hasn't seen these a hundred times ), followed by the fin whale (it is the second largest whale and the second largest living animal after the Blue Whale, growing to nearly 27 meters), then I had to get all Whale Rider and call up the Orcas. They came of course. [She did. She emitted a high pitched whiny sound for about 10 seconds. I glanced at her, giving her the, are you crazy? look, then about a minute later they all appeared. It was uncanny, especially since all she had been talking about the entire trip was 1. Orcas, and 2. The northern lights. Check 1.] A little Shamu [Orcas for those of you who don't visit Sea World] pod....daddy, momma, baby, and sis.




Bald eagle...finally. Seals, sea lions, Glaciers calving (why do they say that?....every time i hear it i think of my dad pulling out a calf from a cow's butt [and she is a biologist folks.]....gross...anywhoo)
PUFFINS! my muffins are a puffin. they can swim down 300ft! then they can barely fly because they are so fat with food. I like the ones with the mohawks the best. [Puffins are cool, they only head to land to do the egg thing.]

5 or so other types of feathered friends, but the creature who stole my heart was the otter. Oh i love them.....I really really want one....soooo cute. here i am.....just laying in the middle of the sea scratching my belly.....laying on my back....yeah yeah yeah....scratch scratch scratch.....lick lick lick....slick slick slickin the hair back. [They are so cute, it makes you want to club one to take home for a pet.] We were able to touch an otter pelt in a museum....no wonder they were almost hunted to extinction....[ It was Jesus fur.....JESUS it's soft! ] They are the hairiest animals ever....literally.

On the next day (which was just a nice as the day before) we trekked up to the Harding Ice Field.
Only an 8 miler, but you forget how hard it is to hike straight up for 3 miles [3,500 ft. elevation change + 500 ft. more for the part we did to get some pics!], then back down.....and you forget how sore that will make you for the next 3 days or so......SO sore....we are currently in that state of painful acidic goodness. But was it worth it you ask? Hell yeah!


Chris labeled it as the highlight of the trip thus far...wow. Chris! He was a champ...I guess it was just a matter of fuelage. [Ferrari baby] Pure Ice..blue Ice....mounds and mounds of Ice... [1,100 square miles of ice with 40 glaciers spawning from it.]



It was chilling it was so cool.....[The most dificult thing to convey is the sheer size of the ice fields, so I'm including a couple extra pics to give you an idea of scale...the bottom two pics have people on the ridge line to give you a sense of size. You can match up the mountains from the panorama with the first image, then the part of the ice from the second to see the scale for the third.]






and what I almost found more impressive than the ginormous glacial fields surrounding us was the couple that we passed as we were hiking down.....each with a child strapped to their backs! [That was amazing...the mother mentioned surrendering a child to a bear if they encountered one....i guess that is one way to lighten the load.] It totally changed my perspective on traveling with children...I've never viewed them as bartering tools. Seriously though, some people just amaze me....wont let anything stop them! Good for you guys!!!! See people with kids....its not the end of the world....you can do everything you could before....its just twice as hard!!!



And then sadly, we had to say goodbye to Alaska. Our grand plans of hiking through Wrangle – St. Elias National Park were smoked....really, smoked. [Cheeched, Chonged, Up in Smoke. I was really looking forward to seeing this park too...Locals all told us that it was the secret gem of Alaska. Especially since there are no tour buses there...]

There must be a huge forrest fire right near by [aka, in the park....Wrangle-St. Elias Park is the largest park in North America, and it is wild. Meaning no trails, no cars, no nothing, just wilderness, so I guess they just let the fire burn if it is going to burn. You can imagine the amount of smoke generated in a park the size of New Jersey...]....you cant even see for 50 ft as I look out the window now....so sad. OH well, I guess we have to save something for later right?

So we are Vancouver bound.....back to the AlCan and down baby, down. And let us know if you have any connections in B.C. or Seattle area! wink wink.

love, joy, and a bit of heart ache as we leave this oh so grandiose countryside. [Back to Canada, where groceries are cheap, but the gas is pricey.]