Up at 7, on the road at 9. First stop, Market Street Cafe for daily rations of muffins. Before we left town, i thought i'd treat Erde to one of her favorite treats, a carrot. She did not even attempt to bite this time. See photo.
Before i left Quatse camp, i wanted to tell Ken and Deb, the hosts, that i intend to add their litter terrier, Jerrico, to the dedication page. We met Jerrico last year. He died a few months ago. So much grief over the loss of these wonderful companions. I'll write them to get a photo and some words to add to my blog.
Before we left Quatse i stopped down to the river to see the spawning salmon reaching their final destination after three years and thousands of miles. How they return to the very same place they were spawned i do not know. Another miracle of this earth and the life on it.
My goal for today was to make it by 5pm to Port Alberni, which is along route 4, the road to the coast, 290 miles from Port Hardy. On these long stretches, i take breaks for Erde every two hours or so to make the trip interesting for her. I wonder if she knows that.
The 150 miles stretch of road from Port Hardy to Port Campbell, as i wrote, is like driving through a botanical garden. Even though this is the return trip, it is still a fascinating drive, virtually empty of traffic. You see the views from a different perspective so you do not suffer from deja vu.
I stopped along the way at Miracle Beach where we camped last year and walked to the site we had. Unlike at Rathtrevor, not a single memory came back. I did not even recognize the place. Perhaps because we arrived late and left early last hear. That goes to show you how memory works....
I am finding that when i visit sites where i met up with good people, i miss them, even though we all only had a brief encounter. It shows you what good people do to your soul.
Erde is preferring the front sear on this trip, although she has jumped in the back a few times. I wonder what rule she follows. I leave the bed there for her, but also to reignite memories of her and ll on our previous five trips on the road. I also think i do it because i do not want to take advantage of Leben's absence. Of course, during the day, the chaos in the Defender spills over to the rear bed, but it did too last year, and whichever dog was back there, they did not care.
The signs along the road are not the road signs you see in DC....Do Not Feed The Bears, Elk Crossing, Moose Crossing, Expect the Unexpected (followed by a list of 10 things to expect), Avalanche Area, Mountain Lion Area---No Dogs Allowed, etc. i will not tell you what the allegorical signs say there.
As with my prior trips, most of of blog entires focuses on the day's activities and events. I wish i had time to explain the logistics more, and get into more profound things, especially the last. One value of these trips is the time i get to think when driving. More often than not, i turn off the music streaming into my Beets from the iPad and use the time to think about important topics. With the mesmerizing drive, it has the same effect as the spin cycle of a washington machine by squeezing out all the unwanted stuff and creating an opportunity for simply raw thought. How many of us do this at home, or at all? There's really no time or opprotunity to do that. Add that to the long list of why i take these trips. By the time i get home, things that were important before are trivial, and things that were unimportant become important.
I also need to dedicate this blog to Pete Seeger who also died this past year. I have yet to start off the day by playing his This Land Is Your Land, but i will soon. Pete ivied across the Hudson River from where i grew up; I could see his plot of land from my backyard. There was no one more American than Pete. In facf, he was stateless in his reach.
I simply cannot be, believe my sense of timing and navigating. I left Port Hardy at 9 a.m. With a 290 mile drive head of me, and i promised my hosts for the night, Les and Sue, that i would arrive at 5. Even with four stops along the way for erde, and a couple for gas and coffee, we pulled into Les and Sue's fron yard at three minutes to 5. As usual, i guve myself credit for this, even if no one else does.
Tonight we are camped in an unbelievably beautiful ecological wonderland in the center of the island owned by a friend we met last year during our visit, who invited us to camp out for the night in a little cabin on his plot of heaven. We chatted for hours around a huge campfire with an almost full moon poking itself from time to time out of the clouds, framed underneath by the dark silhouettes of 360 degrees of tall trees. Moments like this will be hard to forget.
Tomorrow we head to the west coast of the Island overlooking the Pacific, and hope to camp on a bluff overlooking the Pacific. Last year we stayed at the same camp in a yurt to wait out the monsoon-like conditions we encountered. Next Thursday, after lunch with good friend on Bainbridge Island, we head back to the US, near Seattle, and then make our way down to west coast. At some point along that stretch of road I'll point the Defender in the direction if DC and start the long, slow haul back to civilization, although i have discovered on these trips that there is mkre civilization on the road than in my neck of the woods. Urban life pretends to be the poster child for civilization with its fancy restaurants, black tie affairs overflowing with canapés when in realtiy it is often the poster child for all that is wrong with it. (Disclaimer...i don't even know what a canapé is and have no desire to learn. Rice with some leftover salmon is about as fancy as I want to get, here or anywhere.)
This is the first carrot Erde ever refused to eat. It's in the park at Port Hardy.
A rest stop along the way to Port Alberni...so many scenes to photograph to burn the memory into my mind. Devoted readers of this blog can predict what Erde did next.
Driving into Les and Sue's Ecological Wonderland at Port Alberni
Ed and Erde, On The Road
P.S. Sorry for any errors in this message or posting. The iPad spellcheck is not known for its attention to detail.
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