The big adventure is just around the corner. The Giant Journey. The Dream. It's all about to be real.
Yukon. Alaska. The Arctic Sea. Pilot and me. We're doing it. We're really doing it.
I'm not scared anymore. Initially I was terrified, imagining myself being chased down abandoned highways by grizzlies at 70mph (about 112kph in Canada). I envisioned a thousand flat tires in snowstorms on precipice-etched roads with no turnouts in sight. Forest fires and volcanic eruptions and getting mauled by a cougar while taking a shit in the woods. I wondered what the fuck I was thinking and why I was so hellbent on doing this drive.
Once I started planning the trip, I got over it. I suppose all these things could still happen, but they're not holding me back.
Besides, save for the grizzly bit, all this shit can and does happen in my neck of the woods.
I'm still afraid of people, though. Not of the average happy-go-lucky fellow-road-trippin' fart like me, but of wild people. Mean scary psycho woods people that see a woman hiking alone as an opportunity to be mean and scary and psycho. In Canada you aren't allowed to bring your stun gun and your pepper spray over the border, so I guess the two cans of bear spray will have to suffice. I read the label on the cannisters and it says if a psycho woodsperson tries to attack you, spray this spray on them. The scent is so enticing it will draw the largest bears to the location in mere seconds, whereupon they will immediately start devouring said psycho woodsperson so make sure you have your camera ready.
Really.
(Please appreciate the gender-neutral way in which I refer to the psycho.)
I've never taken a road trip this long. Or a trip this long, really, unless you count the time my parents took me to France and Italy when I was seven years old but don't count that because when you're seven years old time goes by at triple speed so the month plus that we were there was really only like a week in child years. Plus I don't remember much except for the poppies, some abandoned buildings in the countryside, thunderstorms, the train, and the scary-ass Italian nuns that pinched my cheeks like they were trying to kill me.
If I run into one of those nuns on a hike during this trip, she's definitely getting the bear spray.
But back on the topic of long Ass trips, I'm excited to see how it feels. What the loneliness and solitude does to my psyche, and how long it will take before I can't differentiate between the two. Or if I will feel lonely at all.
Maybe I'll just feel peaceful.
Complacent.
Content.
Whenever I go off on some adventure I never want it to end. I always want to see more and more of the earth. All the art she's created. She's crazy talented. I love hanging out with her. I'm gonna have a month, a whole fucking month, to wander through her gallery on this corner of the continent. I can't believe it. It's gonna be fucking incredible.
And when it's all done the credit card debt will be pretty fucking incredible, too.
This is my entry for the #monomad challenge, held daily in the Black and White Community.
Give it a try.
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ah well, life can be depressingly short, so you might as well fucking enjoy it eh?
I wish more people understood this... We live in a world of wonder and mystery, and there are amazing things happening all around us. Whether thats the courtship dance of a jumping spider, or something vast like a lighting storm in full flow. If only people stopped arguing over whose imaginary friend is best, and quit getting 'offended' over things that are none of their business, the sooner we could explore and appreciate the worrld around us
Good Luck with the adventure (bonus points if you capture an action shot of a grizzly chasing you)
Ahhhhh, I haven't seen a good lightning storm in so long!
Thanks for your words. And if a grizzly is gonna maul me, I may as well take pictures, right? #proofofdeath
Cool photos.... I want find also this trees what look like this here in post :)) ... it is hard to find in Estonia this shaped trees :)) ... I think it is this strong wind that shapes them there in the open field.
Thanks! That's type of juniper tree. I think they live hundreds of years but don't grow very tall. And yeah, it does get pretty gnarled up in all the wind at the edge of the canyon.
Ok..ok.. now I see 😅👌👌🍷
It's gonna be amazing. Looking forward to those Grizzly Pics!
Me too!
I think.
Don't worry, the wildfires should flush all the psychos out of the boonies.
LOL
The entire PNW catches fire every year.😔