j - From Orchestra's to Awe

An orchestra! I woke up in the wee hours of last night, yes - to
check if the clouds had perhaps cleared and we would be given another
light show - no such luck! Anyway, I woke up and realized what it
was. Seeing the Aurora is like listening to an orchestra....... The
conductor stands there silently points, telling the different
instruments when to join in, get louder, softer etc. To someone who
has no idea of how this process works, this is like magic. And this
is what those lights were like - magically playing to some tune that
only they could understand, directed by a Conductor that only they
could percieve. Sometimes a piece will start with a small, whispy
sound - almost like a softly blown penny-whistle and grow to
cresendo's and ebb to almost silence, so often bringing a smile with
an unexpected part. This is what those lights were like! It was like
watching an orchestra! That whispy start, the gentle pulsing and then
the bright, bright flickering and swishing............fading in and
out, this side of the sky and then that, going away again, only to
come back until it finally and gently just ended with that same gentle
penny-whistle sigh......Can you tell that I loved those lights? :) An
orchestra - yes!

The name, Dawson Creek, is a romantic name to many travelers - it was
to us, especially on the first trip we took north. It's the official
start of the Alaska-Canada (Alcan) Highway. And this time, the third
time that we have been through there, we saw a different side of
things. It has a lovely little main street area, with everything made
so pretty and beautiful multicolored flowers everywhere. The lamp
posts all have flags on them with moose or bear and steel cutout
designs on top. Once you see past the tourist shops, its just a
normal town, with people working just as hard in normal jobs, as
anywhere else. They even have a Walmart, but boy is is small!
Typical tire(tyre) places, McDonalds and well - just a normal little
town. I wonder how the people feel after the masses of rv's and
others leave for the winter months?

Gas is definitely more expensive up here in Canada and we paid CA$1.45
per liter today. That is a big number to fill our gas tank and makes
us just a tad more eager to head south again. Most of the places in
the rv parks have been filled with people who live close to the site
of their work - road work of buildings etc. One guy next to us,
dragged himself home to his rv and we could see that he barely had the
strength to take his boots off before going inside...........it was
quiet for a loong time before he put any lights on and the smells of
cooking wafted through his door. What a life..

We think Blondie has a serious problem - yes, she has taken on a whole
personality of her own and is a very real presence in the wheelie
house! Yesterday she kept on telling us to keep turning around and
today she was very insistant that we "turn right in 200 feet" - which
just happened to be a steep mountain cliff with no barriers! I think
she wants to be rid of us........ so I switched her off for a while.
She's getting like that horrible Chuckie boy child in that horror movie!

Driving from Dawson Creek to Hinton where we stayed last night, was a
very different type of road - small, winding roads with many trucks
all in a hurry to get somewhere, no pull offs and the views nothing
like what we had been seeing until now. Still farms around, then
miles - oh sorry, kilometers here - of nothing at all and then back
into gentle rolling green hills that just seem to go on forever. It
looks as if the pine beetle has not yet made it to Alberta as there
are very few dead trees in the hills by comparison to British
Columbia...... There must be some serious fires around here and its
stunning to see the amount of acreage that has been burned. The trees
still stand, straight up and with much of their bark stripped off, in
enormous toothpick fields that spread as far as we could see up the
mountains and all around us, with the fireweed, now a seeding pink,
spread like blankets beneath them and mingling with the new-growth
greenery. The ever present yellow daisy pops its head up everywhere
too, especially alongside the roadway. It's beautiful in a different
way from the lush green and the rivers and snow. It still amazes me
how many different shades of green there are.....

The roads around here are a constant up and down. All the little
bridges over big and small rivers are, of course, down. But to get
down you have to be up first, so the road dutifully takes one
screaming uphill, at times wanting to get out and push, only to give
us a long road down again where, occasionally, I find my feet jammed
up into the floorboards on my side, desperately hunting for brakes!
As soon as we hit that little bridge down the bottom of the hill, the
motor rev's again and up up up we go again............ Funny, so many
of the little creeks either have a hubcap lying in them or a
cap.........

Much of these roads, heading back to the Icefield Parkway, look a lot
like the Alcan Highway. We are glad we did not go any further north
as we would probably have spoiled the memories of that road by doing
it again so soon, and besides, we are both wanting to be warm again.
This morning I woke up and my first thought was that my feet are cold
and I don't like it! So instead of staying another day in Hinton as
we thought we might, we hit the road again. We thought that it might
be a good idea to do some clothes washing, shopping and just generally
potter around, but doing any and all of that in the rain is just not
much fun at all. Just a little while later I realized just how lucky
I am that my 'first thought of the day' is something like cold feet
and that many of the fears of two years ago have somewhat faded into
second place much of the time.

Yesterday as we swung around the corner nearing Hinton and I saw those
snow covered mountain peaks again, I found myself humming..........
boy did that make me smile! And today the same thing
happened.......... swishing through those mountains again of the
Icefield Parkway just does a number on my soul evidently. The best
part of that whole road was when its right at the lowest point and the
river is wide and right next to the road and the mountains tower over
us. There is no way to get this on camera, the feel of being right
down at grass roots level in a place that is simply awesome in every
way of the word! You think the mountains cannot get more, or bigger
or taller and then one just dips a bit and there, hiding behind that
one is another - taller, more packed with snow, with waterfalls
streaming off of it too. It's just unbelievably beautiful. And
there we were, just two tiny people, driving that narrow ribbon of a
road through a place that is too beautiful to describe. Again, its a
place that puts things in perspective to a degree, makes me feel
vulnerable and free all at the same time. There is a sign board up on
the mountains that reads: "The Mountains Shall Bring Peace to the
People" I love it - it certainly brings me peace.....

And then those lakes. I think that despite the rain today, that it
was more beautiful than when we came through just a few days ago,
headed north. Today the water seemed bluer and clearer and crisper
and it looked as if there was more snow on the mountain tops. Each
snow peak has its own set of followers - it own self made clouds that
seem to swirl around just that peak....... Sometimes it block the
bottom part of the peak leaving the top looking as if its floating in
the middle of the sky. We stopped for lunch alongside one of the
bluest of blue lakes. One minute the water was a soft gentle milky
blue and then when the sun peered through a cloud, it changed the
color totally - to that amazing beyond-turquoise color that my camera
could just not resist. The reflections in the water change by the
minute too which is totally wonderful - the whole world is literally
changing before our eyes all the time! The greens of the trees around
the lake stood in stark contrast, making for some really lovely
photos. And then a small crowd of folks arrived there, oohing and
aaahing at the view. There was a bit of bantering going on and with a
fair bit of bravado, two of the guys headed down to the lake and
actually swam!! I could almost hear their chattering teeth from the
roadside! The big circles of ripples they created - well, the camera
got that too........

And then we came across an "Inukshuk meeting" in one of the pull-offs
along the Parkway. An Inukshuk is a pile of rocks placed on top of
one another to look like a human - a stone for each leg, bigger stone
for torso, long stone that sticks out for arms and one for the head.
Inukshuks have been used by the Indian tribes for many years to show
the way, to point in the direction of herds grazing and to offer a
place where food, drinks and sometimes rope, was left by other members
of the hunting groups. Nowadays, many tourists, us included, have
stacked some rocks along the road somewhere, in a canyon perhaps or
other places, just............well just because we can. :) This
"Inukshuk meeting" we found today must have had about 40 members in
all and they had an awesome view over the river where, no doubt,
Caribou gather at times. It seems as if this is the place to add one
when you go by. It was really cute - and yes, I did take photos of
that too. Was there any doubt??

Wendy - I keep forgetting to tell you that "Mo Crow" is along for this
ride again! He is bigger, braver and hops around determindly eyeing
the doglets! :) He also has amassed a humongous family down this neck
of the woods!

At times, these past two days, the roads have been so much like a rub-
board that I am sure the eggs in the refrigerator have scrambled
themselves! There is a list of things we check before pulling out of
an overnight spot....... the bakkie has to be out of gear. Some of you
will remember that on our first trip to Alaska, we left the little red
truck in gear which was definitely not a smart thing to do. That
little bakkie had to stay in Montana after spitting out her engine
parts alongside the road :(. Ok - so we have remembered so far to put
this one out of gear before pulling it on every trip so far - but its
become a chant as we pull out.......... bakkie out of gear, bakkie out
of gear?? Also, the microwave glass plate and that thing with the
wheels that fits under the plate - those get taken out and stuck under
the bed covers for safekeeping next to my laptop that is snuggled
inbetween the pillows for the ride. It's quite amazing the noise that
those things create when bouncing down the road!. Any mugs or things
in the sink get cloths stuck between them and we make sure that there
is nothing still on the table that will grow wings. Also, all the
doors to the cabinets must be firmly click-closed and in some of them
we have bungie cords to stop the things from jumping out at us when we
open them again. The one cupboard always dumps some of its contents
into the trash can after a long day of driving..........thankfully we
dump all the trash before leaving a campground. The fridge dropped
its eggs the other day, which was one thing, but two bottles of water
followed, and yup - caught the eggs. The step needs to be pulled in,
the dog bed remade as Sophie wants to sleep on top of it, which freaks
Allie out no end, especially when Sophie drags it right off her.
Sigh. By the time we actually pull out of camp each day its good to
sit down and drink some coffee.........

So - with the images of the Aurora orchestra still flicking through
my mind (and now on my screensaver) and with the simply mind-blowing
beauty of today again, we find ourselves in a campground in a little
place called Skookumchuck, British Columbia, Canada. We are in a
Resort (note the upper case R) that has no restrooms, the road out is
blocked, the internet does not work and the ground is so un-level that
we will have puffy eyes in the morning! At least the guy was not
wearing a gown..........

There is so much beauty all around us - in the dead sticks of trees
after they have burned, in the rolling hills of nothing but trees and
even in the different shades of the horses and cows in the
fields.........just to mention a few. Today while driving, I was
wondering how dare we live a mundane, bland life in the face of all of
this? Yes, there will always be the things we have to do, like work
to pay the bills, but ................I seriously think that nature is
an example to us humans, an example that everything that lives must
die, how that often with death, beauty arrives in full force like the
fireweed after a devastating burn, an example of how to be strong like
that tree growing on pure rock, or how to just wave in the breeze with
the rest of the cornfield (they get chopped down!) or how to stand out
and be seen like the new snow dusting on the mountain peaks. I look
at this all around me and know that somehow its right to make my life
colorful, to stand up for what is needed for me, to fill my soul with
the things that feed me. It feels so good. It feels so right. I am
so freaking fortunate!

Where to next?

Love and light from one very happy, content and blessed
Annie

Picture link: http://photobucket.com/annieb
http://livingwithcml.blogspot.com