Hot springs

There are two springs in Liard.  Most people visit the lower.  The upper spring is left natural and you must hike an extra 1/2 mile to reach it.  Visitors walk on wooden decking, enclosed by foliage radiating with color and life.  The sun comes out to play. 

A sturdy closet offers privacy and room to change.  

Without pause, my feet jumped into the steamy cloudy water.  It was deep. My toes didn't touch so I swam.  My respiration sped so I rested on a log perched near the middle.  My skin was breathing through all twenty toes and fingers as I stretched my body in the earthy pool.  I felt reborn while walking back to the car.  Walking towards me were two true old hippies promising a pleasurable encounter.  i felt our energy spiral into a dance as we saw our bodies nearing.  Mine was still dripping with spring water.  Holding towels and holding hands they near me.  The man  looked at my tie-dye shirt.  

"Did you make it yourself?"  He asked. 

"Uhuh,"  I grinned wide.  The women softened her expression and said,

"I bet you made that necklace too."

"Sure did."  I touched my neck, ensuring its existence.  Then they stopped and the old man said,

"You must be one of those homegrown children."

"Sure was, I'm from Kentucky."

They looked at each other and we stood there sharing a moment of peace.  It warmed my heart

traveling up north

The sun is lingering like a hobo at a food shelter.  Some people are bold like colored markers.  I just saw a salmon in the sky of clouds.  Billy tried to take a picture and the scene expired.  I was looking out the window imagining the narrative of my life.

This is Canada.  Tall trees, bold green hillsides, gorges with expansing rock buttes performing in the passing landscape.  These skinny spruces and pines look like sticks of dried pot. 

We cross another dead moose.  Birds were feasting inside the two wide holes in its head and side.  Once I realized how connected everything is, it will be wrong to feel so alone.  It's easier to be part of this earth when a sequence of life is apparent.  Life is all, just about babies and death.  The creek bed to the right of me looks dry.  I think about the salmon.  

A truck pulls off to the right to check their brakes.  

Billy seems to attract authority.   The car ride is becoming monotonous.  I am dreading the 4 day drive back.  The scent of Billy's chew makes my stomach turn.  The last time we were pulled over, I smiled to the cop and told him I liked his sunglasses.    

"It was the time of the last frontier, of wide open spaces, dark stands of evergreen, and graceful groves of white trunked aspen, of shining lakes and big empty sky above.  The human population was sparse and rugged.  Pioneers scattered over a seemingly endless expanse of wilderness."

I Breath and my body is at rest on a flower box.  We camped at the 108 Mile Ranch rest area last night.  This used to be a posthouse on the old Cariboo Trail.  Everyone is moving so slow today.  I watch a woman and her Irish Setter jog around a lake. 

Alaska Canada Summer 08

Part I

Thursday 6/26/2008

Tomorrow I will leave Seattle for Alaska.  On Monday I told my boss I will miss 3 weeks of work to drive the Al-Can (alaskan Canadian Highway) to Homer, Savor each moment, and return so I can move closer to my job.  I am riding with a guy from Craigslist Rideshare.  His name is Billy and he is from Las Vegas.  He plans to fish and bring home Salmon.  I will pay $150.00 each way.  He understands that I will be walking on a tightrope of money and time.  

Friday 6/26/2008

Time passes as I wait for Billy at the East Gate Park & Ride in Belleview.  

Oh Canada!

We drive through Vancouver CA to pick up two students who biked from portland Oregon.  They will drive with us all the way to Anchorage.  

Back from the north country

Alaska seems like a long ago dream.  Now I've awaken and I feel like eating Washington's heart out.  Life has been generous to me.  

A small child just ran behind my over sized chair.  I turn my head to make sure she really existed.  Her silhouette bounces against Laural and ivy in the window behind her.  She brought me a Canadian quarter.  I told her to put it in the tip jar.  I sit at Tully's in Issaquah.  Yerba Mate' and a bowl and a free sample of strawberry smoothie entertain my body.  Today I picked blackberries and juniper on my walk to the library from work at REI.  I work there on my weekends now.  I fit 2 people with packs and they were very pleased.  I was Dan T.'s "Buddy" today.  I ended up helping people on my own.  Whenever I tell people I am from Kentucky the most common response is "Hmm... I've never been there."  

I read this message written in pink chalk on a bridge crossing the fish hatchery. 

"So we remain steadfast in our knowledge that we are right and we must remain hopeful.  That for our children and our children's children, that we are not a warring nation, but we embrace and practice true compassion and honor the ideals of peace and freedom and we will not give up."

"It's never too late to do the right thing."  

Last night I stumbled into my room at 10pm.  I held triple antibiotic ointment and hydro cortisone cream loosely in my hand.  I yelled at Ollie to go outside because he was locked in my room all day.  He gets so excited to see me he won't go outside to pee.  He just wants to pant and say hello.  I didn't know what to do with myself so I just stripped down to slippers and a towel.  I decided it was time to shower.  

My blue house on 5 1/2 acres of forest

My new bedroom