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Travelogue,
09/03/04
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A pair of bald eagles
works the shallow waters along my beach. One flies off with a
silver salmon in his talons, lands on the antenna tower a
hundred yards behind me and tucks into his supper. Black bears snatch fish
from a stream that empties at the other end of the beach, near where the plane
crashed. A stone's throw from the shore a harbor seal pokes his head up
near a group of sea birds, then dives again. Father out on the bay a humpback whale blows and sounds, flashing
his tail like a lazy peace sign as the sun slips behind the mountains on
the far shore. Another day in the life. Things are pretty much as I
imagine they have always been here, except that my RV is parked in the
midst of it.
Click on any photo
to enlarge it.
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I'm living in the Alaskan
fjord called Resurrection Bay, surrounded by forested mountains and
retreating glaciers. My six-wheeled "cabin" rests on a broad, rocky beach facing south towards the mouth of
the bay. Continuing on from there it's 2,500 miles across the Pacific to Hawaii. Part of me longs to set sail in that
direction. The rest of me is supremely content right
where I am. |
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This
beach, known locally as Fourth of July Beach, has been my home for a couple of weeks now. I generally stay
a few days at a time, a hermit in paradise, then drive 8 miles into Seward to pick up supplies, empty
and top off my RV's tanks, log onto the Internet to send and receive
emails, and cruise back out to my beach. Think of it as alternative lifestyle
commuting.
At home I work at various projects -
writing, fiddling with digital photographs, preparing
the RV for its fast-approaching winter storage, batting stones with a fat stick and
yelling
"home run!" whenever I lob one into the surf 50' away. Sometimes I just stop and look around me and I am in awe. My heart fills
and my eyes water and I think, "My God, this is so
beautiful."
In fact, that's
something I've been doing a lot these past months. It would be impossible to overstate the beauty, the
grandeur and the soul-stirring impact of the lands through which I've been
traveling.
From the Outer Banks to Denali, wherever people are least in evidence, nature's creation is
showcased and I am continually blown away by it. As I wrap up this
summer's road trip, this drive about, bear with me while I review (all right, show off) some
of the better photographs I've taken along the way:
This last shot is the winner of my recent photo contest.
Last week I spent
another 36 hours in Anchorage, where I finished applying to the Coast Guard for my captain's license
renewal and ran some errands. As before, I was
glad to finish and get out of there, back to more natural surroundings.
Camped on Fourth of July
Beach once again, I compounded and waxed my entire
RV. That was a workout and a half.
Just washing it clean for the first time in 6 months and 13,000 miles was
an ordeal. I spread out the work over a few days,
breaking it up with some writing projects. For example, I got invited to write a short chapter for
a book about using
computers in cars & RV's. (Click here
if you'd like to
read what I wrote, then use your
browser's Back button to return to this page.)
Oh, I stopped by the
BLM (Bureau of Land Management) office when I was in Anchorage and asked them if they'd like to hire me to write
and photograph back-country stuff for them next summer. My friend, John
Nelson, gave me the idea. He did some work for them a long time ago and
got to fly all over the Alaskan bush country in a small plane. I can think
of worse ways to spend a summer. What the hell, you
never know if you don't ask.
My mother wrote me saying she is
worried about me out here among all these bears and moose. I wrote back
saying, "I haven't seen any bears or moose at all in Alaska outside
of the Denali National Park. I hear about them a lot, but they seem to do
a good job of avoiding people most of the time. Whenever I approach blind curves and dense thickets in
the woods, I call out and clap my
hands a couple of times. Most bears and moose will move away if they hear a human
approaching. The key is not to surprise them. Unfortunately, making noise
also frightens away all the other wildlife. Good thing the scenery is so
spectacular."
In any case, all I have to
do is survive the next 30 days up here and then I won't have to deal with
that particular threat again until next year. Of course, I'll still have
to contend with terrorists on the commercial airlines flights, muggers in
New York, and all those inbred sheep in New Zealand. If I make it back to
Thailand this winter, as I hope to for a month or two, I should at last be
safe there for a while among the kindly, smiling Buddhists - except for AIDS and the
opium smugglers in the northern hills.
Now that I think about it, life is
a pretty dangerous place, isn't it? I mean, a guy would be lucky to get
out of here alive.
Next Entry: 09/20/04
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