FLASK Sep 3-11 (Journey Home)

FLASK Sep 4-11 (Inner Passage Ferry)
Sep 4:
Lazy day. Hostel offered free pancake breakfast. Repaired sandal soles. Walked to grocery store for duct tape & dramamine. Beer at Humpy's while reading Last American Man (very interesting character). Sat outside late with some kids who're backpacking everywhere together & swapped stories while watching some more transexuals wandering by.
Sep 5:
Up early, showered, oatmeal, pack, train depot ... Saw several Beluga whales surface in Chugach Arm, though weather was bad & getting worse. Arrived in Whittier in downpour with howling 40 mph winds to discover ferry was not in port so not leaving on schedule. Katie, a 23-year-old environmental studies major, had just biked Fairbanks to Anchorage & we agreed to share a hotel room. Pushed bikes in storm through Whittier pedestrian tunnel to Anchor Inn, walked to get beers, & sat in the room chatting til bedtime.
Sep 6: Ferry now expected to arrive/depart tomorrow morning. Breakfast at Anchor Inn was pretty good. Read. Mailed postcards. Read. Stretched. Meditated. Read. Bed. Very little chatting with Katie. Raging storm outside. Very, very cold with 40 mph winds, gusting to 60.
Sep 7:
Howling & nasty out when alarm went off at 5am. Very wet walk to terminal where boat was being fueled. Good cinnamon roll, breakfast burrito, & coffee across street. Met James, a 27-year-old Oregon student who'd cycled to Alaska this summer; though I nearly instantly began to avoid him since he was clearly an intolerable know-it-all. The storm was subsiding but once out of the harbor & into more open water it was nauseating. Dramamine helped, I'm sure, but a brief sit in the ferry's movie theatre sent the motion sickness to another level. 2 stops to puke on the way to bed on the Solarium deck lounge chair, where I'd set up. Eating didn't help but eventually my stomach settled & I was upright for a bit before finally lowering my head for the night.
Sep 8:
Still nasty in the morning, though the boat-pounding 8 ft swells had diminished to 4 ft. Dramamine early allowed me to be upright for meditation & oatmeal & I soon found that being outside & moving once in awhile was helpful. We'd pulled into Soldatna (?) in the morning & when we left we had a spectacularly clear view of the coastal St. Elias Range & the 18,000 ft Mt. St. Elias. Being outside with that view was a fantastic experience & the views of mountains & glaciers - 2 terminating in the open water of the Gulf of Alaska - lasted til mid-afternoon. We soon entered the protected waters of the Inner Passage where it was considerably calmer. A good stretch, reading, another meditation, dinner, & a late evening sighting of a distant pilot whale (?) were thoroughly enjoyed. We pulled into Juneau late where I called Rae before falling asleep.
Sep 9:
Meditation after waking early, then oatmeal while chatting with JD - a retired Alaskan northslope electrician/welder returning to tend his ailing dad in Montana. We were soon outside in bright, cold sunshine for a long, grand day of beautiful coastal/island scenery with numerous pilot whale, 1 killer whale, & 1 gray whale sighting. Casey, the old-age new father I'd met at the Fairbanks VC with his 16-month-old son, Javaughn, had me take a video of Javaughn tossing a "message in a baby bottle" overboard to post on Youtube ("It'll go viral, for sure," he assured me). The ferry made Ketchikan by 6. It was a very pretty coastal city but that was, I think, largely due to the bright sunshine. In an attempt to move my rental car pick-up from the 10th to the 11th I end up with an ambiguous "there might not be a car available" situation but there's no reason to fret as this will surely sort itself out somehow when we arrive, especially if I can beat down the sense of entitlement that often makes a minor delay or inconvenience immediately frustrating. The huge ferry made its way through an extraordinarily narrow channel upon leaving the dock & a beautiful orange, low cloud sunset aft competed with a rising full moon off the bow for my attention. After the sun went down & the intense shades of blue of water, island hills, clouds, & dark sky faded, I stretched fully & completely (making progress in re-mobilizing & working through the intense, lingering wrist & hip pain from backpacking), meditated, & had Mtn. House beef stew & cafe apple pie (with whipped cream!) for dinner. I wandered the boat, delivering a 2nd crappy, dehydrated granola breakfast packet to Katie, then looking - just looking - off the stern. It's sinking in that the adventure is over & a cleansing sense of fatigue, relief, & pride washed over me. I reflected on things I'd seen that I may never see again, feelings from different times in the journey still fresh enough to invoke wonder, terror, & awe in this moment. Contentment filled me. I have had my adventure of a lifetime & I am simply pleased. After these contemplations & with a light, joyous heart & clear head I walk to the bow. Kapow! The moon is bright, big, luminescent ... Stunningly beautiful. Islands in relief against the sea. Hills & forests alight. Currents reflect moonlight in such a way as to make it seem like there are rivers cutting through the sea. I sit in the cold breeze soaking it all in. For a brief while the wind puts tiny wavelets on the ocean's surface & these reflect little bits of moonlight in intricate patterns that first look like a changing, twinkling array of stars in a night sky. The moment stretches & I sense the systems of nature working to communicate with me. The reflections change & combine in a way that reminds me for some reason of a visual Morse code & I firmly feel that I am being reminded of the power, beauty, & mystery of the immutable connection between me (us) & the outdoors - something deep that's often hard for me to remember or retrieve even after I've been outdoors for 5 months, nearly continuously. I am connected to the moment, the sea, moon, myself, ... It's a luscious moment & I find, for once, that I need to exert no effort to stay in it. Some vagabond kids quietly set down sleeping pads & bags on the boat deck, gently interrupting the reverie. I think of sharing the moonbeam's sea dance with them but decide instead to let well enough alone. I may not always keep this sense that I can enjoy something without sharing it with "strangers" but tonight's contentment feels like something I can keep within. I walk again to the stern, out of the wind, to look across the dark water & the boat's wake luminescent with moonrays. A faint green glow shimmers low in the northern sky & as it morphs its shape then fades, I realize I've seen Northern Lights! This final discovery again brings strong feelings about the journey, the adventure, that I tuck into the core of me in a very satisfying way. Thrilled & content. I want to turn to Rae, look into her dark eyes to share a deep, binding experience but that desire & its heartache companion is soon put away. All these moments & so many others will be shared, however inadequately, through words instead. I feel, finally, that, even unshared with my soulmate & true love, these gifts of aware moments discovered & uncovered on the trip are wholly mine & wholly appreciated. I tuck into the bag after moving the lounge chair out under the open deck to sleep under that lovely moon & many stars.
Sep 10:
Very foggy morning til mid-afternoon so I read & meditated. When it cleared it was beautiful for the remainder of the day & well into the evening. There were several small Dusky dolphin pods & quite a few more orca sightings during the day but the most exciting moment was when the boat was fully surrounded by at least 100 Dusky dolphins - jumping, frolicking, surfing, spinning. With their white bellies they look like miniature orcas in the water & they seem so playful & joyous. What a great 5 minutes it was! The calm water of the Inner Passage these last few days has been such a relief & I feel immeasurably better emotionally when I'm not drugged with Dramamine. I talked for a long time with Rich (well, he talked mostly). He runs a mail-order cum Ebay hobby operation - mostly radio controlled toys & parts - in Minnesota, summers in Alaska, & was an intolerable bigot whose company I had to leave & continue to avoid. A wonderful sunset off the starboard kept me enthralled until the moon rose full & brilliant over the bow. JD & I shared a bench & chatted comfortably til late, then I stretched, meditated, & returned to the bow & that enchanting moon. I was very reluctant to head to bed simply because it would mark the last full day of the journey. I wandered the outside decks until very late, less contemplative than the previous night because the thought of seeing Rae soon was so pervasive that I was full of energy. I so adore, admire, & love her that, now that I'm so close, I am anxious now to be in her presence & have my life feel less adventurous & more whole.
Sep 11:
Beautiful day in Bellingham with gentle sun. Packed. Taxi to airport but there's trouble at the rental car agency with my credit card. Though stymied, I stay upbeat & hopeful while talking with Rae & the bank until the extraordinarily helpful young man at the Budget counter bends a few rules to get me going. It's odd to be back in the old stomping grounds of the PNW I5 corridor. Kattie is chatty while I drive her to Seatac, then it's over the Cascades & across that dry, hot plain to our new place in Spokane. Rae ... she's vibrantly beautiful & I can scarcely believe she's finally wrapped in my arms. There's sincerity & purpose & depth in this woman I cannot understand but I know the feeling of love that fills me. The adventure, while immensely satisfying, actually pales measurably when set beside my wife, my love. I'm home.