Today (Saturday) is a day to pause and be thankful. It’s pouring rain out there but I am comfortably ensconced in a propane-heated cabin at Liard Hotsprings. Stuck, once again waiting for the sky to lift. But like Tommy G, the Mayor-elect of Bella Coola, I can smile, shrug my shoulders, and say there are worse places to be stuck.
Yesterday Henk and I had one of those days we were both created for. We left Whitehorse around two in the afternoon in a drizzle. By four, the sky had cleared and the pavement was dry. There was no traffic, so we took over the road. I had a hard time reigning Henk in under 140. Both of us were thrilled to be rolling again—moving into a new chapter, wide-awake, fully alive, excited. With Henk newly rubbered-up, oiled-up, tuned-up, and loved-up, we were unstoppable. By the time we came to junction 37 for the gravel-peppered Cassiar, the verdict was in: Henk wanted pavement. Henk wanted curves. Henk wanted to go fast. And the lure of the hotsprings was strong, so we carried on in absolute bliss down the dry and deserted Alaska Highway.
The sun was setting in Henk’s rearview mirrors as we neared the hotsprings around eight and we rode toward fire-orange clouds spilling their pillowy pink centers from themselves over the emerging peaks of the northernmost Rockies.
When we pulled in, the campground office was closed and the sign saying “campground full” was up. That sign goes up around four pm every day from May through September. I went across the highway to the lodge and inquired about camping there. From behind me in the dining room, I heard a familiar voice say, “Whatever you do, don’t give her a campsite.” Bo, the friendly park attendant with whom I had become acquainted on my last visit, was having dinner with his roommate, and decided I needed to be “paid back” for an article I had just written quoting him as my sensitive informant. “You owe me, big time,” he said, trying to look pissed, but actually beaming. The article on the Liard Hotsprings ended with a quote from him saying “I can’t even describe to you how beautiful it is up here on a fall night, soaking in the hot water watching the northern lights dancing around the sky…”
I did not misquote him. He said exactly those words, with a dreamy expression on his face. Perhaps I took a tiny bit of poetic license to emphasize his words, but really, I did not misquote him. The article was printed in the Vancouver Sun, then picked up and featured two days later by the Victoria Times-Colonist, his hometown paper. He hasn’t heard the end of it. For two weeks in the campground, Bo’s colleagues have been calling him “Moon Eyes.” His boss regularly calls him up on the two-way and plays “Moon River,” howling over the crackle of the radio. Friends and family from home have been phoning to give him a hard time about the “motorcycle chick he was trying to sweet talk.” Apparently, I’ve destroyed his reputation, although I can’t imagine what his reputation might have been. He’s got the size and stature of a grizzly, with red hair, long ample sideburns framing his rosy face, and a long, thick, red, horseshoe-shaped mustache groomed nicely over his top lip, then cascading onto his fleshy chin. He keeps a baseball bat at the ready in his park office in case any drunken teenagers decide to get out of hand. But that’s where the tough guy image ends.
He insisted I stay in his cabin because there are bears in the area, and drove across the highway ahead of me to change the sheets on his bed (which, as I found out, is covered with a teddy bear blanket). I tried backing Henk up to follow and got stuck for a full five minutes in the gravel parking lot, by myself, doubled over in a fit of laughter. Moon Eyes!
So Moon Eyes gave me his teddy bear blanketed bed and he and his roommate each took a couch. The park superintendent came over and invited me on a canoeing trip down the Liard River in inflatable canoes. I begged off, saying my dilly-dallying days are over. He told me to keep in touch and he’d set me up next year with some great free trips in exchange for writing about them. Of course, everyone here is thrilled with the article and the exposure and I’m being treated like a queen. The pay for freelance work is “paltry,” as one editor says, but the perks can be nice. I’d have been soaked through the skin in my tent tonight in this rain that’s been coming all day in a cold, constant drizzle, but as it is, Moon Eyes and crew have made it their business to see that I’m dry, fed, and happy.
I soaked last night and searched for northern lights between clouds, then again today for three hours in the rain. Despite being anxious to turn the page and get on with the next chapter, I’m grateful for a day of rain so that I can take a day to pause and be thankful.
Yesterday Henk and I had one of those days we were both created for. We left Whitehorse around two in the afternoon in a drizzle. By four, the sky had cleared and the pavement was dry. There was no traffic, so we took over the road. I had a hard time reigning Henk in under 140. Both of us were thrilled to be rolling again—moving into a new chapter, wide-awake, fully alive, excited. With Henk newly rubbered-up, oiled-up, tuned-up, and loved-up, we were unstoppable. By the time we came to junction 37 for the gravel-peppered Cassiar, the verdict was in: Henk wanted pavement. Henk wanted curves. Henk wanted to go fast. And the lure of the hotsprings was strong, so we carried on in absolute bliss down the dry and deserted Alaska Highway.
The sun was setting in Henk’s rearview mirrors as we neared the hotsprings around eight and we rode toward fire-orange clouds spilling their pillowy pink centers from themselves over the emerging peaks of the northernmost Rockies.
When we pulled in, the campground office was closed and the sign saying “campground full” was up. That sign goes up around four pm every day from May through September. I went across the highway to the lodge and inquired about camping there. From behind me in the dining room, I heard a familiar voice say, “Whatever you do, don’t give her a campsite.” Bo, the friendly park attendant with whom I had become acquainted on my last visit, was having dinner with his roommate, and decided I needed to be “paid back” for an article I had just written quoting him as my sensitive informant. “You owe me, big time,” he said, trying to look pissed, but actually beaming. The article on the Liard Hotsprings ended with a quote from him saying “I can’t even describe to you how beautiful it is up here on a fall night, soaking in the hot water watching the northern lights dancing around the sky…”
I did not misquote him. He said exactly those words, with a dreamy expression on his face. Perhaps I took a tiny bit of poetic license to emphasize his words, but really, I did not misquote him. The article was printed in the Vancouver Sun, then picked up and featured two days later by the Victoria Times-Colonist, his hometown paper. He hasn’t heard the end of it. For two weeks in the campground, Bo’s colleagues have been calling him “Moon Eyes.” His boss regularly calls him up on the two-way and plays “Moon River,” howling over the crackle of the radio. Friends and family from home have been phoning to give him a hard time about the “motorcycle chick he was trying to sweet talk.” Apparently, I’ve destroyed his reputation, although I can’t imagine what his reputation might have been. He’s got the size and stature of a grizzly, with red hair, long ample sideburns framing his rosy face, and a long, thick, red, horseshoe-shaped mustache groomed nicely over his top lip, then cascading onto his fleshy chin. He keeps a baseball bat at the ready in his park office in case any drunken teenagers decide to get out of hand. But that’s where the tough guy image ends.
He insisted I stay in his cabin because there are bears in the area, and drove across the highway ahead of me to change the sheets on his bed (which, as I found out, is covered with a teddy bear blanket). I tried backing Henk up to follow and got stuck for a full five minutes in the gravel parking lot, by myself, doubled over in a fit of laughter. Moon Eyes!
So Moon Eyes gave me his teddy bear blanketed bed and he and his roommate each took a couch. The park superintendent came over and invited me on a canoeing trip down the Liard River in inflatable canoes. I begged off, saying my dilly-dallying days are over. He told me to keep in touch and he’d set me up next year with some great free trips in exchange for writing about them. Of course, everyone here is thrilled with the article and the exposure and I’m being treated like a queen. The pay for freelance work is “paltry,” as one editor says, but the perks can be nice. I’d have been soaked through the skin in my tent tonight in this rain that’s been coming all day in a cold, constant drizzle, but as it is, Moon Eyes and crew have made it their business to see that I’m dry, fed, and happy.
I soaked last night and searched for northern lights between clouds, then again today for three hours in the rain. Despite being anxious to turn the page and get on with the next chapter, I’m grateful for a day of rain so that I can take a day to pause and be thankful.
posted by Moira Nordholt | 3:16 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home