Episode 9 : MT to WA

The two heroes of the Alaska Dub Chronicles had to change their plans after being turned away at the Canadian border. They headed west and passed through Missoula and Coeur d'Alene. They eventually arrived in Beringen to catch a ferry to Juneau, but had to wait for a spot on the ferry due to their short car. While waiting, they embarked on an extended camping trip in the Pacific Northwest. They found cool camping spots and were invited to parties by locals. They enjoyed the camping experience and had some mishaps, including losing a cherished pipestone. Overall, it was a memorable trip. Alright, welcome back to episode nine of the Alaska Dub Chronicles. At this point, we find our two heroes licking their wounds from having been turned away at the border by the ever diligent Canadian border guards. So, plan B is dryer tears and head west. So, to the best of my recollection, we probably pass through Missoula. And, you know, one consolation was I did get to see the beautiful town of Coeur d'Alene. It was another one of those snapshots of something super cool on the road trip to Alaska that ended up being almost a premonition of something that I enjoy very much here. And that would be the lights of the city being reflected upon. In Coeur d'Alene, it's a river. In Juneau, it's a channel. But then having all that being surrounded by mountains, just enclosing it in and having these lights and the reflected lights at the base of the mountains, they're both very evocative of each other and it's something I dig. So, that was a cool little glimpse. That's what I always think of when it comes to Coeur d'Alene. And I can't really think of anything else too notable On our trips, the rest of the way, we probably drove as much as we could. No real notable camping spots. I think we pretty much bypassed the metro Seattle as much as we could. I do kind of remember passing through Everett, Washington. But our destination was Beringen. We knew, we didn't know a lot about the ferries, but we knew that they ran on a weekly basis. And so, whatever day of the week was the departure day for the ones going to where we wanted to go, which was Juneau, we probably, most likely, either hauled balls to get there in a short amount of time if the day was close or it was leisurely if we knew we had just missed it and we still had like six days. So, we arrived in Beringen, and this whole endeavor was pretty much on a, you could consider it on a shoestring. But we did come up with, not very expensive for just a passenger, especially if you don't get a stateroom. So, we had planned to sleep on the solarium, which is basically a heated, covered area of the deck that's provided with like sturdy lawn chairs. And you hunker down in your sleeping bag and on a sleeping pad and try to be as comfortable as possible. And it's a great economical alternative, but as advice learned the hard way, if you can ever afford a stateroom, that is definitely the way to go. It makes, well, I don't think I've ever had one. I've just, I've roughed it every time, but I've heard about how much better it is to have one. That's from like a mother traveling with young children, and I could see in that situation it would be indispensable. If you're in a couple wanting some privacy, likewise, unless you're sort of an exhibitionist. So, we arrived there thinking it's all good to go. We hadn't considered the car. It's hard to believe, looking back, that we could be so thoughtless. Or we were just presumptuous. Because it was a short car. It's renowned for being pretty stubby. So, we figured you could always squeeze one more of those in. But such was not the case. And we were told, I believe it was something along the lines of, it would be, either we showed up on the right day and got told it would be another two weeks, or we missed the day, and it would be roughly three weeks altogether. I know it was less than a month. So, plan B kind of melds into plan C, which is going to be an extended camping trip in the Pacific Northwest as we're cooling our heels, waiting to get our spot on the ferry. So, at that point, I think we, you know, we would provision ourselves. There's a good chance we had our, like, last hurrah in a motel. But maybe not. Maybe, gosh, am I giving this too much credit to think, like, that would be the one, that would be the luxury to have after camping for three weeks. So, we, not really knowing where to go, we just kind of headed south and looked for cool turnoffs that led to places that had extensive opportunities for camping, free camping. That was our thing. Like, we were never going to pay. Even if we had to go guerrilla. I mean, I think that's why we were, like, off the track in Montana when we saw the bears. But, you know, sometimes being a cheapskate can lead to cool experiences, and this was one. So, odds are we hit one of the great, you know, like, again, Army surplus, REI, used gear stores. I can't recall exactly. I think that might have been where I got my beloved thermo, no, no. Thermo arrest came at another point. But probably, I don't know. Let's just say whatever we had worn out or had found lacking, we probably upgraded and then stocked up. You know, we were beer drinkers. You know, we liked our smoking, and we liked our beer. You know, when you start adding, like, whiskey and cocaine into the mix, then it gets too crazy. So that was, you know, we were just simple smoking and beer fellows. To get on with it, we basically pointed the car towards Mount Baker, which is, it's actually really cool how there's, it's easy to see from the air. To sort of jump forward, I was in a plane flying from Idaho to Washington, and that provided a great perspective with thick cloud cover below. And the only things sticking up were the peaks of the sister dormant volcanoes, including Mount Rainier, Mount St. Helens, Mount Adams, and Mount Baker. There's more in this chain. So not being very knowledgeable, again, we just stumbled onto this fantastic community who embraced us. We went to, you know, we went to some parties. We got invited to some parties by locals, and we had a, you know, we really got our camping system down. If I recall, we were on this great, like, loop, dirt road loop, and we would just kind of keep going. We would pack up and go, and just go from spot to spot, you know, not to wear out our welcome anywhere, and to keep experiencing new places. But they were all basically the same, you know. A little clearing in the trees, we got a river on one side or the other, and, you know, just pack the car up and make a fire, string up the hammock, and just have a chill, just have a chill time. It was, it was, it was really cool. Really cool. I just remembered this, this sort of, I don't know. It's such a random experience that I found very striking, and it now reminds me of so many things. It's like links so many things. So this will give you a little snapshot. I'm still just rocking a mullet in the beard and overalls. And I was, in Kansas City, there's all these all these, like, super hippie-ass hemp fests and wind fairs and, like, buckskin rendezvous. And through, through a wild variety of interests and friends and exposures and just locations, I got to take in wearing a deerskin like medicine bag. And inside, I had a Minnesota piped stone chillum. I was quite the smoker. But I, I was feeling a real Native American vibe to it, you know. I was feeling a real Native American vibe to it, you know. I was feeling a real Native American vibe to it, you know. I was feeling a real Native American vibe to it, you know. I was feeling a real Native American vibe to it, you know. I was feeling a real Native American vibe to it, you know. I was feeling a real Native American vibe to it, you know. I was feeling a real Native American vibe to it, you know. I was feeling a real Native American vibe to it, you know. I was feeling a real Native American vibe to it, you know. I was feeling a real Native American vibe to it, you know. I was feeling a real Native American vibe to it, you know. I was feeling a real Native American vibe to it, you know. I was feeling a real Native American vibe to it, you know. I was feeling a real Native American vibe to it, you know. I was feeling a real Native American vibe to it, you know. I was feeling a real Native American vibe to it, you know. I was feeling a real Native American vibe to it, you know. I was feeling a real Native American vibe to it, you know. I was feeling a real Native American vibe to it, you know. I was feeling a real Native American vibe to it, you know. I was feeling a real Native American vibe to it, you know. I was feeling a real Native American vibe to it, you know. I was feeling a real Native American vibe to it, you know. I was feeling a real Native American vibe to it, you know. I was feeling a real Native American vibe to it, you know. I was feeling a real Native American vibe to it, you know. I was feeling a real Native American vibe to it, you know. I was feeling a real Native American vibe to it, you know. I was feeling a real Native American vibe to it, you know. I was feeling a real Native American vibe to it, you know. I was feeling a real Native American vibe to it, you know. We'd hosted our party. I don't know, I think odds are we had been waiting on a little supplemental disbursement to appear in either or both of our bank accounts, and so we did get a little boost there, and probably to thank the locals for their hospitality and so forth. You know, probably the hot dogs and beer, you know, on fire, and you know, just tried to repay the hospitality that we'd been shown. And so I think that night, I lost my chill on this hand-carved pipestone from Minnesota, which is like traditional pipestone. It was a real deal. It's not just some stupid thing from a head shop. And I bought it across a blanket, trade blanket, at one of these hemp fests. But I lost it, and I was super bummed. But what are you going to do? And, you know, I tore the car up, tore the campsite up, looked everywhere, looked everywhere. And, you know, you're mad at yourself, and then you're bummed out, and thinking, like, when am I ever going to find, blah, blah, blah. And then you finally resign, and then it's kind of like, eh. It's another one of those, well, it's the bad times make good stories. I guess that'd be the truth since I was super bummed then, and I'm telling the story now. But, so I'd gone through those stages of grief. And meanwhile, we're still camping there. And so one evening, just, I don't know, I guess we started building the fire at the campsite, which was up in the woods. We were building a beach fire, which is the same spot where we had the party. And just doing the usual, you know, buzz on, looking at the fire, just relaxing, and just doing totally unconscious sifting of the sand and gravel that's, you know, that's on a river beach. And I swear, I don't know how this coincidence of things coincided, but I scooped up one hand of sand, and what sifted out was my chin. And I was so amazed. Thinking about camping, that moment is probably one of the two most seared in my head. The other being at the same spot. My bro and I were facing each other. I want to say across a modest campfire. Most of the time, you know, we kept everything modest. We weren't big boys. Everyone's a pyro at heart, I think, but we kept it under control most of the time. But we have the car backed up into this, like a, backed off the road into just the beginning of an overgrown track. And so my back was to the track, and he's looking at me. And like in a pause in the conversation, like we hear a few moments before we, there's other campers here on the oxbow. You know, it's just the right distance away. So like you see there, you just barely see the flicker of their campfire. And you can't really hear them. Every now and then you hear a little murmur. So, you know, about as far as you can get away and still be in the same, like, site. Like I said, the people there were super So we hear their dogs barking. And within a matter of maybe 10 seconds, like about as long as it would take to run from their site to our site. He looks up from the fire over my shoulder. And just like a deadpan, as you could say, it's like Bigfoot. And I look over my right shoulder, which is towards the road. And he's looking over my left shoulder. And when I turn around, I, I can't say I saw anything. And I can't say that I, you know, smelled the signature skunk ape overpowering. You know, every now and then you get the brain full of skunk. But yeah, nothing like, nothing like I've heard that, that Sasquatch is supposed to smell like. But it did feel like something, you know, had that, that, it did feel like something had run past me. So there you go. That's my, I want to believe, man. Well, I do believe. I don't have proof. I wish I would love to see some proof that didn't hurt. You know, didn't hurt whatever is out there. But obviously, we're not the only people who, you know, have had some sort of encounter, if you even want to, which that is like a decimal point on the, you know, Bigfoot experience rating scale of one to 10. That's not even a blip from my personal, you know, maybe he's a one on the scale of 10. But you know, we're at a place that while we were there, they had their Bigfoot parade, the Bigfoot days at Baker. And, you know, again, Volkswagen vans and Beetles, you know, decorated and Bigfoot regalia. So those are pretty much the highlights of our time. We tried a bunch of different local beers and appreciated that and good food, good company. You know, nice hiking and so forth. But then it was time to pack it up and head towards Bellion and finally catch our ferry. And so that would be right at the end of June in 1991. So to the best of my recollection, we just cleaned up, probably cleaned up then packed up, headed down Bellingham at the night in a motel postcard and showed up in time to put the car on the ferry by whatever deadline that was. And then it takes off later that afternoon. I really, you know, I wish I had something super notable about the, about the ferry ride up. You know, of course, it's stunningly beautiful. Our three weeks outside of Glacier or Mount Baker was good for to acclimate us. Otherwise, like our rigs would have been blown back by what the Southeast Panhandle and BC is like. Well, that kind of got us, got the woods and the mountains acclimation. But then now you're adding in all the water. Not much open water, but all the fjords and inlets and channels and islands and just, it's, the inside passage was great. Highly recommended. Didn't get to, didn't get much exposure to any of the little towns. But when we arrived in Juneau, it was like a scene from a movie. It was a clear summer day, which anyone who has been to Juneau in the summer can tell you how great it is. And also, if they live here, how rare it can be. But this was, I don't know, I think it was one for the record book. I think it was all set up just to put some, just to set the hook in me for Alaska Love. Because the first week we were there, there was, well, I'll tell you about my first week in Alaska starting next episode. But we have finally, I'll leave it, I'll leave it like this. I'll leave it at the moment our ferry is slowly pulling in to the ferry terminal at Juneau, Alaska early in the morning of what is set to be a beautiful Alaskan summer day. And that's what we'll pick up next episode. Until then, be good.