dead fender bird
me, small - tree, big
parking lot barbeque
ferry boat sunset
(playing catch-up now...)
Sunday night june 28
reentered US of A
day 27 EGMONT, BC to PORT ALBERNI, BC (drive - ferry - drive)
day 28 drive PORT ALBERNI to VICTORIA then FERRY to PORT ANGELES, WA
JUNE 28 - the day was shaped by waking up and recognizing my absolute need to GET HOME. calling to check the ferry schedule was shocking - in order to get on the 3 pm boat, the woman advised us we'd best be in line at the terminal at 11 am. wow! no way! so we reserved passage on the 7:30 pm boat due to arrive at 9 pm knowing we'd have to scramble on the other side to find camping. so be it.
next, we reckoned with the contents of our cooler. Andrew and i are both ridiculously averse to wasting food (immigrant family backgrounds inculcate deep habits) and we couldn't get anyone to give us a definitive answers about what foods would be allowed over the united states border. without even trying, we'd rented a motel room with a real kitchenette (when we were LOOKING for such a thing, in Minot, North Dakota, the night before we crossed into Canada, when everything felt quite desperate due to the SNOWSTORM, we couldn't find one. maybe this was some kind of divine justice). Andrew made home fries of potatoes we'd carted from FLIN FLON (thanks to the Wisconsin fishermen who left them in the cabin), sauteed red peppers and onions and i scrambled eggs and steamed kale. another feast.
before we left town, we searched for the Bird Sanctuary i saw on the map. three fruitless attempts to find the land before a native american wood carver told us he'd gone there as a child but when people started dumping garbage there, the town shut it down. what, i cannot help ask, is wrong with our species?
which brings me to the next difficult moment with humans.
our consellation prize was stopping at the Grove Cathedral, a phenomenal stand of old growth Douglas Fir and Red Cedar on the way east out of Port Alberni. we arrived at noon and the place was a complete zoo with cars reversing out of parking spaces onto the through road - very circus-like. we pulled out our bikes thinking we'd be able to pedal away from the masses but no such luck. there were people crawling along every inch of the trail having their photos taken with the 800 year old giants (see above) and all i could think was: it's like Joni said - they took all the trees, put 'em in a tree museum and charged all the people a dollar and half just to see 'em. this place was free but we've all become so starved for nature and turned it into a kind of disneyland with RVs dominating the roads in the national parks and monster tour buses driving gawkers out onto the glaciers.
from there we drove straight (east then south) to the Blackball Ferry Terminal in Victoria arriving about 4:15. after getting parked in lane 4 and collecting our reserved tickets, Andrew found a rusted folding table by a utility trailer in the parking lot and we set up the Weber Bar-B-Que and grilled steak, eggplant and onions which we ate with salad and GUSTO in the parking lot before passing through customs and getting on the ferry.
the inspectors took NOTHING from our cooler, just wished us well on our way.
the ferry ride was extremely gusty with HUGE waves rolling the boat. exciting for drama queens and a little scary, apparently, for those interested in stability.
we got off the boat at 9 pm and scrambled up up up into the Olympic Mountains to Heart 'O the Hill campground (sounds corny. was exquisite) were we set up the tent in darkness with headlamps. chilly clear night.
