Props to All Us World War 1 Flying Aces!

Days Walking - 76

Kinda blah over the Adrian thing, but I did it to myself, so I really can’t whine too much. Thanks, Kato for the insightful thoughts! Sorry to hear you've been shot down lately - hopefully not behind enemy lines. At least you and I tried to go for it - hey, nothing ventured, nothing suckled.

Sometimes it seems like potential mates are just hanging out in their bunkers of interesting date-me-chase-me sexiness, high-powered anti-aircraft guns of un-love at the ready:

Ratatataaatatataapsewwwpsewwpseww
Bbbrrghrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Smoke smoke smokeee
Fire flames shooting burning scorching spiraling into the ground...
Charred remains of my heart!!

We met some cool folks on the road today, Dan and Bertha Powter, a couple heading north from Fairbanks. They stopped on the road and starting waving to us, so we headed in their direction.

Since I’ve done none of the metting and greeting so far, Kwame and Gabe insisted that I make first contact. These people seemed interested in friendly relations, so it wasn’t very hard to step forward as spokesperson.

They were very cool and offered me a hearty “Howdy!”

Dan and Bertha are a retired couple from El Paso, Texas. They were wearing matching blue snow-jumpers, so cute! Dan was a factory supervisor and Bertha raised four children and volunteered for fifteen years at the local Rape Crisis Center. Ouch, I have to give her props. And do people really, actually still have four children in this day in age? When it’s not a religious imperitive? Hmn.

The Powters were stylin in their hunter green Range Rover. Now that’s the way to travel. They’d overheard CB traffic about us crazy hiking mofos and wanted us to sign their Travel Diary. The travel diary is a really cute little rust-colored book with gilded pages and lots of people have signed it from thirty three of the fifty states.

It’s like a yearbook almost, people have put little phrases in with their signatures. We all signed it, and I’m sorry to say the only thing I could think of to say was “It was nice to meet you!”. Jake wrote “Have a great summer, and don’t drink the water.”

Which is odd because Alaska is all about the water.

We did some bartering with the Powters, they were pretty well equipped and there wasn’t much we had that was of interest to them. In the end, trade commenced.

We gave up some powdered pain killer and four AAA batteries, which were supposed to be for some laser-powered range-finder piece of crap gadget of Anneli's that never worked right anyway. The Powters hooked us up with two rolls of duct tape, a new copy of People magazine with Julia Roberts on the cover, and a fuel-full bic cigarette lighter. Good times!

It was really cool to talk with Bertha and Dan. Church and I were chatting with Bertha and at 68 years old, she’s pretty darned sharp. Dan was chuckling it up with the menfolk, and I heard them swapping some fish stories/tall tales. It was nice to chat with some normal humans for a change.

Holy crap, some bears are getting their ravage on, and I’m not sorry we missed this. From the Juneau Empire: “Four big polar bears — including three 1,000-pound males with bloody muzzles and yellow-stained fur — were dining together on whale carcasses at a sand spit about a mile outside the northeastern Alaska village of Kaktovik.”

Did I mention that it was delightfully, surprisingly warm today? I took a reading of 43 freakin degrees! There was the weirdest sound, all around us, it was kind of creepy actually. The sound of snow melting, water flowing, dripping, blurbling, getting all our gear sopping wet. We’re not used to this bizarre liquid environment, Help! There was much wringing going on today.

Hey, at least it’s something new to do.

Litany Webb, signing off

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