Last Day in Alaska

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Caroline Wise at Oomingmak Shop in Anchorage, Alaska

It’s not always easy to know what’s important when it is so, and so it happened back in 2012 following a monumental experience that took us down the Alsek River out of the Yukon into British Columbia, and finally delivered us to Dry Bay, Alaska that all the important stuff was duly noted and extensively blogged about using near 30,000 words and just under 200 or so photos. Well, that was 11 years ago, and in looking back I realized that I neglected writing of our last, equally important day, of our first visit to this corner of the earth. Now in 2023, I’m going to try and repair that by including what I can about this day in the Anchorage, Alaska, area.

Had we done nothing else, Caroline required that we make a pilgrimage to the Oomingmak Co-Operative. This is possibly the only place on our entire planet where one can walk in and buy a handknit object created from a fiber known as qiviut, which comes from a rare northern creature called musk ox. The “Pack Ice” headband design Caroline is wearing will likely forever remain the most expensive small article of clothing she will ever buy at $130. And, as she reminds me, she chose the “discount option” because the yarn of this headband is 80% qiviut and 20% silk. No matter the expense, I’m certain Caroline will forever cherish this rarest of luxuries and how it will remain a part of her first experience in the wilds of Alaska.

Seward Highway thru the Chugach National Forest in Alaska

I’m barely into the narrative that accompanies these photos, but with the 21 images I’ve included here and then the realization that I only used about an average of a dozen photos per day in the original blog entries, I feel I need to return for further investigation of how I whittled nearly 5,500 photos down to the tiny number I shared. I do know a huge contributing factor to my possible lethargy in tackling more: I had just recently finished writing, editing, and publishing my seminal (and only) book titled Stay In The Magic about the Grand Canyon rafting adventure on which we had marked back at the end of 2010 prior to this Alaska trip and I’d had enough of venting my heart and mind. Looking at this railroad track, I’d like to try the corny, “That train has left the station,” but knowing me, I’ll revisit those directories of old photos and see if I might feel enticed to add a little something here and there.

Seward Highway thru the Chugach National Forest in Alaska

After two weeks in this environment, nothing had grown old. Every vista was spectacular and held an incredible amount of mystery as at best, we could only glimpse the tiniest of surface views regarding what the environment holds beyond the first glance.

Seward Highway thru the Chugach National Forest in Alaska

Our flight doesn’t depart until shortly after midnight, so we are driving somewhat aimlessly southeast until we know that we need to turn around.

Seward Highway thru the Chugach National Forest in Alaska

We are driving along the Knik Arm of the Cook Inlet, where the waters flowing out of Portage Lake head to the open sea.

Seward Highway thru the Chugach National Forest in Alaska

The telltale turquoise watercolor lets us know that a glacier is ahead.

Seward Highway thru the Chugach National Forest in Alaska

Oops, almost forgot to stop and smell the flowers, a lupine in this case.

Seward Highway thru the Chugach National Forest in Alaska

Looking across Portage Lake at a glaciated area. I don’t think this is part of the Portage Glacier.

Seward Highway thru the Chugach National Forest in Alaska

This was as close to Portage Glacier ice as we were going to get, the remnant of some broken-off ice that drifted across the lake.

Seward Highway thru the Chugach National Forest in Alaska

The road turned to the west, taking us past a bunch of lily ponds; if only we were present when the waters were still and reflected the surrounding mountains.

Kenai Peninsula in Alaska

This was the end of our exploration of the Seward Highway today. After reaching the Welcome to the Kenai Peninsula sign, we decided this should be the time to turn around, as reaching Seward or Homer was out of the question due to our limited time remaining in Alaska.

Caroline Wise at Turnagain Arm Pit on the Seward Highway in Alaska

Having a beer and BBQ at the Turnagain Arm BBQ in Indian, Alaska, on the Seward Highway because even if we had to stop for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and Kool-Aid, this would still be one of the greatest stops for dinner ever. Does the sunlight have you thinking I meant lunch? Well, it was 7:00 p.m. when this photo was taken.

Anchorage Coastal Wildlife Refuge in Alaska

We’ve stopped at the Potter Marsh area after spotting birds galore, and everyone knows that this is exactly the right number of birds to arrest our attention and force us from the car to inspect all of them.

Anchorage Coastal Wildlife Refuge in Alaska

Unless you live in Alaska or some other northern clime, I’m guessing it’s not every day one sees a great black-backed gull chick.

Anchorage Coastal Wildlife Refuge in Alaska

I’m calling it “Arctic Tern with Midnight Snack.”

Anchorage Coastal Wildlife Refuge in Alaska

I literally crawled on my belly, as monumental as it is, to approach this tern from a distance I would have never guessed possible.

Anchorage Coastal Wildlife Refuge in Alaska

From this point, until we reach the airport, I’ve not been able to identify the park we visited, but who cares? Just take a moment to enjoy the warm sunset (9:15 p.m.) light illuminating the grasses in the woods.

Anchorage Coastal Wildlife Refuge in Alaska

More flower-smelling time.

Anchorage Coastal Wildlife Refuge in Alaska

Do you know what they call a daisy in Alaska? Daisy.

Anchorage Coastal Wildlife Refuge in Alaska

And with this last late-day photo, we pointed the car towards the airport to catch our flight.

John Wise, Caroline Wise, and Daniel Billotte flying out of Alaska

We were seated and waiting for a couple of late arrivals, and as one of those stragglers was walking down the aisle, I nudged Caroline and told her that the guy approaching looked a lot like a guy we’d not seen in 5 or 10 years, Daniel Billotte. Of course, she said, “NO WAY!” So, as he started to pass us, I kind of blurted out Daniel under my breath, not directing exactly at him, but his head snapped; sure enough, it was Daniel. How on god’s green earth are we running into this guy on a midnight flight out of Alaska? I’d like to say stranger things have happened, and while this is up there in the unbelievable department, we’ve had our fair share of the No Way.

Friends at the Market

JWise Photo of the Day

Caroline Wise, Jutta Engelhardt, and Celia Petersen

Our first visit was with Celia and Jimmie Petersen of Chile Acres Farm. Jimmie was at the downtown market, he directed us to head up north on Central Avenue to a new market where we would find Celia. After spending a bit of time with Jimmie, we found Celia and hugs ensued. Jutta has fond memories of her visits with the Petersen’s, as it was at their farm where she first took lessons riding a horse, she bottle-fed baby goats, and was invited into their home more than once to enjoy a home-cooked meal featuring Celia’s homemade goat milk cheese, and goat milk ice cream for dessert. Over the past two years, Caroline calls her mom nearly every Sunday, and on every phone call, Jutta asks, “How are Celia and Jimmie doing?” Today, she was able to see for herself and passed on the hugs to show her affection for their warmth and sharing.

Forgotten Oregon II – Day 4

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Disclaimer: This post is one of those that ended up being written years after the experience was had. Sadly, there were no notes taken so whatever is shared here must be extracted from the images and what memories they may have lent us. Fortunately, there was an itinerary still in my directory of travel plans, so that will help with some details. As to why this wasn’t noted or blogged about, I was in the throes of writing/editing my book Stay In The Magic and felt that any other deep writing would derail that fragile effort.

Yurts, we are in love with yurts. They are the perfect tiny little home away from home. What’s missing, such as the toilet and kitchen, is made up for with character.

It’s always a sad moment when we are done packing the car and cleaning the debris we’ve tracked into the yurt and are about to lock the door. We’ve never stayed in a yurt where we didn’t leave with fond memories of every minute we spent in these canvas palaces by the sea. Just writing this made me run over to the Oregon State Park site, check for availability this coming Thanksgiving 2021, and snag two nights in this exact unit.

Just up the road is Cape Perpetua, but it is what lies below that place atop the mountain, the Devils Churn, that draws me in. Down below, the rushing water crashes into a tiny slice in the earth,  a space too small to contain all of its energy, and so it explodes with the water, trying to make its escape.

I never tire of watching this spectacle and could stand here for hours capturing thousands of photos if it weren’t for Caroline gently dragging me away, reassuring me that hundreds were probably enough. As I went through the directory storing photos from this date, I ended up removing more than 250 images that I deemed unworthy. However, with all the chaos in the churn, it’s not like one could just grab the best image by taking a shot or two.

Part of the trail down to the churn. Next time I’m posting something about the Oregon Coast I should remember to capture the trail as it leads away from the parking lot as it too is a nice sight.

Speaking of nice sights.

That’s the Yaquina Head Lighthouse in the distance. A priceless 1st-order Fresnel lens sits atop its tower; the same type of lens also resides in the Heceta Head Lighthouse I wrote about yesterday.

We’ve been driving north, but somewhere or other up here, we’ll need to turn around as we have another date with a yurt south of Washburne.

Stopping in Depoe Bay to just sit a while and admire the ocean.

And occasionally look over at my wife to smile at our incredible opportunities.

The seagull knows nothing of the enslavement to economic systems, unlike us, who know nothing about the freedom to soar. While the bird cannot describe its beautiful environment, humans are typically hard-pressed to describe what is beautiful in nature.

I took one hundred photos to capture the one that ended up here. I was mesmerized by the flow and patterns the water would take as it piled up against the rocks below me each time it traveled on different pathways as receding water changed the dynamic of the water coming in. With the center column being deeper, a dark emerald color pulled me into depths where that water was mysteriously traveling outside of my purview. I wanted to be a consciousness that is able to flow where the water goes. I want to be the bird that skims over the surface of the waves, just a feather above the churn that threatens to bring it out of flight and into the realm of the fish below. Like the hyphal knot emerging atop mycelium, seeing light for the first time, I want to have my first peek at the universe, but here I am, stuck within my head of preconceptions of my place among the others in my species.

Water is infinite and doesn’t know of its relationships from the Pacific to its distant frozen cousin encased for the past 35,000 years in a glacier; it cannot know of its gaseous form in a cloud hovering over Pavlikeni, Bulgaria, or its fellow molecules about to be sipped as a coffee at a breakfast table anywhere on earth.

I on the other hand, if I try hard, am able to bring myself toward the edge of infinity when writing about what I’m looking at as I explore the internal landscape of language as it’s used to describe phenomena outside of me.

To the rocks of Siletz Bay, life is an imperceptibly slow crawl into disappearance. Over many thousands of years, they’ve grown smaller as their exteriors flake away under the barrage of the elements. I’m like those rocks in that I, too, am flaking away, but I’m aware of my disappearance as it happens in the comparative blink of an eye. Not satisfied with only knowing my fixed place, I have to travel my imagination and constantly feed it with all forms of stimuli as I try to understand the peculiarity of self-awareness that the water and rocks may never know.

I’m nearly always astonished at how little awareness my fellow humans bring to the game of life. Here we are in Lincoln City at the local streetside glassworks, and as I look at this float, it is the result of our ingenuity to bring sand, lime, and soda ash together under an incredible amount of heat that has allowed us to protect ourselves from the elements, store fluids, restore our vision, look into the heavens, and examine things we cannot see otherwise.

Where’s my bag of infinite knowledge when I want to know more about the 22° halo I’m looking at? Oh yeah, with the help of community knowledge shared on the internet, I know that this is from high-altitude hexagon-shaped ice crystals that, as light passes through them, bend the light at a 22° angle.

When did these rocks fall down? When were they formed? What minerals are present? What other people lived here 500 years ago? What are we leaving for people 500 years from now that will tell of our relationship and understanding of what we were looking at?

These barnacles won’t be telling the story, nor will the average person who might have had the ability, but instead, they are locked into artificial existences that never ask them to describe their world as much as it demands they consume banalities in their lonely isolation.

Wherever you are on this planet, what if it were just you and a friend looking out at the last sunset ever? What might you tell a future generation of beings of what you saw, experienced, and desired? What if, to a future generation of intelligent beings, the dreams, knowledge, and aspirations of a former species consisting of billions of people could be understood in minutes? What will we have collectively offered up for the incredible opportunity to have been standing there looking into existence?

Humanity has the opportunity to be 7 billion lighthouses to future generations, but instead, we trade our time on earth to effectively be nothing more than 6.9 billion specimens of bacteria buried in the soil beneath the lighthouse, hidden from view and unknown to those captivated by the shining light.

Forgotten Oregon II – Day 3

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Disclaimer: This post is one of those that ended up being written years after the experience was had. Sadly, there were no notes taken so whatever is shared here must be extracted from the images and what memories they may have lent us. Fortunately, there was an itinerary still in my directory of travel plans, so that will help with some details. As to why this wasn’t noted or blogged about, I was in the throes of writing/editing my book Stay In The Magic and felt that any other deep writing would derail that fragile effort.

Yesterday, we were hoping for favorable weather this morning, and here we are at the beginning of our trail with the sun streaming in. Not that it will get far, as we are in a rainforest at Carl G. Washburne State Park south of Yachats, Oregon.

Funny how I can gaze upon a mushroom, just one more mushroom among the thousands I’ve seen in my lifetime, and still I find it enchanting. I’m sitting in a coffee shop as I write this, listening to the same old bologna I’ve heard countless times, and it’s rubbing me in such a way that I’m considering running away. The mushroom is never able to share its stupidity, but a human is all too willing to demonstrate that it’s dumber than a fungus planted on a forest floor. How should I write about the serenity and beauty of a place when surrounded by the chaos and ugliness of those others within my species?

Looking back at these trips I have to lament that I wasn’t willing to write of my impressions and take inspiration from the environment at the time. Mostly, I was content to have the photographic memories as I saw myself as having just enough skills to take those, but my writing was still in its nascent stages; well, it still is, isn’t it? All the same, even rudimentary notes help bring back things that are long forgotten. The lesson is, always take too many photos and at least write some things down on every vacation day you ever take.

Taken before the days, we understood that newts excrete a toxin when stressed. I tend to want to believe that Caroline’s tender touch doesn’t stress the newt, but then again, if something 6,480 times bigger than me picked me up, even if it was gingerly, I’d be excreting all over myself and the creature holding me.

My half-educated guess is that these are Stropharia caerulea, also known as Blue Roundheads, and are not edible.

I believe I’ve posted this exact view more than a few times, and why wouldn’t I? It’s just perfect in every way.

I’ve tried time and again to photograph this bridge, and after years of not looking at this particular image, I realize that using my 10-22mm lens I was able to capture the angle I was looking for. If I was a more dedicated photographer, I’d travel with the full complement of lenses I own, but the truth is that I’ve never grown beyond believing I’m taking run-of-the-mill snapshots of average quality, so my effort is what it is.

As I stare at this image, contemplating what to write, I think about the smallest mushroom I see there on the left, just under the cut of this tree. It’s obviously not as small as it could be because, at some point, just after it left the spore stage, it probably did not have a mushroom cap and I don’t know that I’ve ever seen that. Then there are the spores the tree caught of the moss, growing like a vertical carpet under the mushrooms; I failed to note what direction all of this growth was facing to learn more about the lighting conditions where these plants thrive. Studying those aspects and admiring the reflections on the wet mushrooms I start to take notice of the blurred background and how appealing it is to my eye.

Sure, everybody should see this sight with their own eyes, but today, I’m happy there was nobody else on the trail who would have been a part of this scene. The sunbeams, shadows, greenery, and nearly imperceptible amount of fog are just right.

I could have just posted a single photo of our day on the central coast of Oregon and shared that we’d hiked in this particular state park, visited a lighthouse, and experienced a magnificent sunset, but instead, I’m inclined to overshare, causing these brief notes where I really don’t share anything of value at all.

Where’s Waldo? She’s there in the shadows, but who really cares about her standing back there, hardly seen as what I really wanted to share was the lush green carpet and those sunbeams that beg me to forever remember how mysterious they are and how they change the character of a forest.

Sometimes, the carpet of moss appears as a fur coat on the limbs of trees. I wonder if I really need to point out that this is far more elegant on older trees where the growth has been accumulating for years. Sadly, when we move through a forest, clear-cutting the life that we need to harvest for our own financial gain proceeds indiscriminately, giving no care at all about the wisdom in the forest that comes in the form of trees such as this.

For fungus, there is no importance of time on display as they quickly come and go with their impact experienced in mere moments but they do represent the symbiotic nature of a healthy environment where things are allowed to remain undisturbed by our sense of propriety.

Another fungus cutting its own path into my reality. I suppose I can be happy that this thing isn’t gifted with a kind of mobility that would make it the stuff of nightmares.

Today, we took the longer option regarding our hike. Typically, we’ve taken the Hobbit Trail down to the beach, but with the weather seeming favorable, we are taking a left towards the lighthouse.

Heceta Head Lighthouse at the end of the trail.

Is it enough to say wow here?

We managed to be here right in time for a tour of this 117-year-old fixture on the Oregon coast.

Who pays for the repairs and upkeep of these iconic treasures? We, the general public, do with our paid admission as we carve out time from our vacation to crawl up these towers. When we visit and buy something from the gift shop, we fund repairs and pay for the people who protect the buildings from vandalism. Nature is already a tough visitor, wearing down the structure that lives year after year under the battering ram of weather. I’d imagine that the water seeping through or down these walls would ultimately make Heceta Head unvisitable. Thanks to everyone who toils to preserve lighthouses.

I can’t remember the specifics about the couple acting as caretakers here and how and why they let us in for a quick tour, but I’m forever grateful. It turned out that the lighthouse was closed back in August 2011, just a few months before our arrival but major renovation work that would shut the facility for the next two years hadn’t begun yet, and so we were “snuck in.” Persistent enthusiasm must be good for something.

A quick look at the ocean and it was time to head up the road back to our yurt that we’d booked for two nights. As we walked along the street, oh, how we wished that someone driving past and seeing how worn down we were would have had room to pick up three strangers and take us back to Washburne. No luck; we hoofed it.

Instead of walking along the highway the entire distance we turned back in towards the China Creek Trail, where it emerges at the highway to head over to the Hobbit Beach Trail. We should have gone to the beach and walked back the rest of the way, but we were tired and hungry.

But not so tired and hungry that I couldn’t stop and take even more photos of the lovely mushrooms.

After a short rest and some food, we crossed the highway to the Washburne stretch of beach to bask under the sunset.

Sure, it’s more of the same, but I couldn’t choose between the two.

As a matter of fact, you’ll notice that this photo is similar to the one below Caroline, but notice the position of the sun in the sky here, while in the last photo, it’s about to dip below the horizon.

The only reason this cute photo of Caroline is here is to have some visual discontinuity in my two sunset photos.

Looking through these photos nearly ten years after I took them, I can’t help but dream of our next visit to the Oregon Coast, even though we just spent three weeks up there this past November. Being as enamored by this stretch of America as I am, I’ll likely never understand the fascination with California’s less-than-stellar coast south of here.

Montreal, Canada

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Caroline Wise, Gayle Combe-Gordon, Ian Gordon, and John Wise in Grimsby, Ontario, Canada

Others might not call this vacation. Four hours of sleep is hardly restful and relaxing, but we’re committed and know that we’ll have plenty of time to sleep in when we are home next week. Anyway, we had an appointment to meet Ian and Gayle Gordon this early a.m. Thankfully, Ian dragged his wife Gayle, who we’ve not met yet, out of bed hours before we woke so they could make the long haul from the London, Ontario, area to the roadside truck stop restaurant where we were meeting. The Fifth Wheel is not much more than a couple of miles from our motel – lucky us. Across the dining room, I spot Ian. Fifteen years between seeing him and the only real difference I can easily find: he’s got a lot of gray hair; don’t most of us by this time. We are introduced to Gayle, who is all smiles and seems as comfortable with us as if we had been lifelong friends. It’s hard to compress what could be spoken of into two brief hours, but with a long drive ahead of us today, that’s all we’ll get here at the Fifth Wheel.

We learned of how these two met. A young girl digs hot bike messenger, but upon the bike guy returning from Germany, the long curly hair had been shorn slightly, diminishing his ravaging beauty slightly. Gayle takes him anyway. Since his return to Canada, Ian has written a first draft of “The Secrets of Being an International Bike Messenger God.” He threatens to tap me for publishing help; I press him to drag the dusty manuscript out of storage and let me have it for a once over so he can start moving forward on becoming a published writer. I’m left with the impression the art of welding and an obsession with cars stand between him and his inner nerd. Before we knew it, the time had flown by; we couldn’t really fall into just hanging out. Nothing like a couple of thousand miles between people to stop old friends from dropping in and keeping the relationship alive. Our departure was bittersweet. We followed them up the highway for some miles, truly sad that the morning sped by in a flash. I wondered if they, too, were wishing we could just turn west and follow them to London instead of the right turn we were about to take that would bring us to Montreal.

Caroline Wise in front of highway sign number 7 - the Trans Canada Highway

With Ian and Gayle out of site, we are now heading northeast of Toronto to connect with Road Number 7, the Trans Canada Highway. Fingers are crossed that the weather report was as wrong as it is in the desert. Back home, a 40% chance of rain means no chance of rain. Like all big cities, the traffic is heading into the downtown area in the morning, not out of it; we miss out on the parking lot on the other side of the road. It seems to have taken a long time to get fully around Toronto and find our way to the 7, but we are now finally in the countryside and away from the congestion.

Caroline Wise digging a rainbow in Canada

The colors of all are fading; we are late in the season. Patches of autumn foliage pop up here and there, but large stands of trees have given up their leaves as branches ready themselves for the first snow. Much of the drive is under a gray sky, with the rain keeping to itself high overhead. Around mid-day, hunger pangs remind us that we have a bag full of delights from Cathy. Time to christen the cutting board, break bread, carve the cheese, pour the mustard, and start to enjoy our in-car catered feast. Our gratitude produces this rainbow – we are happy.

A break in the clouds off the Trans Cananda Highway

We continue our drive eastward. For moments here and there, the sky finds a way around the clouds to tease us with hints of its beauty. We don’t much mind the overcast, it’s a nice reminder that seasons change. Back home in the desert, we left temperatures that were still in the 90s – the transition from summer to not-summer was in full swing. Our drive is a long one and we’ve been up and traveling quite some time by now.

Entering Montreal in Canada

Finally, Montreal. This is the first of two of our major stops on this vacation. Traffic is heavier than I might have thought; after all, we are entering the city when everyone else should be getting off work and leaving town. The signs are now all in French; bilingual traffic info is well behind us. Sitting in a stop-and-go parking lot called a freeway (as opposed to a fluidly moving highway), something that should not be seen can be seen far too clearly. Montreal’s roads are falling apart. No little cracks or rust; we’re seeing chunks of girders and support columns have fallen off. Rebar is exposed, and one is left wondering, how often do slabs of highway overpasses fall off into traffic below? We escape the potential death trap of the road leading into Montreal and are soon trying to negotiate one-way streets to our hotel.

A shop front in Montreal, Canada

Tonight we’ll sleep at Hotel Quartier Latin, you guessed it, in the Latin Quarter. It’s the cheapest place in downtown Montreal (we only paid $67 for the night), and the room was great. Almost more important than the room was the question, where do we park in this congested area? The answer: at the public library underground garage – great! Back around some one-way streets and soon we are trying to read French to the best of our ability in order to be certain we are parking in the right area of the garage. The street we are staying on, Rue Saint-Denis, pronounced Saun Dannee, is alive with throngs of people. Shops are open, and the smell of inebriants wafts through the air: it feels like we are in Amsterdam.

Caroline Wise at La Banquise enjoying a Mystique hard cider before digging into poutine. Montreal, Canada

The trilingual Indian desk attendant at the hotel pointed out on the map where we would find Rue Rachel, about 2.5km from the hotel. Prior to leaving for Canada, I had it in mind that we were going to try poutine, the fast-food staple originating from Quebec but now nearly a national dish. With our umbrella, we got underway for the 1.5-mile walk up St. Denis. Our destination is a small place called La Banquise. After arriving, Caroline orders a Mystique, a hard cider, and I opt for city water.

Poutine from La Banquise in Montreal, Canada

What is poutine? It is a dish that sounds extraordinarily simple, bland even. French fries, cheese curds, and gravy. But it is far from bland; it is the composite whole that works together to make a great dish. We will share two small orders; the first is regular poutine because we need to know the baseline. The second order has bacon, onions, and Marquez sausage – the grilled onions make poutine perfect. La Banquise is full, every table is occupied, the place is open 24 hours a day, and poutine in many variations is the main dish. Caroline and I are in agreement that this is one of the perfect comfort foods – of course, this could never work back home; we would ruin it with nacho cheese sauce.

Walking back to Hotel Quartier Latin on Rue Saint Denis in Montreal, Canada

Walking to Rue Rachel was a race; we didn’t know what time La Banquise closed. Walking back down the street, we took our time and investigated many a shop window; by now the shops were mostly closed. The streets were still wet from the occasional light rain that drifts over the city. Montreal is beautiful, or so it looks at night. The glistening streets reflecting neon lights and headlights and the various signs with short 3-story apartment homes above shops lend a cozy intimacy to the feeling of the neighborhood. Brisk walks to grab a coffee on a chilly evening or a jaunt to a small theater for a movie create dreams of living here; Montreal is growing on us fast.

Bikes for rent on the streets of Montreal from Bixi - available 24 hours a day.

Bikes are everywhere. There are bike parking meters, yes, in some places one has to pay for locking up a bike. On some corners, bike lockup facilities take up a couple of car parking spots, giving preference to bikers. And then there is this: Bixi. The bikes above are available all over the city; they are for rent. With a credit card, anyone can take a Bixi out on the town for only $5 for one day of use. A 1-month subscription costs $28, while a 1-year contract is only $78. With more than 100 Bixi docks around the city, you can pick up a bike in one location, drop it at another, jump on the subway, and nab another bike as you enter another corner of Montreal. I wonder how this could work in America, where bikes are so frequently stolen or vandalized.

A quiet park on Rue de Square Saint Louis in Montreal, Canada

We are falling in love with Montreal. Parks and green spaces are everywhere. This quiet, well-lit park is off Rue du Square Saint Louis and offers a perfect picture of fall. Along the main street, there are no boarded-up spaces; there are, however, tons of small independent proprietors offering unique shops, not a dollar store to be found. We pass more than one Couche-Tard shop and for the remainder of the trip, we’ll be wondering what a Couche-Tard is. At home, we found out it is French for Night Owl. We could happily be night owls in this great city.

Oh Canada – and Cathy Too!

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Caroline Wise, Cathy McGill, and John Wise at Jack Astor's in Stoney Creek, Ontario, Canada

This is our first trip to Canada, which is also our first trek outside the United States since we moved here back in April 1995. That doesn’t roll off the tongue very easily. It feels awkward to admit that we have not ventured beyond these borders in over 16 years. Not that we have been lax about travels, but this was our 173rd excursion away from home since August 1999, when I started tracking our journeys into the North American countryside.

After landing in Buffalo, the town of my birth, we go to collect our rental car, certainly one of the crappiest ever: no power windows, no power locks, and no cruise control; we are full-on analog. No time to waste, we exit the Detroit of New York and drive immediately to the Lake Trail Motel in Stoney Creek, Ontario, Canada – in the pouring rain. The reason we were in such a hurry? We were meeting Cathy McGill at midnight.

Cathy is a dear friend whom I met back in the late 1980s at a small nightclub in the Frankfurt Airport called Dorian Gray. Cathy was traveling with her then-husband, Patrick Codenys, of the band Front 242. I met Patrick in 1985 or 1986 while they were performing in Wiesbaden, West Germany – Deutschland wasn’t unified back then. It was at a subsequent meeting at yet another Front 242 concert, this time in Offenbach, that Cathy and I would become friends. Shortly thereafter, I met Caroline after coming up for air, and following Cathy and Patrick having a son, Stephan, we all got together at their home near Brussels, Belgium, and have somehow been able to stay in touch, except for some 14 years without any contact.

Seeing Cathy again was nothing less than terrific. Her smile hadn’t changed a bit since last we saw her over a decade ago. The strangest part of this meeting was that just two days earlier, after a long silence between us, Cathy signed up for Facebook and then emailed me with the message that she was living in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. This city sounded awfully familiar to me. I googled it, and sure enough, it was one of the towns I had looked at for a motel back when I was planning our Canada trip. My first message to Cathy was, “I have news for you that you won’t believe!” The next morning I get an email and a phone number to call so I can share the news. No, Caroline is not pregnant. “We will be in Stoney Creek tomorrow night, just 11 miles from you!” We agreed to meet at midnight.

It’s raining when we pull into the motel. Cathy must know it’s us; she jumps out of her car before we open the door of our car to stand with us in the rain for a group hug. Our faces could have been damaged by all the smiling at one another. Disbelief that we were once again face-to-face had the three of us doing a reality check, asking out loud, can you believe this? It was as though time stopped in the mid-’90s when our paths went in different directions, and then years later, we materialized in the same dimension and wham, friends stepped back into each other’s world.

After checking into our room, we three are in the car and driving to someplace dry for Caroline and me to have dinner. Cathy brings us to Jack Astor, it could have been Taco Bell for all we cared, not that we would at any other time eat at Taco Bell, but tonight, that didn’t matter. We asked for a table away from the noisy bar, and the entire empty side of the restaurant was ours. I don’t know how we heard one another or if I even remember much of what was spoken in the 94,000 miles per hour exchange, but I do know we smiled so much that my cheeks would feel the strain for the next days.

In the hours prior to our departure from Phoenix, I received another email from Cathy. She told me of a famous German deli that she was going to on our behalf and that I should simply roll over and accept her generosity as “resistance is futile.” Not one to be shy, I put in my list of potential items that we would be interested in. Cathy delivers, changing one of the dynamics of our stay in Canada. Effectively, Cathy would now be with us for the remainder of our journey. A bag stuffed with onion potato bread, a loaf of rye, Gouda cheese both young and aged, German sausage, pretzels, spicy German mustard – great for dipping pretzels in, two knives, a small cutting board, paper towels, and special for Caroline; Pfeffermüsse – the sweet taste of home.

We talk until shortly after 2:00 a.m., Caroline and I have to wake around 6:30 to meet another old friend we haven’t seen since leaving Germany. I wish we could have brought Cathy along. In some way, we did, as the next day for lunch, when we opened our care package, Cathy’s wonderful gift had us pinching ourselves at our great fortune. And every day following, we thanked Cathy for her big heart in helping load up our vacation with these tastes of Germany and an extra few hundred smiles.