Memory Lane
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Since Sean is both the primary driver and photographer on this trip, my memories of this adventure have been primarily documented as shown.This particular photo is a special one, however, since it documents our visit to the largest fly fishing pole in the world. (My choice of activity!) Sean's choice of activity for the day was to see some totem poles, which were not the most spectacular in the world or even the mediocre-est, but in the words of our guide book "one of the highest concentrations of standing totem poles in northern British Columbia." I wondered where in northern BC they displayed a vast collection of non-standing totem poles, or perhaps standing poles spread out in low concentration, but preferred not to locate any for fear that Sean would drive me out there to collect photos of poles behind blurry reflections of dashboard trash.
That said, we have taken our sweet time driving through BC after spending so much effort to get in. The other day, we watched a grizzly bear catch and eat two salmon out of a river -- an amazing feat that brought pangs of guilt, after spending most of the afternoon watching the salmon themselves fight their way upstream, determined to make it to the breeding ground before dying from the impossible journey. The best part was a crowd of perseverant fish trying and trying again to jump up a thick and very fast-flowing waterfall of about ten feet. Ten feet! (Apparently the pangs of guilt have subsided, however, considering the delicious salmon I ate for dinner today.)
Since the grizzly, we have had to stop for three more bears who were hanging out on the middle-of-nowhere freeways we've been driving down. Sean uses these sightings to justify his carrying the can of bear spray to virtually every place we have stopped along the way, including many restaurants and grocery stores. At these moments, I feel thankful to border patrol for second guessing our purpose for carrying bear spray around, since most of these locations don't have a lot of bears, but do have a relatively high concentrations of standing human beings.
