Notes in the Dark

I can’t write at night because the light from the screen, evening dimmed, distracts Josh as he drives and driving in these conditions are still a new thing to him. It gets dark around 5 and we still have hours to go each evening, so I started making notes in the rally book, roughly around the mileage where something happened. Last night was surreal.

We stopped at a gas station, just as the snow flurries began to swirl around us in the dark. The amount of mud splattered on the truck is already unbelievable—this is Day #2 mud and we have eight more days to go. We ate at the trucker restaurant, which wasn’t as rough as I’d imagined. I actually had some deliciously garlicy white fish. There was a sign on the front door asking patrons to come in with clean clothes and when we walked in, dirty boots lined the front hall. The locals wandered around the establishment in their thick socks. Large burly men in an array of plaids and jeans in socked feet is an amusing sight.

When we headed up, the flurries had picked up significantly. We couldn’t see the center line divider through the new snow and the only way to know we were in the right lane was the bumpy serrated shoulder keeping us on track. We couldn’t see 15 yards ahead, the white dust flying at the windshield. We have yellow auxiliary lights because and amber glow is easier on the eyes reflecting against white snow for long periods of time, but the extra light made this worse. We just had to slow down and keep moving forward, the only way out is through, right?

Eventually, a couple of our buddies who travel together in two jeep wranglers, (Josh calls them “the jeepers”) came crawling up behind us and passed us so we travelled with them the rest of the way to the hotel. It’s entertaining to travel in these caravans with radios. One would pass the other, “You can look at our ass for a while.” Another Alcan-er, likely a Canadian used to these conditions went speeding by, “Heard there’s cold beer ahead, here I come!”

We were looking for animals and the jeepers both had their LED auxiliary lights pointed out sideways, that way you can see far into the trees on the left and right, a tactic for spotting a moose or deer about to dart into the oncoming traffic. If we ever do this again, that might something we adopt, but for now, driving behind someone with that setup is ideal. We were told that we are currently in the Serengeti of Canada and to expect to see a lot of wildlife. So far, we’ve seen long-horned sheep (with the Princess Leia horns) and loads of huge deer but that was it.

Probably, our closest buddies so far are these two young Canadian fellows who are also driving and Xterra, but an older version. The owner actually got in an accident and rolled it 1.5 times, landing upside down a while back and he came out of it fine. He said signing up for a rally was his motivation to finally get the vehicle fixed. They are a wild and hilarious pair and we immediately became friends. They went speeding by us last night, being from these parts and radioed back to let our caravan know that they would be on the lookout for animals. “10-4, Rubber Duckie!” Finally, we heard, “Moose on the left! At 903!” But, by the time we got there, it was gone.

Then came, “Moose, moose, moose!!” from one of the jeepers up front. We all slowed and at this point, we were a line of seven or eight all slowing to see the large beast run along the trees and dart out of view, just fast enough for me to get a terrible fuzzy indistinguishable picture. I think I’m going to tell Josh’s nieces and nephew, it’s a picture of Bigfoot.

From the very back, “tail-end Charlie” announced that he could see a line of taillights stretching two miles ahead and how cool it was to see our tribe headed north together.

There is something incredible about meeting strangers in a strange land and automatically looking out for each other. In this time of political divide, the news makes us believe that we are all in disagreement, with feet dug in and inflexible to compromise. Meeting real people who automatically look out for you, checking to make sure others are moving at comfortable speed, ask if you are ok, stopping when someone wants to star gaze for a moment, my faith in humanity is invigorated. Here, the smiles and concern are genuine. I am grateful to be a tiny part of it.