Making it to the ferry terminal well within our check-in time was a huge “win.”
(Our chariot awaits ;) )
We spent some time chatting with others in the line-up waiting to
drive/ride onto the ferry, and one lovely guy went back to his car and
returned with a couple of small travel packs of West Coast Coffee,
roasted in Oregon. Apparently, he had the same appreciation I did for
excellent coffee but was better stocked. And lucky for me, very
generous. Thank you, sir.
We boarded the ferry in the Haines terminal and stowed the bikes for the
four-ish hour ferry ride. This would be the first time my bike would
really be out in the open waters and I had trouble leaving her to head
upstairs to the passenger deck, so I checked the lines Roel had tied off
a few times and headed up.
The ferry ride was relaxing, extremely scenic and largely uneventful.
Taking in the ocean views from my recliner, I eavesdropped on a woman in
front of us who appeared to be in her mid to late-60s telling a group
of slightly younger women about the turn her life had taken recently.
She had lost one of her sons and about a month later, lost her job. She
didn’t own her home and knowing her money would soon run out and she
would face homeless-ness, she got creative, and found a job with an
international food service company that would move her around the world
to wherever they needed staffing, and would provide room, board and
travel expenses along the way. To me, it sounded like she’d had the most
incredible experiences in her late 60s: working in Africa and spending
time with local tribes; working in New Zealand and traveling around both
the North and South island, making friends from all over the world
wherever she went because her limited budget had her staying in hostels;
working in Alaska where her family from the US visited her, and she was
able to introduce them to her new Eskimo friends and show her family
around their small fishing village. I was fascinated by this woman I was
eavesdropping on, and was somewhat disgusted by the body language and
reactions of the women she was telling these wonderful stories to: What
she told them seemed to frighten them… was it because she was a nomad
and could not be safely categorized as a similar cushy-job holder, cum-retiree?
Or was it because they worried that they could somehow catch her great
misfortune by being too interested in or too open to her story? Because
that was all that they saw: misfortune.
What I saw, was a woman, who, like many in this country, has been dealt a
number of hard knocks but instead of letting them get her down, made
lemonade of these lemons and enriched her life to an extent that these
poor wealthy, privileged woman could not even fathom.
So as the ferry pulled into Juneau harbor, I stood up, interrupted this
incredibly inspiring woman while she was trying to explain just how one
goes about staying in a youth hostel, and told her exactly how
impressive and wonderful I thought she was. I hope she tells her story
to someone who will bring it to the masses… so many could benefit from a
story of such personal and professional triumph.
Anyway, we rode off of the ferry and moments later the heavens opened.
We rode all the way through the small downtown of Juneau, and out of
town to where the road ended, looking for a place to camp. No luck. We
rode back to a gas station as the Transalp was dangerously low on fuel. A
nice guy in a pickup who looked “outdoorsy” pulled up and so we asked
where we might be able to find free camping and he fortunately directed
us to a lovely spot on the other side of the bay where we set up the
tent in the rain in record time and crawled in hoping to get a few hours
of sleep.
