more random thoughts

I haven't had a chance to download my pictures from Skagway yet, so I'll have to treat you to some more wanderings of an addled mind...

~I found it interesting to look at the various burns as we continued on east and south on the highway. By "burns" I mean the aftermath of all the wildfires which have occurred on the surrounding lands. It became a bit of a game to try to guess how long ago the fire occurred based upon the regrown vegetation. The most recent burn was only 2 years ago, and you could just start to see some of the sapling quaking aspen peek over the regrown grass and weeds (such as fireweed, so named because it is one of the first things to grow in soil after a wildfire). Then there are the 5-10 year old burns where the aspens have just started to look like real trees, popping up around the standing skeletons of the burned trees which have not yet completely given up the ghost. After that, pretty much all the standing dead wood has fallen to decompose and fertilize the soil, and the aspens have really come in thick, but with the beginnings of competition from the conifers (mostly white and black spruce in the areas of the Alaska Highway). Finally, where some of the old burns from the mid-1900's occurred, you now see the beginnings of mature forest, in which the conifers again reign supreme.

OK, on that note... time for a somewhat obscure music trivia question: Name the rock group who sung of "trouble in the forest," concerning competing species of trees. Extra credit if you can name the album (do they still call them that?), and a gold star if you can name the warring species. I'll figure out some kind of a prize for the first correct answer.

~Once you get past Fort Nelson headed east on the highway, you get into some serious straightaways. The longest I kept track of was 7.5 miles. As long as you're vehicle is properly aligned and you have cruise control, the driver becomes essentially superfluous. As I was sitting there bored, I couldn't help but think of the ESPN commercial where Boston Celtics players were watching the end of the movie Hoosiers as they were road tripping in an RV, only to find that the driver, Coach Jeff Van Gundy, was standing there watching with them. The commercial ends with a view of the RV veering onto the shoulder. I'm pretty sure that on some of those straightaways I could have watched the entire ending of Hoosiers from the time they step out onto the championship court in the huge field house and Gene Hackman's character has his team measure the court to show them that it's the same size as their own small hometown gym's.

~Oh yeah, one more comment about the road signs- Is it really necessary to post a horse crossing sign 100 yards (oops, meters) after a moose crossing sign? Are Canadian drivers so focused in their vigilance regarding moose in the roadway that they would miss a 1000 pound horse blocking their lane? Or did they just not want the horses to feel left out... I think they just need a sign stating "HUGE ANIMALS IN YOUR WAY- LOOK OUT" Well, that and the occasional randomly placed "CAUTION" sign to keep you on your toes...

~We saw a big gaggle of geese flying south as we were entering Fort Nelson. I'd say they were flying in a "V" formation but these guys must have been taking Chinese because they kept forming what appeared to be the characters of the entire Chinese alphabet. I still knew they were Canada Geese, though, because I kept hearing "Honk, eh?" (What, this far into Canada for my first "eh", joke? -quit complaining). By the way, the "ehs" are driving Laura nuts, so please throw a few into any correspondence you may have with her.

~Our dogs are still doing well and are becoming seasoned travelers, though Eugene has to sit up front with us and pant the entire time we're moving. I'm trying to come up with a new rating system for how bumpy the roads are based upon the radius of drool spatter around his position. It's OK to laugh though, since he sits closer to Laura than me when I'm driving. :) She actually has to sit there with a towel on her lap in order to stay dry.

I'll leave you with that for now, with the as yet unfulfilled promise of more meaningful posts to come...