Looking through old notebooks from trips is the next best thing to taking a trip (though I’d trade all my notebooks for the next best trip). Or maybe not. After all, it’s those notebooks that jog the memory and bring back some of those sweet moments that may never have made it into print, but are priceless just the same (and, no, this isn’t a MasterCard commercial).
Some of the just-ended year’s memories:
Before my traveling days are over, I have to get to Africa’s Serengeti. Until then, I’ll keep going back to what I consider our Serengeti: the American West. Last summer my wife, Bonnie, and I took a trip that I’ve made several times before, but the diversity of wildlife we saw blew away any other trip and left me excited and feeling a little more hopeful that maybe we haven’t totally screwed up the environment. In a week and a half drive through South Dakota’s Black Hills, Wyoming’s Bighorn Mountains and Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, we saw the usual: white-tailed and mule deer, antelope, bison, prairie dogs, hawks, elk. The somewhat unusual: moose, wild horses, wild burros, wild turkeys, grouse, bighorn sheep, coyotes, swans, golden eagle. And the very unusual: black bear and grizzly bear (not just one, but two, including one very up close and personal; more on that in a minute). A lot of people from a lot of other countries spend a lot of money coming here to visit our West. If you haven’t, you should.
– Now about that grizzly . . . . We were 5 or 10 miles from the east entrance to Yellowstone when we came across cars pulled off the highway and people outside their vehicles with binoculars. We got out ours, too, and notched our first-ever grizzly sighting as the bear, about 200 yards away, meandered through one of the many now-empty campgrounds that dot the banks of the North Fork of the Shoshone River. One of the watchers said the bear, he opined it was a “she,” was working her way along the river bank, so everyone piled into their vehicles and zipped up the road to wait in the next campground. Here came the bear! From probably 150 feet away, I shot an entire roll of film as the bear stood on her hind legs and rubbed her back against a tree. Other more foolhardy souls ventured within yards of the bear, which weighed probably 250 to 300 pounds. She ignored them and continued along the bank, eating berries and other plants that struck her fancy. Back in the car, we drove on up the highway just in time to see the bear cross the road and go into the woods on our side of the road. Thinking that was the last we’d see of her, I pulled onto the shoulder about where she’d crossed and got out of our SUV. Here came the bear! Back out of the woods and headed right toward Bonnie’s open window–which she couldn’t close because I had taken the keys out of the ignition. “Give me the keys! Give me the keys!” she said with some urgency as she was sure the bear wanted her gummy bears–and maybe her, too. I stuck the keys in the ignition, up went the window and I had time to snap one photo (shown here) across the hood of the SUV as the bear walked by the right fender, took a left and crossed back over the road, again ignoring the growing assemblage of vehicles and people. As I continued to take photos, from inside the vehicle, I noticed for some strange reason I seemed to be having trouble keeping the camera steady.
– In 2001 it was the ultra-efficient Swiss rail system that had me wondering, “Why can’t the CTA get it right?” In 2002, ultra-efficient BC Ferries raised the same question. I took the car ferry, which can hold more than 300 vehicles, to and from Vancouver Island, British Columbia, on a late February trip that was supposed to focus on viewing the mammoth winter storms that pummel the island’s West Coast. Sadly, the weather was almost balmy. Nonetheless, BC Ferries didn’t disappoint. Here’s how good they are: The ferry that would take me back to Vancouver arrived at 4:35 p.m., as scheduled. By 4:40, vehicles began unloading. By 4:46, all vehicles were off and large vehicles–buses, semis, campers–began loading. At 4:51 my lane of cars began loading, a process akin to driving into a parking ramp. By 4:55 I was sitting on a chair on Deck 5. At 4:59, a minute ahead of schedule, we left the dock. Pretty good, eh?, as they say in Canada.
After dinner at the Wickaninnish Inn on Vancouver Island, I wandered out into the cool night air and along the narrow road that leads through the old-growth rain forest that the inn sits on. After a few minutes, the lights of the inn were well behind, so I was puzzled when I noticed that I could see perfectly into what should have been a pitch black forest. Looking back, I saw my shadow defined on the roadway as if I’d been spotlighted. Being a city boy, my first thought was, “Man, those security lights are bright.” But, when I looked around, there weren’t any security lights. Then I looked up, through the centuries-old trees, and saw Mother Nature’s own security light–the biggest, brightest, clearest moon I’d ever seen. Wow!
– And, finally, in the category of best quote not used, this from an airline gate agent at Vancouver International Airport, explaining why we were late boarding: “You can thank the previous passengers for that. In my 23 years with the airline, I’ve never seen a plane so full of garbage.”
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Meet the staff
When he isn’t trying to keep grizzly bears out of his SUV, Phil Marty spends most of his working hours chained to his desk, sobbing softly as he edits stories about his co-workers’ travels. His e-mail address is pamarty@tribune.com.
