I already commented on the drive to where we are camped tonight, so i will not comment further. Here we are, deep in a forest with no people, lights or noises created by humans or machines for as far as the eyes can see or the ears hear, which isn't very far. The Defender is parked just feet away from our tent, ready for the night's watch, Donner is sound asleep half occupying my mattress (what's new?), and i am listening to Luciano Pavorotti signing Nessum Dorma, belting out the last three words of that magnificent aria, Vincero, Vincero, VINCERO (I will win, I will win, I WILL WIN) with his well-known gusto. Readers of my 2016 blog will recall that my then-travel companion, Stefanie, and i adopted it as the only appropriate theme song for the sheer beauty we were surrounded by. It is appropriate for that reason that i play it tonight, over and over. (To be honest, it might also put the bears at a distance from us, unkess they, too, are Pavorotti fans.) Tonight is one of those rare nights that i cherish on these trips....my dogs, nature, the road and solitude, the translation of the Latin inscription at the bottom of my On The Road patch. I also repeated -chanted, really- those same last three words often during our trials and tribulations in Whitehorse (Yukon), Ely (NV), and Salina (UT) starting just days after Stefanie returned to Germany, and, by God, i did win. I was determined to get the Defender back on the road again for another long road trip, and here it is, halfway through its second. I guess i should thank John and Dean, my mechanics, for that, and Intercity Motor Transport Line (who transported the Defender back from Utah) as well, and not Pavorotti.
Incidentslly, i apologize to those readers who read my earlier blogs as they would watch sone serial drama on TV, looking forward to the next dramatic episode. As my road trips go, this one has benn rather uneventful. Good for me, but no fun for them. But don't go away. We still have three weeks and almost 4000 miles to go, and anything can happen. But i hope not.
By the way, tomorrow, Wednesday, is a very special day for my Defender. Standby for the important news, somewhere between 11 and noon, i figure.
When i am alone in these empty isolated campgrounds i take extra precautions, especially going up and down the ladders to the roof rack, and walking around in the dark. I do not wish to repeat my experience in an empty isolated camp on the road to Calgary back in 2013 when i tripped over a rusted raised metal fire pit in the dark, just missing hitting my head on a post when i fell, and slicing a deep three-inch gash in my right shin. I took out my surgical suture kit and tried to close the wound but it did not work. Fortunately, the first-aid measures i took worked, and by the time i got to see a doctor 10 days later in Dawson City, Yukon, he gave me a clean bill of health, as well as some antibiotics. (But my troubles on that trip did not end there. The next day, 60 miles onto the remote, empty, dirt and gravel Top of the World Highway going from the Yukon to Alaska, i stopped to give my dogs Leben and Erde a break. When i went out to get Leben's wheelchair from the ladder on the rear of the Defender, i discovered that one of the wheels had fallen off durung the rough 60-mile drive. You can read how that saga ended by going to that blog. All is well that end's well, and to that i add, there really is a solution for every problem.
Useable daylight disappeared here at 6:50, so, in retrospect, i made the right decision to stay here for the night instead of driving further up the road to make my 250 miles today. Again, make decision under uncertainty as best you can, and you will never regret it. I just hope we have as much luck tomorrow night finding a camp site.
Uh oh, a vehicle just pulled into the campground at 8:45. I guess we will not be alone after all. (Drats, so much for solitude.) I didn't hear them pulling anything so perhaps it is a tenter or car-camper. Maybe they'll want to attend the Luciano Pavorotti concert going on in that brightly-lit yellow tent up the hill from where they parked.
Time to call it a day.
Ed and Donner, from the road
P.s. those intruders just pull out of the camp. Probably too isolated for them, ot they are not fans of Pavorotti. Whatever, I have my solitude back.
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