Pic of the day;
For today:
There can be troubles on trips, especially on
the long ones in less populated areas. It
is good to get advice from folks who have made the same journey you plan, and
much of it you learn comes in handy.
On the trip to Alaska for the driver it is a
pleasure. Not only the scenery, such as the Canadian Rockies, but the traffic.
It is hard to imagine driving an hour without seeing more 10 cars, trucks or
RVs (at times 0)
This is Lake Louise in the Rockies, but a good bit off the ALCAN but still a beautiful drive there (But Louise was a year or so later after our ALCAN drive)
One particular point a truck driver gave me, he
said, “Not if, but when, you see a big Moose running or walking your way on the
roadside, slow down to a crawl, if necessary, BECAUSE 9 out of 10 times he is
going to cross in front of you. That
proved to be true at least 2 or 3 times.
These moose pic from net, cannot find ours.
One that about got me. Every time you see a service station,
regardless the price, FILL ER UP!, At times you may be 100 miles from a
station. We were traveling with My
sister and hubby Dick. Both coaches were diesel. Somehow, I ran low and had to
borrow 5 gallons from him.
I was told be ready for a cracked windshield,
many are lost when meeting trucks as they at times throw gravel with their
tires. I did not get a crack until we got back to the states. LOL.
Driving you also get SUPER surprises. It had
been years since I even thought about a poem I had read in Mrs Grill’s 7th
grade, then I crossed “The Sam McGee Bridge!”
Did I read that right. AND then I saw a sign saying
Lake Labarge, YES!!! and I started quoting:
There
are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The
Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The
Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake
Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.
YES Driving can cause one to think...
Nite
Shipslog
PS
Thanks for all the visits Love you guys I don’t expect you to take the
time to read this but it costs nothing for me to just print it at a PS
The interesting parts
I remembered are in highlight. The end is sorta funny,
The
Cremation of Sam McGee
By Robert W. Service
Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where
the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to
roam 'round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold,
but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he'd often say
in his homely way that "he'd sooner live in hell."
On a Christmas Day we
were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold!
through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we'd
close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see;
It wasn't much fun,
but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.
And that very night,
as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were
fed, and the stars o'erhead were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and
"Cap," says he, "I'll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I'm
asking that you won't refuse my last request."
Well, he seemed so
low that I couldn't say no; then he says with a sort of moan:
"It's the cursèd
cold, and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet 'tain't being dead—it's my awful
dread of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or
fair, you'll cremate my last remains."
A pal's last need is a thing to heed,
so I swore I would not fail;
And we started on at the streak of
dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the
sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall
a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.
There wasn't a breath
in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half
hid that I couldn't get rid, because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the
sleigh, and it seemed to say: "You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised
true, and it's up to you to cremate those last remains."
Now a promise made is
a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come,
though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.
In the long, long
night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,
Howled out their woes
to the homeless snows— O God! how I loathed the thing.
And every day that
quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
And on I went, though
the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad,
but I swore I would not give in;
And I'd often sing to the hateful
thing, and it hearkened with a grin.
Till I came to the marge of Lake
Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;
It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in
a trice it was called the "Alice May."
And I looked at it, and I thought a
bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;
Then "Here," said I, with a
sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum."
Some planks I tore
from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;
Some coal I found
that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames just
soared, and the furnace roared—such a blaze you seldom see;
And I burrowed a hole
in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.
Then I made a hike,
for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens
scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but
the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know why;
And the greasy smoke
in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.
I do not know how
long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;
But the stars came
out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;
I was sick with
dread, but I bravely said: "I'll just take a peep inside.
I guess he's cooked, and it's time I
looked"; ... then the door I opened wide.
And there sat Sam, looking cool and
calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
And he wore a smile you could see a
mile, and he said: "Please close that door.
It's fine in here, but I greatly fear
you'll let in the cold and storm—
Since I left Plumtree, down in
Tennessee, it's the first time I've been warm."
There
are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The
Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The
Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was
that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.
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