I’ve done about a 2,000 mile day trip. Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, has all of one current operating hostels and it’s booked. Apparently, there are only buses out of this town on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. As I have neither camping gear nor gumption to spend another night homeless, or really to just hang out around here until Monday, so with the bus I go.
The bus ride, along the Alaska Highway, is one of those scenic drives that one’s supposed to take in one’s life. I went from Dawson Creek to Whitehorse, and will subsequently go back. It was a Nazi wildlife enthusiast’s dream trip: like eight bears, ten buffalo, a couple moose including one adorably wading through a creek, some big horn sheep, zero Jews or Gypsies. Lots of Germans. My book says there’s a direct flight from the Frankfurt Flughafen. There are a fair amount of tourists here, and since this Starbucks in which I am sitting is obviously an excellent sample size from which to generalize about the population, no First Nations/Indians/whatever. That’s been one odd thing about Canada, dealing with the reality that there are still Native Americans of the kind that doesn’t embarrass itself in the World Series every twenty years or so. They’re kind of poor, some of them were harassing people in the Edmonton Greyhound station, but I guess I wasn’t that intimated since they’ve been so marginalized in caricatures like Chief Wahoo or Ike the Illini. I can’t really think of them as the vicious crime lords that my childhood taught me to think of Gypsies/Roma as. Somehow I think my favorite genre as a four-year-old reading was cautionary tales about Gypsies babynapping; although, the only titles I remember reading around that time were Hardy Boys; perhaps there was a hidden meaning.
The bus ride featured characters, though not of the frightening decaying sort that fill up the buses on U.S. Greyhound buses. The most audacious character could be described as an over-the-hill Metis (Canadian for “mestizo”) poor man’s Rashida Jones. Unfortunately, she was around 40 and well, a mentally retarded female. She lifted her arms up towards the bus ventilation system to pray to Jesus to see “the biggest grizzly bear ever,” that aside from her various shouts about this dream to people other than Christ on the bus. Any animal was met by childlike glee and perhaps her best moments were encouraging people seated next to her to use her torn, beat-up pillow, which she foisted upon the seat next to any person who would have it, followed by continuous demands that they actually use it. She had a kind of cute flirtation with this First Nations guy in the seat in front of me. He was a rugged dude, in his late forties, seemed clearly unmarried, and at first seemed miffed by her innocuous and often repetitive questions. He clearly didn’t want that ratty old pillow either. But, thing was, she wasn’t that bad for him, and as I imagined it in my head there was some dilemma in his head about the her being completely slow vs. relatively attractive for what he could get. As the bus trip progressed, he played along more with her vacuous frivolities, “let me take a picture of you…you me…me you! Yay!” “Let’s sit next to each other and talk about ponies!” But he got off at Watson Lake, and got none.
Apparently there were like some foreign girls on the bus, foreign girls traveling alone, even. This is usually something I like, but I didn’t notice anything outstanding, although I did eventually help out the bewildered Chinese tourist who didn’t seem to understand why people were going into a building that clearly stated “restaurant.” They were about my age. At 5:30 AM, I was entrenched on the couch of the lobby of this hostel (more just like a house’s living room, from which I would eventually be dismissed for lack of room at 7:00 AM), and one of the foreign (?) girls from the bus showed up outside the hostel. I could have helped, but I was pretty tired and didn’t want to go outside, and made one of those what I’m told are unfortunate decisions. Yeah, if she were hot, I’d totally go out and help her and go search for actual accommodations, but this is not the case, so screw it, I’ll take my chances on my own. There are times when you’re willing to be everybody’s hero, and there are times when you’re only willing to be the hot girl’s hero. I guess that puts me on the fringes of actually being a nice guy, but whatevs.
So, I’ll walk around Whitehorse a tad, and go back to Dawson Creek today. I have another bus possibly filled with foreign travelers. I’ll end up back in Edmonton, maybe Vancouver, heck maybe back in Saskatchewan. Could end up going to Yellowknife too. I have a 20 hour bus ride to make that decision. Since Saskatchewan has been glossed over, let me state my opinion about it and again perhaps reflect what I’m stupidly focusing energy on. I thought Winnipeg was bad, but dang, Saskatchewan is the Unfortunate Female Piercing Capital of the World. So many people my age had crappy piercings and stupid tattoos. It’s my stated belief that any piercing save the ear looks really terrible, unless it’s a cultural thing (you’re good, South Asia). And don’t overdo it on the ear, ladies. I don’t want a chip a tooth nibbling that area. It was just, every coffee bar, oh, you look cute, maybe you’re about a 0.8 on the (Anne) Hathaway scale, but what is that thing on your nose, down to 0.3. I want to go to a costume shop, gray up my hair, put on tattered clothes, and nail my old timey prospector impersonation and start making like it’s 1849 on some of these women. I learned how to pan for gold as a child, I think. Getting these piercings takes like what, three hours? Making a comparison for which I also have no idea the real time value, girls, couldn’t you have just baked a meatloaf or something? You needed the piercing? That bored in Saskatoon? Nobody’s told you about shopping?
Next post:
I get right angry about religion, so maybe something on that. I’m still traveling, interesting things may happen. Who knows.
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