Alberta, Alberta - Where You Been So Long?

Because there’s a $700 surcharge to rent a car in Montana and return it in Canada, I come to you tonight from Calgary.

Let me explain. Originally, this trip had us flying into Kalispell, renting a car, making our way across Glacier, crossing into Canada to see Banff, and flying out of Calgary. The surcharge effectively ended that idea. Fortunately, I managed to pry enough brain cells away from the Rule Against Perpetuities to come up with a solution: Do half of Glacier, go to Banff, do the rest of Glacier, and return the car in the country from whence it came. In my eyes, an eminently reasonable solution. And one that no one wanted to do. I’m still not entirely sure why the opposition, but in my delicate pre-bar state, I had no patience for people being irrational. The only obstacle keeping us from visiting the Canadian parks was gone, so what was the problem?

In any event, if they wouldn’t do my solution, I’d split off from the group and do it myself. I figured it was a good idea anyway, in the event of a repeat of the Yosemite situation, to give us all a break if needed. It wasn’t really needed, but it did get me the opportunity to see another of the world’s most scenic landscapes. So here’s how that went.

The Legend of the Drop Bear

A wise man once told me of the drop bear. A fearsome, yet rarely seen, beast, the drop bear lives among the trees, waiting to strike any prey who dare pass below. When the moment is right, the drop bear, true to its name, strategically drops from the branches onto the unsuspecting passerby. Owing to its unusual largeness, this allows the drop bear to incapacitate and eat its victim. The only known defense to drop bear attacks is to place forks in one’s hair (tines up). 

 

While Glacier seems to be free of the dreaded drop bear, its grizzly cousins stand ready to “drop in” on park guests almost anywhere, without notice. Over the last two days, they seem to have been circling closer and closer, although I’ve managed to hold them off so far.

Finding My Place

Two years gone. Has it really been that long?

As will probably become clear from these next few posts, in many ways I’m a different person than I was when I took my last blog-worthy road trip a little over two years ago. Although, as I’m frequently reminded, my penchant for hokey sentimentality remains a constant, law school has sucked some of the tolerance for hopeless unbridled optimism and positivity out of me. I’m more inclined now to skip past nonsense and get to the point. I also spend more time doing and less time observing. What does all that mean for a relatively unknown travel blog with new entries coming at roughly the same frequency as new Sherlock episodes? I’m not sure yet. But let’s dive in already.

Chasing Waterfalls

Success!

I laid out a rather ambitious plan for today – carefully navigate to 4 waterfalls in a precise order and then wind up a dirt road to set up camp and climb a mountain. All this needed to happen within 12 hours.

With so many places where parts of today’s plan could have gone awry, I’m pleased to report that I reached each of those destinations and did everything I wanted to do at all of them. The only low points of the day, and to call them low points is a stretch – were that I didn’t get as good of a picture of Looking Glass Falls as I had hoped and I wasn’t so happy with the Max Patch Road. But more on those momentarily. 

After the Morning After

 North Carolina comes through again. Having trudged through 200 miles of fog yesterday all through Virginia – your remember Virginia: my least-favorite state due to its questionable politics, overeager state troopers, those ugly-named suburbs of DC, and Shenandoah National Fog Park – I awoke today to a Virginia invasion across its southern border. In other words, Wildcat Rock was still enveloped quite thickly in fog. In fact, after turning out all the car lights last night the fog still seemed to glow even though there weren't any signs of civilization for miles. Spooky.

With no Plan B, I just kept on going down the Blue Ridge Parkway, knowing that the forecast called for “AM clouds / PM sun” and that the road would be rising higher than in Virginia, which might put me above the fog. Apparently I also had the sun on my side, as it burned off all of the fog by the time I stopped in Boone (yes, a real place name – as is “Gooch Gap”) at 9:00. Of course, by that point I had reached the one stretch of the Parkway that I was able to drive last year so there was nothing new to see. I was even there at the same time of day.

Everything Old Is New Again

So here we are again, on the eve of another road trip adventure. Having procrastinated all day, my bags are finally packed, my itinerary set, and my dog sufficiently confused. In the morning the two of us will head out once again towards the Blue Ridge Mountains. This time, the goal was initially to go back and see the places on the Blue Ridge Parkway that were closed when I was there last February. But then when I found out that the governor of North Carolina will personally send you some pretty good swag for driving the entire 469 miles and becoming an “end-to-ender” I decided to try that. Throw in a little bit of Great Smoky Mountains National Park that I missed last time (namely Clingman’s Dome, the highest point in the park), some waterfalls in nearby Transylvania County, and a couple of strategic stops along Skyline Drive at Shenandoah, and my week was pretty much filled out. As usual, here’s the plan, courtesy of Google Maps: 

  

You’ve Already Won Me Over, In Spite of Me

Nova Scotia, you’ve been holding out on me. After today, it’s clear that you’ve just been teasing me – showing me your less attractive features so that your best qualities stand out that much more starkly.

Pack the Car and Leave This Town

For the most part, this was your typical “driving day.” In a nutshell, I went the 410km (which I assume is about 975 miles) from Halifax to Ingonish on Cape Breton Island. However, since it was an international driving day, there were some extra added dimensions to this leg of the journey.

Hello City

I awoke this morning to the dulcet tones of some horrible bird-rodent shrieking in a tree above my tent. This was followed shortly by what I thought was a raccoon stealing the sealed screw-top bowl of Gordo food I’d accidentally left on the picnic table. Much to my surprise, when I peeked out to see how many of the diseased monsters were working on this half ounce of dry dog food, I instead saw a chipmunk trying to drag the bowl up a tree. You know, the way an ant would drag something, if it didn’t have that super ant strength. Rather than throwing my shoes on an chasing it away (I knew from Bryce Canyon trail mix experience that he’d only come back with reinforcements), I feebly tried clapping once to scare it off, and went back to bed. I figured that if it was able to get something larger and heavier than itself up a tree, it deserved the dog food. An hour later, I was a little disappointed to find the bowl still on the ground, but twisted open and emptied of its contents. I’m still not sure how many dozen of these creatures lacking in opposable thumbs it took to open it.

It's Always Mothra, Mothra, Mothra!

Horseshoe Falls

Bridalveil Falls

American Falls

American Falls

From the Observation Tower

One of many hobbit holes

The smurfs come marching in

From Maid of the Mist

Maid of the Mist

Maid of the Mist

Maid of the Mist

Maid of the Mist

Maid of the Mist

American Falls from Skylon Tower (in Cananda!)

Horseshoe Falls from Skylon Tower (in a whole nother country!)

 

His brother Mothra always gets all the attention!

Torontonto

Torontonoto

I Saw Below Me That Golden Valley

Finally.

After a week of delays, my Great Dixie Adventure culminated with a visit to Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park, which was once again open for business. Well, at least the road was open for business. From what I could tell, I seemed to be the only person who knew about that, because I only saw 7 other people during my day in the park. This helped to provide an added measure of privacy and seclusion, because those are two things that Shenandoah, through an unfortunate accident of geography – doesn’t really have going for itself, most of the time.

Blue Smoke

Have I mentioned that mountain weather changes rapidly? If not, you should know that mountain weather changes rapidly. In addition to doing things like closing Skyline Drive in 13 minutes, today I saw firsthand some more results of the strange confluences of moisture and strong winds that occur in places like this. And once again, nature did its best to foil my plans. But today I was not about to be defeated.

Can’t You Just Feel the Moonshine?

This morning I awoke in the east, and now I am in the uttermost west. Well, probably not the most uttermost, but there are several 6,000-foot peaks between Asheville and my current home: The Comfort Inn & Suites at Dollywood Lane in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Let’s parse that name for a moment, because it’s perhaps the greatest place name in the history of mankind. Dollywood Lane does, in fact, refer to the theme park based around the large-bosomed country singer. Dollywood is right down the street, and while I don’t plan on going, Ms. Parton has infiltrated much of this town, for better or for worse. Her ghoulish likeness is on my room key, advertising “Dolly Parton’s Dixie Stampede,” which is apparently some kind of strange animatronic dinner theater production. I bet if I tried hard enough I could come away with at least a life-sized cardboard cutout of her. But wait! We haven’t even talked about the name “Pigeon Forge” yet! Picture, if you will, a pigeon forge. Is this an iron smelting forge fed by pigeons? “Quick, Larry! Throw some more pigeons on the fire before that metal hardens!” Or maybe it’s a forge that makes pigeons? Who knows.