Caught a ride to Anchortown with an old trapper sourdough with a sunken face, a bowed neck, bulging eyes and a cigarette clinging to his bottom lip for dear life. He didn't talk much. In town I stayed with a couchsurfer I met on my way in and through whom I met Liz, the fruit dealer, who hired me to sell fruit at the farmer's market for a single day. Walked away with a clean sum of cash and a bag full of fresh fruit including mango-nectarine hybrids and Uncle Tony's Secret Groove Melon, a secret hybrid of this and that in the melon crew.
Went camping in Palmer Saturday night and drank white Alaskan beer, making a fire in a clearing and hitting the summit the following day, up over the misted treeline by a lake as rain fell and the rocks were mossy like Ireland and the mines were old and crumbled museums where passengers pattered by and the air was wet and still while I heard my heart beating.
Annotated 30 pages of the Wake and have less than 100 remaining, talked with my family on the phone and heard groovy news mostly across the board. Tomorrow I'm shipping my big backpack home and taking off for Homer, hitchhiking with only my little LL Bean backpack (meant for books) and the Indian bag I've been using as a hamper (for extra space). I knew what awaited me when I came to Anchorage. I have no idea what awaits me at the end of the road tomorrow (and Homer is certainly at the end of the road).
Take me on homer, mama. Whoa!
Love
Theo
PS - Graham is going to be an electrician's apprentice in Antarctica...that's just about the coolest news I've ever heard.
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