I entered a new niche of Juneau culture today: boats and kayaks. Over a five hour shift I saw a few kayaks come in, a few tinnies, washed some out, sent a few merry paddlers on their way, and chatted to folks about their adventures and the trips they want to do. What fun. What a pleasant way to spend an afternoon at $12/hour.
By knock-off I had made a new friend from Oregon who stayed around until I shut up the shop and we wandered over to the seedy yaughties pub above the Christian waffle shop. One beer and three hours later I was shocked to find it nine pm, with the perpetual Alaskan dusk apon us, it could have been five pm on a Melbourne winters day. The Oregonean had given me some travel ideas, some job concepts in Washington state and Oregon, and I had imparted a list of the best things in Australia to see on a wonderfully etched map of the country that was no more than two centimeters by three centimeters tall. Americans are fascinated with Australia and throw all sorts of questions at me that I had never asked of my country whilst living there. Tonight I was again struck by the phenomenon in the US of exodus from cities to have the ultimate sea-change and find lusher towns with clean air and water. I don't think this is happening in Australia. I think our cities are still too livable. Perhaps it is a function of population, Melbourne or Sydney are not yet suffocating the inhabitants. Are they? Here they talk of 'Californication' - Californians leaving their state for greener pastures, only to turn them into the place from which they ran. I don't see it at home, but I wasn't looking for it now, was I.
This week there is no working amongst the hazardous waste, so I am taking some hours at the kayak shop for Kerry and Mike, who's house I am staying in and who's dog I look after when they go to fish their yearly quota of Halibut, or attend a wedding in Boulder, Colarado. Tonight the journey is making sense and i've once again caught that ribbon of traveller's flow - catching the currents and they present themselves.
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