Hello folks!
Half time! Can you imagine that? It’s half time for us. In three months, Ursula will lock us back up in the dark top closet of Annie Way, and she’ll feel totally guilty about it, because we’ll be in dark custody for at least a month, probably longer. We will successfully convince her of that. It worked on the way here, too. In fact, we had a lot of fun. But we don’t tell Ursula that. Because it’s nice to be pitied.
Right now, Annie Way is at a gold mine that has been closed for years, but there are still a few professional gold panners in the creek making a living. Tourists pay $25 entrance fee, get the equipment and can try their luck. From our spot we see a poster that says you can keep anything you find, and that last year a tourist had a nugget the size of a chicken egg in his pan!
So while Ursula tries her luck, I have time to tell you all about what happened and how it really happened. The real truth and nothing but the truth.
In the meantime we are – as you know – in Alaska. And there it is over with the Canada relaxation. People are very different. They keep telling us how great they are. That’s when Ursula listens, gives an occasional “You don’t say so!” or “Oh, wow!” and tries to stifle a yawn.
At least the landscape is beautiful. Says Leopold, too. Since he sees where we are.
We have made some changes in the seating arrangement of the gang. This started in Dawson.
Leona Löwenfeld gives Ursula a lot of encouragement – sometimes too much, I have the impression – but normally she doesn’t talk. She never said a word to Leopold either, when they were still in their more intense phase. But it wasn’t necessary at the time. In any case, when we were standing in the campground in Dawson and Ursula had just returned from a stroll around town with a second hat, Leona suddenly looked at Leopold from the side and said loud and clear, “Let’s be friends.”
Leopold looked back faithfully and replied just as loudly and clearly, “That’s a good idea.”
It seemed to me a bit as if they had rehearsed it beforehand, because while Hilde and I almost toppled off the back of the bench because Leona had spoken her first sentence, Leopold didn’t seem surprised at all.
Ursula immediately understood what it was all about. “Leona, would you like to sit in your former seat again, between the headrests in the back seat with Sally and Hilde?”
Leona nodded eagerly, and the next moment she was sitting up there with us, again with a view. From then on, we played “Who will see the next bear first?” as a threesome.
“Yes, Leopold, then you are now the only one sitting in front,” said Ursula. Leopold grumbled something into his mane.
We were specially secured for the drive to Alaska on the Top of the World Highway, as always with purple ribbons. But not Leopold. He’s so heavy that he won’t even move during an emergency stop. At least I think so. After all, we haven’t had a real full stop in North America yet. Only some strong brakes because of the dam … cute squirrels and chipmunks that made a habit of running across the road just ahead of us. Ursula steered Annie Way to the side a couple of times, so that we started to skid. Then she stepped on the gas, and Annie Way was back where she should be.
The Top of the World Highway. That was such a separate chapter. Guys, I’m telling you, that’s where we all would have atoned for our sins if we had any. At the beginning it was okay, Ursula drove very slowly uphill through the fog. But as soon as we were above the lower cloud layer and wanted to enjoy this magnificent view in peace – mountain peaks one after the other, all the way to the horizon, and all a bit below us – Ursula remembered Australia and stepped on the gas. Although we were hanging in our safety belts and nothing could happen to us, we felt a bit cramped after some time. I almost envied Leopold, who didn’t know what was going on and was pouting because he was the only one who didn’t see the speed at which Annie Way was skirting the edge of the abyss.
The border guards were talking to Ursula. However, they did not ask for our papers. That’s sloth discrimination! Because Ursula got a stamp. And we did not!
We’ve been in Alaska ever since. To be perfectly honest: Yes, it is beautiful. Incredibly beautiful even. But in Yukon it was also incredibly beautiful, AND it was relaxed.
However, Ursula is relaxed here, too. Only sometimes she doesn’t really pay attention to us. With the musk oxen, for example. That’s when Annie Way had to stand very close to the fence of the enclosure. Imagine that! If such a musk ox had suddenly decided to go after Annie Way! That would have shaken us up quite a bit!
Speaking of shaking things up. The dryer story went on. The last up-date was an extra pair of dark blue socks. And then one day Ursula came along with a single yolk-yellow sock. That was still on the Alaska Highway in the Yukon. Well, if she means. I would never wear yolk yellow socks, and one alone makes me wonder a bit about the meaning of life. Fortunately, Ursula washed again in Fairbanks, and what came out of the dryer? The second yolk yellow sock. And a blue-green striped. I’m already curious where we will find the corresponding second. If I’m not mistaken, Ursula has over twenty pairs of socks with her. For whatever reason. And they are becoming more and more.
Yesterday we stood overlooking a glacier while Ursula took a boat ride. That was nice. Leopold was completely out of his mind.
“Leopold?” you will ask. “He doesn’t see anything!”
Yes, he does now. Ursula unceremoniously put him on the right armrest of his seat and buckled him up. With the real seat belt. He’s not quite as comfortable there as on the seat, but he can see where we’re going. This makes him a little nervous, because he is not used to it. Hilde, Leona and I are professionals as co-drivers, but Leopold has never done that. Yesterday, when he yelled “Look out!” for the third time because he thought Ursula was overlooking something, she briefly got a little impatient. “Either you’re quiet while driving, or you’re sitting on the seat again.”
Since then, Leopold has remained bravely silent. But he is not quite happy with his situation, not even relaxed enough to play “Who will see the next bear first?” with us. I told him he could trust Ursula. If you drive the Top of the World Highway in four hours when it’s raining instead of eight when it’s sunny, you can do everything else here. Easily.
But we had another rain problem. That is, not we, but Ursula. Annie Way’s back doors are not tight. And although Ursula has already checked everything several times to see if something is dirty somewhere in the seals or a small stone is hiding or whatever – it’s dripping in. On the mattress. And Ursula doesn’t like that. Although it is a nice, very soothing sound.
Now she has found a solution. Since the Annie Way can’t be sealed, Ursula put her waterproof picnic blanket in the back of the interior between the bed and the doors. She has only used the picnic blanket once before, when she lent it to someone as a base for a small dome tent. Now it is finally in use. The fact that it sticks to Annie Way’s butt could be interpreted as a misappropriation, but one could also congratulate the blanket on its ability to multitask.
Otherwise, Annie Way is doing well. In between, she sometimes tells Ursula to have the engine checked, but we had that last year in Norway, too, and when Ursula then threatened to send Annie Way to the ADAC on the return trip in Germany if she didn’t stop bitching, the mimosa-like posturing was immediately over. It works the same way here.
The Annie Way has two small stone chips on the windshield, barely visible, despite the fact that Ursula always keeps a huge safety distance on gravel roads. But Ursula doesn’t have them repaired, because there will be more to come. At least then it pays off. Annie Way may need a new windshield when we get home anyway.
Something very positive has also happened. Ursula has stopped singing. And also loaded her own favorite songs – if they weren’t already on the “Playlist Annie Way” anyway – onto the screw-shaped USB stick dangling from Navita. Now we have a selection that lasts almost 400 km before everything starts all over again. And as long as Ursula doesn’t sing along, it’s actually pretty cool.
Guys, I can only repeat it: Time goes by way too fast. And in three months the gang is back in the dark top cabinet … terrible, we are so poor!
Speaking of poor. Ursula has just returned from panning for gold and looked quite cheerful. “Sally, I don’t ever need to work again!” she said, making something wrapped in several handkerchiefs disappear very quickly into the top cabinet. In our top cabinet. I’d like to know what that is! A nugget the size of a sparrow egg? Or a chicken-egg-sized one like last year’s? Or a goose-egg-sized nugget? Or the size of an ostrich egg?
I want to get into the top cabinet! At once! I want to know what’s hiding up there! But I guess I’ll have to wait another three months. Time passes much too slowly here!
We are at the sea again. This time on the other. We covered 12,500 km in these 85 days. So, on average, 150 km per day. The actual route was shorter, but we looked around everywhere. Ursula said at the beginning that we would drive an average of 1000 km per week – and that’s pretty much true after twelve weeks. But with our schedule, we are a little behind. I’ll probably have to push Ursula and Annie Way a bit.
Yes, that’s how it is when you are the boss of a gang and a company. The responsibility is almost overwhelming. The other day, someone in Whitehorse said, “What, you’re the Lionfields? You’re the ones who roughed up the Bronx in April! I read that in Germany. So this is where you’re hiding!”
I’ve said it a hundred times: It wasn’t us! We were sitting in the top cabinet of a campervan on the lowest deck of a roll-on roll-off container ship, and we were in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean at the time. And we were so poor in there, it was dark, it was cold, and we were seasick most of the time too! – What we wouldn’t have given to be in New York instead! Although there’s so much traffic there that Leopold almost … I mean, I’ve said it before: I’ve never been to New York. Really.
I need to get into that upper cabinet and find out what’s hidden in there!
Enjoy the summer, folks! And take care of yourselves! And if anyone has any ideas on how I can get into the top cabinet, let me know!
Yours, Sally