320 miles
16 mpg
$0: Kluane Lake, roadside pullout

The drive out today was much different than my dry, 85-degree drive in a week and a half ago. The Tanana River was swollen and muddy. Other creeks were just over their banks, and some Forrest’s seemed more like swamps. I don’t think water likes to sink into permafrost.

I didn’t take a lot of pictures en route. Once again, I crossed back into Canada, and by Kluane Lake (“Clue-AH-nay”). I drove into the state campgound on the lake, and finding no great sites, moved on. On my drive up, I had noticed some lakeside pullouts and old roads that looked promising. I saw one I remembered on a little bluff overlooking the lake. I stopped just off the road and walked it first to be sure I could turn around in the site. Not easy, but yes.

And not exactly a bad view…

As sun began to set, the wind disappeared. The water was glassy and calm. Often, there were five-minute stretches between cars going by, and it was dead quiet. Or so I thought.

I put my chair out between the trailer and the water, closed my eyes, and listened. Really listened. Through the high white noise in my ears from driving, and years of living in a world of sound.

Cars and trucks making their way along the lake, beginning a mile up the road on each end, the sound growing and decaying gradually.

A crow in the distance. A duckling way out on the lake. Bubbles from the lake bottom coming to the surface. Fish jumping. Bees. Campers on the shore, talking – a mile away. Was it German or Québécois?

Silence. But not silence.

A rare and precious treat in our modern world.