Katmai Countdown 7 . . .

A week from now I will herding onto a plane bound from SFO to Anchorage. I'll wait until the last possible minute to board, and will probably end up shuffling through the corridor-on-wheels and bumping into grumpy people in their seats and having to hunt around for a place to put my carry-on, which will be extremely heavy with a bunch of gear like reels and batteries and a PLB that I tried to keep out of my checked bags, which will require an overweight fee anyway.

Like Paul Theroux said, travel largely consists of the boredom of WAITING. It is what I am doing right now, filling this evening with future-forward blogging and the reverie it runs on.

I'm actually going to spend next Friday in an overpriced hotel in Anchorage. ALL hotels in Anchorage are overpriced, but most especially the one where I stayed a few years ago -- the one where a drunk was stumbling through the lobby in a blood-spattered shirt when I was checking in, and where a very agitated, shrieking prostitute was being forcibly ejected when I went back to complain that my room door would not lock. That was a real winner. I learned later from some locals that the Carr's supermarket right next to that hotel is referred to generally as "Scary Carr's," and it is considered Ground Zero of Anchorage's worst neighborhood.

For a few dollars more, I hope to get a decent night's sleep next Friday, or at least an interval where I can stretch out and not be crammed into an airline seat. In younger days I would "sleep" in the airport and catch the first plane out to King Salmon. Now, I figure a) day-trippers get priority on Katmai Air to Brooks, so me and my 150 pounds of gear and food (pre-shipped and waiting) will probably not get out until the afternoon anyway, b) I'm 42 years old, for Christ's sake. After I get there around 11:00, I can use the time to walk down the store in King Salmon and order up a bag of deep-fried chicken gizzards. Those go well with a breakfast beer, and where else are you going to dependably find them?

This morning I read some choice quotes about Anchorage in John McPhee's "Coming Into the Country:"

Almost all Americans would recognize Anchorage, because Anchorage is that part of any city where the city has burst its seams and extruded Colonel Sanders.

"You can taste the greed in the air."

A large cookie cutter brought down on El Paso could lift something like Anchorage into the air. It is condensed, instant Albequerque.

When I explain it to Bay Area people, I say it is like Concord squared, or several Walnut Creeks that seem to have spilled off the Chugach mountains.



I'll sleep there, and wander over to the convenience store to pick up a couple of butane lighters, brightly colored so that I'll have a harder time losing them in camp (yes, I do also take along storm matches for emergencies like lost butane lighters). The flight out to King Salmon doesn't do security, which is strangely comforting to people who want to carry lighters, stove fuel, bear mace. It leaves at the civilized hour of 9:30, and if I can't manage to sleep in long enough there is a Denny's nearby (I know the 'hood round ANC quite well by now) where I can gorge on a greasy American breakfast and start feeling like I'm on vacation. Before night falls on Saturday I'll be needing those calories, because there is no way I'm going to resist a long fishing session into the wee hours, dodging bears and yanking against furious ten and fifteen-pound sockeyes and trout amplified by 50 pounds of current . . .

But I'm getting ahead of myself. That is tomorrow's blog.