Rocky Mountain hostel rules being broken at 6.30am, as I break into the kitchen for my porridge breakfast. And I’m turning the radio on!
Just at the point where I’m trying to comprehend why they’re playing The Time Warp this early in the day – and contemplating throwing a few shapes – I spy some bear eyes staring down at me.
It’s all I can do to take a tentative step to the right, immediately grab my belongings and my remaining packets of microwaveable porridge, and escape via the bi-folding doors, into the forest parking lot.
And then back to reception to hand my room key in.
Leaden skies have descended once again, as I jump in my getaway car for the return trip to Jasper.
Thinking … I need to write my name on my lazy porridge sachets in future.
The Icefields Parkway is laying low today, under fast-moving cloud formations I can almost touch.
I join the single-file queue to re-enter the National Park: no pushing, no shoving.
Then everyone swapping positions when no-one’s looking, as we see fit, as we see unmissable opportunities, viewpoints which aren’t really there.
Up through the murk of the morning, cloud cover temporarily lifts at Peyto Lake, to reveal a mosquito swamp, and a strange kind of opaque green running up through a gothic valley.
To get there is to see other people … swapping our affairs as we go, and showing off our overtaking moves.
When I’m done with that, I’m flying through mountains of low driving rain, nothing visible, except for the Group of Seven Tourists in a layby – hiding in a toilet cubicle, striking a pose.
In the torrential rain, you can’t even take a leak, quite dreadful, but then this is what might pass as art, maybe.
Opposite the grace under pressure of an overflowing waterfall, they let me in and we leave our pretensions at the toilet door; it’s business as usual for some, even though it’s pissing it down outside.
At the viewpoints, people looking out into nothing, but then nothing surprises today.
Revisiting Jasper, where I find not much has changed in the space of eleven days, not even the soul of the place. I still feel the same … even though everything’s changed.
The crowds of people, the endless parades of RVs and SUVs.
Once I’ve returned my rental and the bag of pills which came with it, I’m in the brewery tap, where I have afternoon business to take care of, with a pint of stout.
At 4pm I’m checking in to my half-built hostel for a second time, taking care to scrawl my name, in blood red marker pen, on my packet of porridge oats.
In the evening, I try for a seat at the table, in the brewery, but find myself jammed in at the wrong end of the bar instead.
Jarl from somewhere remote in Alberta is sat next to me, in town to rescue his stranded BMW … formerly broken, now fixed.
We talk of what we’ve been doing up until this exact moment in our lives … exploits and adventures and strange events in Australia, NZ, Scandinavia, the Balkans, the Highlands, the Islands.
It’s travel bingo over craft ale.
All the while, brisket and sausage flies off a plate which was thrown onto the counter directly in front of me, right by the credit card reader.
With a nod of the head – as if I’m at a frickin’ auction – I take a final beer, then make my excuses … I have a train to catch tomorrow.
An Outside World 