September 26, 2014

Today is the day we leave this magical paradise. I could spend months here and not get bored, but of course, I would go broke. Gotta work to eat. We started our morning by running down to the town of Bella Coola to get some last minute gifts. On the way out of town, I told Sue we needed to stop at the town sign and get some pictures. This is not something I would normally do, but the sign itself was so cool, it needed to be done. From there it was back to the lodge to get out things together to fly on to Vancouver. It was sad to know I may never see another wild grizzly bear in my life. The whole purposes of being here was just that. While the task was fully accomplished, it's not something I would ever cross off my list. I would love to see grizzly bears (or any bear for that matter) any day for the rest of my life. This got me thinking, a real life accomplishment would be to try and see the eight different types of bears on this planet. That task would take you to the far reaches of the earth. In North America, we have the 1.) Black bear, 2.) Brown bear (Grizzly bear) and 3.) Polar bear. You would need to go to South America to see the 4.) Spectacled Bear. A hop across the pond to see the 5.) Sloth Bear in Sri Lanka, India, Bhutan, Nepal and Bangladesh. Then over to Southeast Asia for the 6.) Sun Bear and Eastern Asia for the 7. ) Asiatic Black Bear and of course the beloved 8.) Panda Bear in western China. Yes that simple requested to see all eight bears of the world would truly be quite the quest. Not only would be getting and staying at some of those place a real challenge, but then put on top of that attempting to actually see one of those bears in the wild and the task becomes undawnting. Someone should try it someday. I have now seen two different types of bears found in North America and most people can't even say that.

The plane ride to Vancouver went well. There was a stop along the way, which really just meant seeing more remote snow covered mountain tops and endless glaciers. The plane ride down to Vancouver was just as beautifully scenic as the flight up to Bella Coola. The flight went well and we landed in Vancouver with no problems. When we got into the airport, we heard word that there was a control tower fire in Chicago. Chicago was our next destination after a night in Vancouver. We went up to one of the "official" looking people to ask about the Chicago situation and they suggested we get in line and talk to a flight assistant about it. Basically the situation was, in a nutshell as told to us, if you don't take a flight now to Chicago, you may have a difficult time flying there after today. We talked it over and that sounded like the best idea. We could drive home from Chicago if we had to, but Vancouver is a long long way from home. We had a couple hours to kill because our flight kept getting delayed, but we finally boarded a plane heading for Chicago. The airline hooked us up with a dumpy little motel 5 or 6 miles from the airport and near practically nothing interesting whatsoever. The flight attendants and pilots seemed to love the place because of its cheap rates. They're not trying to sight-see like we were, so it was a disappointment for us. To get anywhere we had to get a bus back to the airport, then branch out from there. By the time we got to Chicago and checked in, it was getting late, say 9pm-ish. There was a dumpy little bar nearby that we walked to and it was better than sitting in our tiny room. Sue wasn't feeling great and she only got some soup for dinner. I got a meal and had some Guiness. It fit the bill for the night. We walked back to our room and hit the bed with hopes of making it into the city tomorrow, before continuing our journey home. We spent time in Chicago back in 2008 and had a great time. Hope we can repeat that.