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Sumiki

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Blog Entries posted by Sumiki

  1. Sumiki
    My grandmother died this morning at the age of 77.
     
    Words can’t even begin to describe the misery she went through in the past several years of her life. Her immense medical record was just about as long as the list of doctors who were mortified at the prospect of having to navigate the murky medical waters of a woman who, by all rights, should have been dead five times over. Between her assisted living facility, the various wards of the hospital, and rehab facilities spanning across several counties, she was a threat to sap the combined medical resources of the greater Charlotte area. 77 is not an old age, but aside from her thinning, yet stubbornly black hair, her body might as well have been 97.
     
    I don’t know, at this point, what finally did her in, but I can venture a guess that it’s something to do with the all-too-uncommon perils of someone with her comorbidities: her stage 2 kidney failure prevented her from taking the full dose of diuretics necessary to get the inevitable fluid buildup away from her heart and lungs, while her stage 3/borderline stage 4 heart failure had a hard time keeping up with the volume overload. People in her condition walk a thinner and thinner tightrope until they (or their loved ones) are forced into choosing death by kidney failure or death by heart failure.
     
    It was getting to a point where we would have been forced into making a difficult decision on her behalf. While she never suffered from any sort of neurological conditions (other than lifelong anxiety and depression), she was so tired—especially in the final months—that she could barely lift up her head, and her generally high creatinine levels (a byproduct of kidney failure) led to many a moment when the vivid imagination of her dreams got to her in her few remaining waking hours. She would have been in no condition to weigh the awful choice which was coming her way; a nursing home would have been the next step, and that process would have been an unimaginable emotional anguish for everyone involved.
     
    Her passing, while undeniably sad, is a weight lifted. Her condition would have killed a lesser person, and her life is a testament to a strength of willpower so strong that the rest of us would do well for ourselves in life if we had the tiniest fraction of hers.
     
    You often hear about deaths like this being sad, but not too sad, because they’re “expected.” As cliché as that might be, I can attest to its accuracy, having seen her on her deathbed on multiple occasions within the past several years. It was hard on those occasions because we grieved her passing and got through the emotions associated with such a loss, only for her to pull out and get through another two years.
     
    Even towards the end, she had good days, good weeks, and even good months. She found as much joy as possible in the little pleasures and comforts still available to her—watching the livestream of my graduation, hosting her bridge club for the final time—up through May. When it became clear that her body wouldn’t get back to the quality of life she once enjoyed, it shut down for good; that fight to get to the next goal, the next thing-she-was-looking-forward-to, just wasn’t there this time.
     
    If there’s anyone who taught me perseverance in the face of adversity, it’s her, and I hope that I can follow her example for the rest of my life.
  2. Sumiki
    *peers around corner nervously*
     
    Hi, y'all. It's been a hot minute. Life's been bananas, but the semester is drawing to a conclusion and though I have much left on my plate to finish before January, I fulfilled my obligations and saw The Last Jedi.
     
    Going into it, I was somewhat nervous for where the series was headed. I really enjoyed The Force Awakens, though perhaps my enthusiasm was amplified by the fact that I was seeing a Star Wars film on the big screen when I thought for years that Revenge of the Sith was the final say in the saga. With the passage of time, I realized that TFA wasn't quite the cinematic masterpiece, but it was an enjoyable addition that attempted to assure and assuage the viewing public that the franchise was safe in Disney's hands. It rectified some of the glaring holes of the prequels, yet there was definitely a sense of playing it safe.
     
    What I disliked most about TFA was exactly what everyone else disliked—the "playing it safe" bit. I also thought that the plot, in its pitting of a retrofitted Empire against a retrofitted Rebellion, was one that negated the original trilogy in good overcoming evil. If the evil just came back, with the same outfits and the same weapons ... then what was the point? I will give George Lucas the credit he deserves in making the prequels something fresh and different, not just a series of callbacks (or would they have been call-forewards?) to the OT.
     
    With Rogue One interleaved between actual episodes, I saw a different side. I really enjoyed Rogue One—more than TFA—but with it came an overwhelming sense of just how J.J. Abrams treated familiar characters in TFA. CGI!Tarkin and Darth Vader figure prominently in Rogue One, but the film doesn't feel weighted down by their presence. I wrote about the problems with creating good prequels a long time ago on Blogarithm, and I applauded Rogue One for telling the story in an exciting (and shocking!) way. We knew how it ended up, but that didn't stop it.
     
    Now onto The Last Jedi. In short: I didn't like it. Its holes were glaring. In an attempt to break itself free from being a rehashed mashup of Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, we instead got a jumble of underutilized actors, unutilized plot points, and familiar faces acting well out of character, in addition to continued use of past themes from the OT as TFA had. I'll be clear: TLJ is not The Phantom Menace, but if the dialogue were worse, it might be a contender for Star Wars bottom-feeder.
     
    If you've seen the film, my more exact qualms are Spoiler-fied. And I have many issues.
     
     
  3. Sumiki
    Every three to five years, on average, the incumbent Doctor regenerates, and because the BBC doesn't want to keep things a surprise until the actual regeneration episodes—which seem to occur exclusively on Christmases, for some heretofore unacknowledged reason—we, as fans, are left with knowing who's next in line without the benefit of seeing their Doctor's performance in an actual episode.
     
    I became a fan of the show during the Tenth Doctor's run, and I remember the absolute uproar that accompanied Matt Smith's casting announcement. The promotional pictures looked like a glib tween acting cool in front of a poster. Leaked audio sounded absolutely miserable (and it was from the equally miserable "Victory of the Daleks," the worst entry of Series 5). People voiced legitimate concerns over Smith's ability to portray a venerated character because he hadn't had any major roles before then; people simply did not know him. On top of all this, he was the youngest Doctor since Peter Davison, whose lapel celery was more memorable than his actual character traits. Smith became a great Doctor, with a phenomenal ability to display great warmth, humor, and wonder, all while being an old man in a young man's body. His performance as the Eleventh Doctor was the only redeeming feature of much of Series 7. His performance survived flanderization in a way that Tennant's never could.
     
    When Peter Capaldi was announced as the Twelfth Doctor, people actually knew him from somewhere, which mitigated the expected uproar. Here was an avowed Doctor Who fan whose casting was only a shock to those who knew him as a foul-mouthed political operative in one of his more (in)famous roles. An older Doctor after two straight younger actors was certainly a welcome change to the show's dynamic, and indeed it allowed for a more world-weary Doctor to emerge. My concerns with how the show unfolded with Capaldi as the lead has infinitely more to do with the tropes of the Steven Moffat era. Twelve is not my favorite Doctor, but has done a fine job with what he was given.
     
    I have fallen pray to the judgement of a Doctor based solely on the criterion of name, and I have learned my lesson from doing so, in part because it's vastly unfair to the actor and the show to assume the quality of a performance based on not having seen so much as a single line of dialogue. The Steven Moffat era has also taught me, in a big way, that the quality of a Doctor has much more to do with the quality of the episodes they are given. Whatever my thoughts on a new Doctor might be, I have learned to withhold all judgement until a few full episodes into their run.
     
    All of which brings us to Jodie Whittaker. The backlash has been enormous, and most comment sections are plagued with vile insults towards Whittaker being a female. Some have even wished her death before filming begins, all because she auditioned for the part and was chosen by an incoming showrunner who has a whole lot more riding on this than her. Chris Chibnall wants this whole thing to go well, and I, for one, am extraordinarily pleased with the fact that Moffat is leaving (albeit three and a half seasons too late in my book). Showrunners, in my view, should change with the Doctors they cast for the sake of fresh ideas, if the standard three seasons of service holds up for future incarnations.
     
    On the other hand, I steadfastly refuse to believe the notion that all who criticize a casting decision are doing so for reasons of deep and abiding prejudice. The concerns of those who do not want change are amplified by the concern that this is a big change—and it is! Those whose only problem stems from the belief that "the Doctor is a man" are ... well, frankly, I'm not sure they've even been watching the same show, and I don't want to be the ones to tell them that they're watching House M.D. reruns.
     
    In this onslaught of misogynistic stupidity, the few of the grammatically coherent grievances seemed to get at a deeper point of commonality: the concern that a show they care about was about to be ruined by casting choices driven by a need for diversity and inclusivity at the expense of talent, evidence of a trend whose only logical end point is in mediocrity and appeasement. Those who speak out against political correctness or the excesses of so-called social justice warriors are not a monolithically evil group. I and others may disagree with much of what they point out, but they and their ideas must not be countered with a backhanded dismissal of their grievances and subsequent jokes at their expense. Such dismissal has only led to larger divisions in discourse. Discussion, and the ability to connect with and understand and even—gasp—get along with those who do not abide by your positions—in anything, cultural or otherwise—is a lost art. There is diversity of opinion amongst those I know, and though I may not count them friends, I am enriched as a human being for imagining them complexly and understanding the background of their positions.
     
    In their grievances, evidence of an encroaching ultra-feminist agenda in media is rampant and nigh-unstoppable in an attempt to rack up social-justice brownie points at the expense of quality entertainment. Yet the entertainment industry knows only dollars; "diversity" is dangerously approaching meaningless-buzzword status if we don't seriously examine the ins and outs, the hows and whats, and the ups and downs of what that word means to those who toss it around like meatballs at a food fight. A frank conversation on what diversity is and what diversity may be expected is, I'm afraid, not something that's going to happen; realism is impossible to inject in the polarized state of online discourse.
     
    Thus, detractors of Whittaker will say that her role must be the result of a desire to placate an agenda, but said agenda has much less power over the industry than is warranted by evidence. Without any performance of the 13th Doctor in action until Christmas, hot takes must therefore rely on the comparison of Doctor Who to other media—which, as we shall see, is an endeavor fraught with falsehood.
     
    The Ghostbusters reboot is pointed to. It was a well-intentioned film starring some of the funniest women in America, but its middling performance at the box office has to do with more than a cadre of die-hard nerds who hated the leads for their gender. It didn't do great at the box office, but it wasn't a flop either; any reboot of an iconic franchise was going to have a hard time getting off the ground. Its problem was that it wasn't the original, and remakes and reboots will always have such a specter—a point of departure that continues as a point of comparison. Were there sexists who hated Ghostbusters for their own smarmy and thoroughly illegitimate reasons? Absolutely. To say otherwise is to deny the filth of comment sections the Web over, but to say that this is the only reason that there's no new Ghostbusters II is to deny the inherent complexity of the situation.
     
    Ghostbusters does not equate to Doctor Who, and it goes beyond their vastly different media. Doctor Who is the kind of cultural institution that Ghostbusters could only dream of being, with a history far longer and a canon mythology far vaster. Doctor Who prides itself on its built-in ability to stay relevant, while Dan Akyroyd exploding in a flash of light to reveal Kate McKinnon isn't something that fits or works in any stretch, although would be hilariously funny if they'd pulled it on SNL. Ghostbusters as a film felt as forced to me as, say, the Beauty and the Beast remake; in both instances, I bemoaned the lack of Hollywood originality before continuing to go about my day.
     
    James Bond is often mentioned. Those concerned over the infiltration of women into male roles are very concerned that the ultimate masculine hero in Bond has a coterie of devotees who wish to see a woman take over when Daniel Craig decides to hang up the iconic tuxedo. Such a choice would fundamentally change the nature of the Bond franchise, a phrase upon which supporters and detractors of the idea would agree, though rooted as they are in opposing motivations. To them, then, a Charlize Theron Bond is as blasphemous as a Jodie Whittaker Doctor.
     
    Again, this is an overly simplistic argument. A female Bond won't solve the history of misogyny in Bond's actions over the years; that is something that must be confronted head-on with a male lead and is something I want to have happen in the next film (likely to be Craig's last). In addition, the continuous narrative as pursued in the Craig era means that the continuity of the series—something glossed over from Connery to Brosnan—is something that's probably going to be dealt with by making "James Bond" a code word ... but then Skyfall makes no sense.
     
    But I digress. That issue is worthy of exploration if and when it comes to pass. (Until then, I'm squarely in the Idris Elba corner.)
     
    Bond is an institution in British culture of a different nature than ​Doctor Who, though they both feature a face-changing main character. But therein lies the difference; Doctor Who has the built-in mechanism to handle massive whopping changes and emerge stronger for it. No other show has that narrative longevity; not even The Simpsons deals with it because of their floating timeline. Timothy Dalton's Bond never met Roger Moore's Bond, highlighting the issues inherent with a long-running series built on the real world and the plausible situations therein (Moonraker notwithstanding). The fantastical aspects of Doctor Who afford it the ability to do anything, and the best episodes are built on that wonderment and not quite knowing what's going to happen week to week. Bond runs on formula, whereas Who dies if formulaic.
     
    The Doctor's claim to fame is the ability to solve problems with brains and not brawn, and in many cases shunning physical violence except where necessary. Masculine physicality—an aspect in Bond—plays absolutely no role for the Doctor. "Doctor" is an agender title; "James" is a male name. The franchises are insufficiently similar for comparisons to make sense.
     
    As far as the casting being against the nature of Doctor Who itself, this also is absurd. Women equal in intelligence and savvy to the Doctor have long been a staple of the show, from his granddaughter Susan to Time Ladies Romana and the Rani to his artificial daughter Jenny from "The Doctor's Daughter" to the DoctorDonna of "Journey's End" to the entire River Song arc ... well, point made.
     
    The last-ditch claim underlying this is that it is coming out of the blue; they're only caving to fans who want to see a female Doctor for the sake of there being a female Doctor, without regard or concern for series quality. This is steadfastly refuted by the casting of a great and established actress who can make the role hers; whether or not she will remains to be seen in 2018. But this particular change has been hinted at since the very beginning of Smith's run, expressly confirmed as normal Time Lord biology in "The Doctor's Wife" (probably my favorite episode of 11's run), confirmed on-screen when Missy faced off against 12, then actually literally shown as an on-screen regeneration when it wasn't actually necessary for the plot in the Series 9 finale, which was also coupled with a change of race. They'd built it up that I would have been surprised if they didn't pick a woman.
     
    It's not out of the blue because it is something that the show has hinted at and introduced in stages, precisely to alleviate the blowback and mitigate the claim that such casting is made under false pretense. Any amount of concern about the "sudden" nature of this news, or any concern whatsoever about a purported "caving to feminist ideology," is absurd on every conceivable level and then probably a few inconceivable ones there beyond. Coming through loud and clear from the writer's desks is that the Time Lords are still a bunch of wild and wacky aliens, and even then, changing genders 50/50 throughout a single lifetime is considered unusual, albeit not abnormal.
     
    Through wary as always of passing premature judgement, I am fully expecting to be very excited for 2018 after the Christmas special. It's just a shame that there will be others who won't.
  4. Sumiki
    -----There were several ways to get back to North Carolina from the Lexington area, but we had several provisions for a successful return. The fastest route by time would have taken us through the mountains of West Virginia, which we had sworn off on the way up and were not about to risk on the trip's final day. Instead, we opted for a scenic drive—by Kentucky standards, which means lots and lots of trees and mountains—through Appalachia, which saved miles but sacrificed a bit of time.
     
    -----The scenery was about what we'd expect, what with the greenery and mountains and all. We've felt like we're basically in our backyard since we got to Spokane, and when this close, we felt the extra push. As such, we got up at a whopping 6:00 and were able to leave around 8:00.
     
    -----We got gas in a small town before we got to the larger peaks of the Appalachians, and it was one of those places where McDonald's was probably in the "fine dining" category. There was effectively nothing to do on the journey until we got to Pikeville, near the border, where there were several signs about the infamous Hatfield-McCoy feud. Stopping for such things is more suited for the beginnings of journeys than their ends, and so we pressed on.
     
    -----As much as we wanted to get home as early as we could, we needed lunch, and it was here than our Jimmy John's habit caught up to us. There was none in Abingdon, but according to a random Facebook page, there was one in Marion—purported birthplace of Mountain Dew—just a bit further up the road. The process of navigating to it, however, took us straight up into a hospital complex with no through traffic. My dad began laughing maniacally while I got us to Arby's instead, where we each got some roast beef sandwiches.
     
    -----The worst traffic was from Marion to Wytheville down into North Carolina via Fancy Gap. The road itself was fine, but truckers jockeying and weaving made for some hair-raising situations that evolved in front of us. Once into North Carolina, we went around Pilot Mountain and made it safely home at a little past 3:30, where we unpacked while marveling at the amount of stuff we jammed into the car.
     
    -----Total mileage on vehicle: 10,151.9 Miles
    -----Total mileage overall: Unknown (approx. 12,000?)
    -----# of States, Provinces, & Territories: 20
    -----# of Pennants Collected: 5
    -----Pairs of Chicken Socks Purchased: 1
    -----# of Breakdowns: 0
    -----# of Culver's Eaten At: Too Many
    -----Tomorrow: Costco
  5. Sumiki
    -----Just like the past few days, it was I-90 all the way. It was the last of the Rocky Mountain foothills, as South Dakota brings with it the prospect of true plains where the speed limit of 80 almost seems low once you get used to going such a speed. We know that Wyoming can be a pleasant state, though it wasn't much so this time—but the "fajitas" weren't upsetting us.
     
    -----We were to South Dakota pretty much before we knew it, and within two hours of our 10:00 departure had made it to Rapid City, where we got our requisite Jimmy John's and prepared for the road to Mitchell. The best way to cross the plains, as far as I'm concerned, remains I-90 in South Dakota, where the road is good, the wind is steady enough to be acclimated to, and there is just enough traffic to keep the driver focused. Unlike Wyoming—a state which seems to delight in closing lanes haphazardly and with no discernible reason—South Dakota's road work is actually obviously useful and necessary.
     
    -----I don't know if it's because South Dakota's economy greatly depends on tourism—from the interminable signs for Wall Drug to the tourist traps of the Corn Palace, 1880 Town, the Borglum Story, and so on—or what, but it's always been a nice state to visit, even if its population centers are essentially on opposite sides. There's enough blankness in the middle to give you a sense of the vastness of the heartland, but still it pales when set against the true desolation of points further north.
     
    -----After so much cold weather throughout our journey, we've finally caught up to summer. It was 45º just the other day, and the high today was a whopping 88º. But 88 isn't all that bad, for it is a dry heat—and the wind, which was steady throughout, was rushing in our direction, which was better for our gas mileage than driving against the wind, as we did yesterday.
     
    -----The road simply gets gradually flatter and flatter as you move east, with only the occasional pronghorn or cattle sighting to break things up. Geologically, we saw Devil's Tower in the distance before we exited Wyoming, and saw snippets of the Badlands as we went north of them. But as we'd been there twice and already had a six-hour day—not including the loss of an hour as we went into Central Time—any revisitation would have to wait until a future trip.
     
    -----We were last in Mitchell two years ago, and it seems to have grown in that time, with a fancy new hospital complex and an even bigger Cabela's. After yesterday's fiasco, we were wary of returning to the steakhouse at which we dined two years ago. Instead, we realized that we were now back in the land of Culver's, and ate there instead. It was as good a burger as we'd come to expect and would have been even better had the restaurant not been overrun by a cadre of small and uncontrolled kids under the lackadaisical jurisdiction of a clearly incompetent mom.
     
    -----Tomorrow: we return to the National Music Museum in Vermillion before heading to Des Moines.
  6. Sumiki
    -----All online evidence pointed to us having a five-hour drive day ahead, which is a good amount for an average day on the return journey. From Olympia, we were to travel north to Tacoma before splitting off of I-5 and joining I-90 as it traverses the state eastbound. But there wasn't anything to really break the trip up, as five hours in the car isn't daunting so much as the thought of going that distance with no significant breaks in the action.
     
    -----Tacoma is the home of the Tacoma Rainiers, however, and amongst Triple-A affiliate teams, they are the closest in physical proximity to their Major League franchise—in this case, the Seattle Mariners. We decided that, since they had a game today and were thus open despite it being a weekend, it'd be best for us to stop in and get a pennant before getting on our way. What we did not expect is for the brutal Seattle area traffic to hit us early and often as we exited Olympia, and from there it was wall-to-wall stop-and-go as we navigated our way to the stadium. The problem was not that we went on a game day, but that we went when the game was about to start, as we'd overslept our alarms and, after breakfast, had to rearrange some of our plans due to Glacier National Park not being fully open.
     
    -----It's good to see a local crowd coming out and supporting their team, but when faced with trying to get through crowds of people on the street, it's not too pleasant. We rolled down windows to explain to security guys that we were just trying to get to the team store—which was, in all fairness, the only reason that we were waved past signs that said "LOT FULL." When we got to the stadium, my dad let my mom and I out with much more cash than was necessary and a mission to find the team store and get a pennant—or, barring that, something—at all costs. A few well-placed questions later, and we found out that the team store was on the opposite side of the entire stadium, so we bolted ... only for the National Anthem to begin playing. We stopped, but I couldn't hear it worth a lick, and when fireworks went off upon its conclusion, my heart skipped a beat. (Seriously? Warn a guy!)
     
    -----As my dad weaved around and evaded the security guys who chased him off if he so much looked at a banned parking spot, my mom and I weaved our way through the immense lines to get into the stadium and eventually—mercifully—made it to the glass doors underneath the words "team store." We pulled the handle, and though many were inside, we couldn't open it. A nice patron eventually let us into the bandbox of a store, which would have felt cramped if it had only been ourselves. But several dozen folks were inside and no one knew where the line was to check out, least of all the cashiers. They had one pennant, which we got, and we jogged back to the parking lot where my dad saw us in the nick of time. We got out of the area as fast as we could, as we didn't want to risk any wayward home runs clocking a windshield.
     
    -----Getting back to the road was a journey in and of itself, and it involved going down a series of San Franciscan slopes—nearly 45º angles, from my perspective—where stop signs and red lights were poised at the bottom. It was worse on the brakes than anything we'd experienced in the far northwest. My dad just started laughing, because what else could you do? (At least, for our trouble, we got the third pennant of the trip. Hopefully we'll never have to endure the Seattle traffic experience ever again, for it is truly brutal.)
     
    -----The road to I-90 was mostly downhill, and we passed a great many military convoys en route to the more arid regions of the state for various exercises. Even I-90 was mostly downhill, though we went through what was ostensibly a mountain pass known as Snoqualmie Pass. It was in this area that, four years ago, we did the stupid thing and got out of our cars during some rock blasting, only to have to run half a mile back up to it when the cars started moving again. We reminisced about this idiocy as we cruised by the lakeside construction area (which is still being worked on, by the way).
     
    -----Traffic was backed up to a near-standstill westbound, and though we were moving out on the eastbound direction, there were still a surprising number of people. After we traversed the Cascades, the greenery gave way to aridity and irrigated farmland, with increasingly rolling hills. Most of those on the road split off towards Yakima further south, which we found out in Ellensburg—but before reaching Ellensburg, we got off for gas and possible lunch in the town of Cle Elum. We got the gas and checked out an adjoining Subway, but some shady figures were hanging about and we decided to just get to Ellensburg, which was about a half-hour's drive away. But getting out of Cle Elum gives you only one option: westbound! It's not signed at all, and we had to turn ourselves around at the last exit back.
     
    -----Ellensburg featured a two-story Subway, whose seating and bathrooms were on the upper floor. We got six-inch subs which weren't all that great due to Subway's notoriously crumbly bread, but it was cheap and light and sustained us until Spokane. The road from thence on was less traveled and, aside from sections of grooved, potholed, and otherwise pockmarked road, it was quite pleasant under the wheels. We ended up missing our exit by several miles—how, I know not—and we were less than amused that it would happen twice on the same day ... but the first one, in our defense, was an unavoidable mishap due to the road engineer having a little too much at the bar the night before. All things being equal, we got to our hotel a little after 7:00.
     
    -----On the outskirts of Spokane lies an eating establishment known as the Rusty Moose. We were there on our first trip and were eager to recreate such unforgettable experiences as me fake-riding an iron moose sculpture outside, or my dad rubbing his beard on the "reserved parking" signs. They'd rearranged and redecorated slightly, but the food was just as good as we remembered. The waiting staff with whom we interacted were not there five years ago, but they enjoyed the fact that we came back five years down the road. We ordered the gorgonzola fries for an appetizer, as they were very good last time and we enjoyed recreating as much of that experience as we could.
     
    -----The portion wasn't quite as big as the vat we'd gotten five years prior, but the few tweaks they made to the recipe made it even better. The blue cheese wasn't overwhelming, but there were glorious chunks of it which I scarfed right up. Our drinks were a perfect recreation of the huckleberry lemonade we'd had last time, and—according to our server—they happened to have the right ingredients to make them. Much of the huckleberry stuff they had on their menu five years prior had been pulled due to the fact that they couldn't maintain a constant supply of them, but there was some huckleberry purée that they mixed into the lemonade and it was utterly delightful. We each had two glasses of these and felt quite special that we were able to get them again at all.
     
    -----As main courses, my dad got a big steak, while I got perfectly cooked Coulotte medallions—which, I was told, was a cut similar to a sirloin. The potatoes were fresh and garlicky while both dipping sauces were flavor-packed as well. It wasn't the biggest thing on the menu by far, but I only managed to eat about half of it and boxed the rest. My mom, on the other hand, got a huge salad with about five ounces of steak set atop. The salad was so immense that they cut up a whole tomato into slices—a bit like an orange—and put it around like a garnish, and it didn't look the least bit out of place in terms of scale. I know not how she managed to eat as much as she did, but she too had to box the rest of it up.
     
    -----There was no room for dessert, and they no longer offer their enormous—to quote my mom "absolutely insane"—mud pie, so we settled for the sweetness of what remained of our second round of huckleberry lemonade. Once outside, I sat astride the metal moose to recreate the first picture, and my dad rubbed his beard on not one, but two "reserved parking" signs, as well as a sconce in the hotel's hallway to cap it all off.
     
    -----Tomorrow: Bozeman, Montana. With Glacier National Park out of the picture—as the famous Going-to-the-Sun Road is not yet fully plowed—we've decided to cut it out of the trip.
  7. Sumiki
    -----Mercifully, for the first time since Minot, we awoke with cell phone reception. It’s a minor miracle, and it meant that we no longer had to calculate our phone’s morning alarms from central time backwards, which was a great annoyance. Texts from Alaska’s 511 service poured through to my mom's phone, which proved a hassle as updates on the Glenn Highway popped up periodically with no obvious way to unsubscribe. (We eventually were able to do so, though not without significant hassle.)
     
    -----The Malaspina was running slightly behind schedule to Bellingham, and we watched as the captain, aided by his crew on the back deck, guided the mighty vessel backwards into the port. As the crew radioed in and hooked the Malaspina into the dock, we grabbed the last of our things and went down to the car deck to drive out, once again on dry land under our wheels. As nice as it was to be able to give the car a break, another day on the boat would have made us stir-crazy.
     
    -----Bellingham is a wetter and smaller version of San Francisco, with houses and streets carved up precipitous hills. It led to Interstate 5, and it was incredible how much of that road seemed familiar from what we traveled four years ago, when we had to detour around a recently collapsed bridge. But we did not get so far this time, as we exited into verdant farmland on Route 20 towards Whidbey Island, the largest island in the state, which snakes south into Puget Sound. It’s the Pacific Northwest, and so it constantly rains, and our route was no different, and the route went under truly enormous trees that fold into a canopy over the road.
     
    -----The communities of Whidbey Island are spread out, and Route 20 took us to Coupeville, where we got in line for the ferry to Port Townsend. As little as we thought of once again sailing the seven seas in any capacity, our only other option would have taken us through Seattle and added many, many more hours to our day. We had reservations for 2:00, as we made them without knowledge of whether the Alaska Marine Highway would be on time, but we got there at around 10:00. Nonetheless, the nonchalant fellow at the toll booth scanned our reservation anyway, and we managed to be amongst the last to squeak into the tightly packed ferry.
     
    -----The ferry was quite large, and we walked around the ship for almost all of the ostensibly 40-minute ride as the ship sailed to Port Townsend, a place known—at least, by their local tourism industry—as “the Paris of the Pacific Northwest.” I don’t know how true any of that really is, but it was a cute little place from what we could see. Looking on a map, these places look downright deserted next to the megalopolis of Seattle and its satellites, but it was really hopping.
     
    -----We pressed on along US 101, whose route draws an enormous arc around the Olympic Peninsula, so named for Olympic National Park—the very reason for our western jaunt before making the trek back east. Others might regard it as sparsely populated, but after tackling the desolation of Alaska and the Yukon, these places seem like big cities.
     
    -----Lunch was a quick stop in Port Angeles at a Jimmy John’s. From there, the road became hillier and curvier, and especially beautiful as we dipped to circle around Lake Crescent. The immensity of the ferns can’t quite be captured, and the mountains—which are covered in them—contrast starkly with the snowcapped peaks of the true northwest.
     
    -----It was not long before we made it to Forks, a small town made famous by its inclusion in the Twilight novels. Whether such fame is desirable might be a point of contention, but suffice it to say that Forks hasn’t gone crazy with it. The motel we are at does, however, include such a thing as a “Twilight room,” which vaguely disgusts me and I'm just pleased that we're not in it. At least there are no giant cardboard character cutouts. Being on solid ground for so long is as disorienting as getting on a ship for the first time; I’d become so accustomed to the gentle rocking that I’ve found myself swaying back and forth to accommodate a nonexistent tilt.
     
    -----Forks is one of those places that seems to lack an outer sense of civic pride. I’m almost certain that the only reason that the place is clean is because it constantly rains. When you look up the best place to eat in Forks, it tries to send you to a place thirty-odd miles away. Thus it was with trepidation that, after laundry, we went to eat at a local pizza place. Much like Haines, though their economy depends on tourism, they don’t seem particularly friendly as a group. Our pizza, when it arrived, was average. It was cooked all the way through, but the tomatoes tasted highly canned. As the locals poured in and the babies began to scream, we left for the next-door supermarket/hardware store for a replenishment of our water and Gatorade supplies, and we even found some of my dad's lovely favorite maple cookies, which we figured would only be found north of the border. (We got three boxes and have consumed one already.)
     
    -----Tomorrow: the Hoh Rainforest, one of the oldest in America, before making our way east to the state capital of Olympia.
  8. Sumiki
    -----Our alarms went off at our now-usual time of 6:00—10:00 to our Eastern Time-aligned bodies—and we readied and packed and left for the lobby a little before 7:00. Our earliness was a necessity, as the tour van had pulled up before its scheduled arrival at 7:15. We were introduced to our tour guides: the first had moved to Alaska at age 18 and had spent time as a jack-of-all-trades, and the second, who was a dead ringer for Xaeraz's dad, served as a secondary guide when the first needed a break from the narrating.
     
    -----Our tour mates on the route were two older couples, one from Louisiana and the other from Chicago. The latter we'd seen eating at Fast Eddy's, as they'd stayed in Tok the same day as we had.
     
    -----The Fairbanks area is spread-out, and on the way out, our first stop came at a spot near the Alyeska Pipeline, where the informational signs told us a bit about the pipeline's construction and the methods used to combat permafrost and earthquakes. The road was four-lane at that point, but it thinned to two as we exited. This was the Elliott Highway, a twisting and turning "paved" road whose potholes and frost heaves proved to be far worse than the unpaved parts we were soon to encounter. The driver knew the road from having driven the route several hundred times, and as such knew from instinct which frost heaves could be taken at full speed, but those of us who were unfortunate enough to be stuck in the back two rows felt the full airborne brunt of these launches. But hey—it's their suspension taking a beating, and we got what amounted to a free visit to the chiropractor, so it all evens out in the end.
     
    -----Throughout the entire drive, we got an in-depth look into the rich history of Alaskan life and politics, including the history of the pipeline and the associated haul road that became the Dalton Highway. The Dalton was only opened to public travel in sections, and it's only relatively recently in the highway's short history that they've allowed non-industrial traffic all the way up to the Prudhoe Bay area. By all accounts, there is nothing in Prudhoe Bay for tourists and life up on the North Slope amounts to an endless industrial wasteland.
     
    -----Initially only known as the North Slope Haul Road and least commonly as its official number as Alaska Route 11, the Dalton Highway runs for over 400 miles from Livengood Junction, around 80 miles northwest of Fairbanks, all the way up Deadhorse near the Arctic Ocean, where the oil companies control access to the Arctic Ocean itself at a rate of—at least, at one point—around $50 a head. Along the Dalton, there are only two places to get gas, with one—the Hilltop—near the beginning of the Elliott, sort of an honorary Dalton gas station.
     
    -----We caught the crackle of CB radio signals from truckers, and we overheard their interesting conversations before passing them, when they wished us a safe travel. We bumped and bounced along the pavement we learned that, with the decline of oil prices, Alaska's budget more or less ran out and only the most critical road fixes are put into place. Thus, they're perfectly fine with letting the paved Elliott and the few paved parts of the Dalton deteriorate and revert to their gravelly origins, but they both need to stay open for the trucks; anything that shuts down the Dalton for any length of time is either a state emergency or treated as seriously as such.
     
    -----The unpaved Dalton Highway was actually in much, much better condition overall than what little they'd paved, and it got to the point that the passenger contingent collectively held its breath when we went back onto pavement, as strange as that is to say. But the Dalton unpaved sections are also nothing like the awful gravel breaks that dot the Alaska Highway, as the Dalton is packed down with heavy machinery of all sorts, to say nothing of the heavy machinery on the trucks that use it. It's mostly compacted mud with enough gravel and chemical treatment to hold it together. Despite the scenery, one is never far removed from respecting the Dalton as first and foremost a haul road, which includes radioing possible oncoming truckers over blind hills and pulling off to the side to allow them the right-of-way.
     
    -----We stopped at enough pull-offs to stretch our legs and to keep from being overly jiggled from an accumulation of bumps in the backseat. It began to rain off and on, generally stopping before a pull-off only to begin anew once we exited the van. Liquid sunshine did little to dampen our lively spirits and livelier conversations.
     
    -----One of the nicest places we turned off at was just past the long, sloping, and narrow Yukon River Bridge, where a small information center staffed by a member of the Bureau of Land Management and a few informational signs lay. We'd crossed a narrower (and presumably deeper) part of the Yukon just outside of Whitehorse, but this was the Yukon resplendent, with a wide girth and quick flow that carried whole tree trunks like toothpicks in its gentle rush. The rain was of little concern, but the wind was absolutely biting, going right through our parkas, hoodies, and shirts. As for our jeans, we might as well have been wearing shorts; only long underwear would have made a dent in the wind chill's bite.
     
    -----Sixty miles past the Yukon River Bridge lies the Arctic Circle, and the weather steadily worsened the further we went. The rain turned the highway, usually packed down with calcium chloride, into a pasty mud that stuck to whatever it could get ahold of and then almost immediately thereafter hardened. By the time we stopped at Finger Mountain, 17 miles shy of the Circle, there was a layer of mud buildup so thick and even that the license plate was barely discernible, and the rear window and taillights were completely caked. By the time we were on the way out, we could run our hands over it and it wouldn't come off, and the few flakes around the wheel wells came off in hardened chunks.
     
    -----Finger Mountain was where we really took a hit from the cold. There are still thick snowbanks at that latitude, one of which we traversed on a walking trail that overlooks Finger Mountain, which is so named for a rock that looks like an upturned finger. (Exactly which finger is a matter of debate.) The mountain had been known by natives for thousands of years and was a guide from them to fur trappers to Dalton Highway engineers. One could still see for ten miles in any direction despite the cloud cover and rain, as the area was mostly tundra save for just a few hearty species that could endure the harsh, dark winters. The further north we went, the more the trees turned into one species: black spruce. From our vantage point, we could see hoodoo-esque granite formations that dot the landscape, known as tors, of which the most notable one is the namesake of Finger Mountain.
     
    -----When the oil money flowed into Alaska's budget, they'd had enough to throw at a project to pave sections of the Dalton Highway, but since oil prices dropped, the sections are simply torn apart when they get too damaged instead of the constant repaving that would only get frost-heaved into oblivion in a matter of one season. It was the worst and most bumpy section and included signs for sections of the highway given nicknames by the ice road truckers, such as Beaver Slide. (An earlier section, called the Roller Coaster, went down and then up at such a precipitous angle that, while it may not have been the maximum 16% grade of the highway, it sure felt to be at least close.)
     
    -----At long last, mile 117 got us to the Arctic Circle, a truly triumphant moment after such an adventurous ride. It is, perhaps, the only reason for any non-trucker to travel the Dalton; access to the Arctic Ocean means paying steep prices to oil companies to whom we've already paid great dividends through our gasoline purchases. The road is nothing if not a grind; one really has to want to endure its conditions in order to make it to that sign separating the far north from the True North.
     
    -----We did not spend a great deal of time in the true Land of the Midnight Sun, for in true Alaskan rest stop fashion, no trees have been cut to allow for any sort of view. Had it been clearer, we might have caught a glimpse of the Brooks Range, far to the north, where the Dalton continues via the treacherous Atigun Pass. After seeing what the first hundred or so miles had in store, we were all quite happy to have our northward journey end there. Even our guide, a hardened veteran of everything Alaskan bush life has to offer, said that he'd never gone past the Circle while on the Dalton because he recognized the sheer futility of a non-trucker making it to Deadhorse. (He's still going with his wife later in the year because Prudhoe Bay is on her bucket list, but otherwise he couldn't care less.)
     
    -----After waiting behind a bus of excited tourists, we got our pictures made at the Arctic Circle sign and then headed to a nearby campground for hot cocoa and homemade beef stew, both of which was serviceable. However, upon doling out the cocoa, it began to rain enough that the tour guides made the executive decision to have everyone eat in the car, which was alright by all of us. They handed out bags of food for the return trip (featuring a ham sandwich, some pretzels, and a bag of peanuts) and presented placards that certified that all of us had indeed made it to the Arctic Circle.
     
    -----Our tour guide said that in all of the times he's taken groups to the Circle, he'd been stunned by the few times it'd rained there. It could be pouring at Beaver Slide just a few miles south, he told us, but it rarely rained at the Circle. Our group made for the third time he'd seen it do so, and he said that our rain was by far the worst. The road turned into little more than a grooved mud pit, once again sucking you back into the harsh reality that, unlike such roads as the Beartooth Highway, Teton Pass, or even the Alaska Highway, it's not a journey that allows you to wax poetic a great deal. It's an industrial road that happens to cut through beautiful territory, and it's not designed for travelers to see great vistas; even the rolling tundra is most always interrupted by evidence of the ever-present pipeline. The beautiful and eerie wilderness, devoid of any sign of life save for the cold industry of the pipeline, imprints upon its passengers a gratefulness at not having to drive the thing.
     
    -----It's fitting that these roads have names out here in the wild northwest. Their numbers mean little to anyone, and their names mean that they are like personalities of the landscape, easy in some places and temperamental in others. One does not drive a road like the Dalton; one negotiates with it and gets to know it well enough to coerce it into doing what you want. In an odd way, it encourages a personal relationship with the few roads that link the towns that dot the landscape.
     
    -----We stopped once again at the Yukon River, this time across the road from the turnout we'd stopped at on the way up. Our guide wanted to catch up with some old friends, which turned out to be a mother and son who came from a family who built a cabin up the Yukon River and only accessible by hike and boat in the summer and snowmobile in the winter. The son, who called himself "Yukon Jeremy," had wild eyes, beard, and teeth, and makes for one of the Alaska's kookiest characters. As other members of the group spent time around the small shack where they sold handcrafted trinkets, we went down to the shore of the Yukon River to soak the beauty in once again.
     
    -----The Yukon River camp is one of the scant few gas stops along the highway, as they're placed in optimal locations for the truckers. From the Yukon River, it's over a hundred miles down south to the Hilltop Truck Stop along the first few miles of the Elliott Highway much closer to Fairbanks than the rugged pavement drop-off that defines the southern terminus of the Dalton. While the co-guide advised all travelers to get gas in Alaska everywhere you can find it, our intrepid driver trudged on.
     
    -----We left the Dalton and got back onto the rough pavement of the Elliott and managed to make it all the way until 17 miles north of Fairbanks, when our tour guide abruptly announced, in an incredibly crestfallen and embarrassed voice, than the van had run out of gasoline. We sputtered to a stop and pulled off on the side of the road as much as possible. He got his phone out and was able to contact a friend who lived in a rural subdivision outside Fairbanks to get to us with a five-gallon tank, and while we were promised 15 minutes until rescue, it was nearly 45 before he finally arrived. Attempting to actually get the gas inside was another problem, as the van—either as a fuel theft deterrent or simply a matter of design—needed either a pressurized fuel nozzle (as would be found at a pump) or a special nozzle to keep the line open for manual refueling. Not having yet consulted the owner's manual, our guide got fed up after several minutes of dealing with the slow drip that he began to try and start it up, but the engine would not turn over.
     
    -----It became a team effort to scour the vehicle for the nozzle, and eventually it was located and utilized. As fueling commenced, the mood was light; despite over an hour being stopped, we kept ourselves entertained between the constant fight against mosquitoes and the ever-growing supply of van inside jokes. The gentleman from Louisiana was getting especially punchy, his wife kept laughing every time I mentioned Big Daddy's Barbecue (a place highly regarded by both tour guides), and my dad once pranked one of the guides by putting eye drops in and then pretending that he had been crying, which is one of those things that was a heck of a lot funnier in the moment than can ever be adequately described.
     
    -----Once all five gallons had been emptied into the tank, the engine was fired up and we squeaked up the hill to the Hilltop station, where the van was fully fueled before coming back into Fairbanks and dropping us off in the order in which we had been picked up. It was nearing 9:00, and while the sun was still high enough in the sky to pass for mid-afternoon, Big Daddy's Barbecue was open until 10. We got back to the room, dropped off our stuff, figured out where Big Daddy's was, and got there by 9:15.
     
    -----Alaska consists primarily of transplants, and this holds especially true for metropolitan regions. While this cuts down on genuine Alaskan culture, it means that, for instance, when a sign says "barbecue," they mean business. Our "Carolina platters" had some of the best barbecue I've had on any trip and rivaled anything in North Carolina as well. Their blackened parts—usually charred—were as juicy and tender as the meat itself, and made for such a heavenly bite that I actually cried a single tear of joy. Their meat portions—a full half pound, going by their menu—were served on what appeared to be a pancake but upon closer inspection was in fact a corn cake, and it tasted like thin cornbread. It made for a wonderful complement to a wonderful barbecue that was excellent enough as as a solo act.
     
    -----The transplant nature meant that a lot of the folks there are actually from the South; a fellow who was cleaning up heard the tail end of one conversation and nearly correctly guessed our Carolinian origins, while our Tennessee-born waitress also immediately caught on as well. (What little twang we have must echo quite a bit.) While the radio pumped out country songs I hate interleaved with pop songs that I also hate, I didn't care. It was nice to have multiple glasses of sweet tea that's actually, y'know, sweet for a change.
     
    -----I'm finishing up typing this at past midnight here, and it's still bright enough outside to walk a dog—and there's something wonderfully unsettling about that fact.
     
    -----Tomorrow: we explore Fairbanks a bit more.
  9. Sumiki
    -----A long-awaited sleeping-in session commenced into the morning hours, and upon awakening at around 10:00 we prepared for a day on the town in the Yukon capital. Our first stop was at the Yukon Transportation Museum, which is adjacent to the Whitehorse airport. It's extremely noticeable for the enormous DC-3 perched outside on a pivot, which is their weathervane. We admired it for a while, despite the biting cold wind, before going to the door of the museum.
     
    -----To our surprise, it's not considered late enough in the month of May for them to be open every day, so we though that we had to console ourselves with the outdoor exhibits. We took pictures of ourselves on a rusty old small-gauge railway locomotive used during the early days of transportation infrastructure in the Yukon during the Gold Rush years. Fortunately, when a big truck pulled up, a man got out and told us that we could go into the museum; although technically closed, they still would let tourists in upon a knock. There appeared to be only one employee: a girl who operated the gift shop. She let us in and gave us a few pointers as to where to go first.
     
    -----The highlight of the museum are the two epic hangars filled to bursting with cars and trains and historical figures important to getting around in the territory. The rough-hewn nature of its inhabitants struck us as morbidly hilarious, such as sending a tiny rail car with men inside down the treacherous White Pass & Yukon Railway line as a daily condition check.
     
    -----Beyond this hangar lay the real hangar, colder due to the open door on the far side, which held more modern bits of equipment whose oldest vehicles dated to the ALCAN and CANOL projects. While the ALCAN is best known for giving birth to the Alaska Highway and changing the nature of the far northwest forever, the CANOL—short for Canadian Oil—was a lesser-known side project that brought in crude oil from Norman Wells in the Northwest Territories down to a Whitehorse refinery. The project was abandoned for being much too costly after World War II ended, but its transportation legacy lives on; the rough "Canol Road" is maintained—barely—by the Yukon government in the summers, and the lessons learned brought new technological innovations to the region.
     
    -----We briefly toured the outside exhibits, but the wind chill made things feel just a few degrees above freezing and the overcast weather overhead did not help. Thus, we climbed back in the car and went downhill to the city center of Whitehorse, which is a cute little frontier town whose ordinances dictate nothing over four floors and for whom rugged history is something to embrace.
     
    -----We drove through the A&W in town to try their onion rings; we'd seen the stores all over Canada but today would be one of our last chances at actually going by. The reason why is that I'd heard good things about their onion rings, and I agree with the assessment that they're chronically underrated. They were not greasy, which is a fault in most onion rings.
     
    -----Our next stop was at the MacBride Museum of Yukon History. While the outside is undergoing construction and renovation, much of the museum is accessible—save for Sam McGee's Cabin, which once belonged to the namesake of the Robert Service poem. Service got the idea for "The Cremation of Sam McGee" from a conversation he'd had with someone else, and then used McGee's name for its poetic cadence.
     
    -----While the MacBride Museum ostensibly covers all of Yukon history, the main focus is on the times since the Gold Rush. A gallery of taxidermied northern animals leads the way to a downstairs gallery on the Alaska Highway, while a separate building covers the details of the wild and wacky lives of early settlers and pioneers. You've got to be a little bit off in the head to leave behind everything to go to a desolate and unforgiving place, and indeed the characters about whom we read lived up to every anticipation. Their nicknames alone (such as Soapy Smith) are enough to tell you of the interesting lives these people led.
     
    -----The names of the pioneers who came to the land to prospect and survey are forever immortalized in the towns and highways and ferries that dot the landscape. These include George Black, once the Speaker of the Canadian House of Commons who had raised up a regiment from the sparsely populated Yukon to fight in the first World War. His wife Martha abandoned two of her kids and divorced her first husband to travel with her brother to the Yukon.
     
    -----After the MacBride Museum, we went to Klondike Rib & Salmon, a quaint little place located in one of the two oldest buildings in Whitehorse, dating from 1900. The place has grown up around it and integrates new construction in a way that makes the whole thing feel like an eclectic cabin. Advertised as a "Taste of the Yukon," their menu does not disappoint; there was everything from halibut dip to falafels. There's even sweet tea, something we've not seen as an option since Tennessee—although we opted for lemonade from their balsa-wood drink menu.
     
    -----I got a burger which had a custom patty of bison, elk, and wild boar meats. The taste was something I couldn't quite place, but it was a muted gamey smokiness. The richness was compounded with cheese, bacon, several onion rings, plus strips of pickles, a huge tomato, and more lettuce than I knew what to do with, all on a thick pretzel bun that made for a sandwich that was so large that only half of it could fit in my fully unhinged mouth with a single bite. I was full by the time I finished the burger and had little room left for the delicious (and obviously fresh) fries.
     
    -----My dad had the salmon dip while my mom got the halibut dip. Each came with a large buttery hunk of focaccia bread that soaked the excess cream, served in skillets. Artichokes and onions complemented the fish in the cream sauce.
     
    -----[side note: I've always sort of felt like the Yukon was Canada's Idaho. Both are a) vaguely triangular, b) in the northwestern quadrant of their respective countries, c) associated with potatoes, and d) mostly completely uninhabited.]
     
    -----After a little more rest and relaxation in the room, we struck back out down the hill into town to do a little more sightseeing. We went to Shipyards Park, where we layered up with our hoodies and raincoats for the intermittent precipitation and the biting wind, and were able to see a bit of the Yukon River. After returning to the warmth of the car, we went to Rotary Peace Park, where we were able to walk down to the Yukon River on a bed of smooth rocks. Across from this park was the S.S. Klondike, an old-fashioned steamboat, which—while closed—still struck a striking picture against the distant Whitehorse cliffs.
     
    -----Tomorrow: Alaska.
  10. Sumiki
    -----The road so far has constituted what is essentially the first leg of the trip: the journey to Milepost 0 of the Alaska Highway. With today we entered what we called "Milepost territory" in that our entire route was contained within the latest volume of the road map collection that prides itself as "The Bible of North Country Travel."
     
    -----8:00 AM saw my dad travel to the dealership in Whitecourt for an oil change and routine inspection that we'd had planned since we were well in the States. By the time he returned around an hour later, he reported that everything with the vehicle was good and that he'd made friends amongst the mechanics, who told him that they get a lot of vehicles from the States passing through en route to Alaska.
     
    -----With a clean bill of health for the vehicle, we struck out for British Columbia. Our first stop of the day was over an hour in, when we stopped for a top-off of gas in Valleyview, Alberta, which would enable us to get all the way to our destination without stopping in the larger city of Grande Prairie.
     
    -----There is a gas station in Valleyview that touts itself on having an excellent bathroom, which continues a theme throughout the northern slice of the western provinces. They're very proud of their winners and runner-ups in a very competitive yearly event, in which theirs was the 2013 winner—and boy, did it show. The stalls had wooden doors, there were chandeliers, and there was fancy tile and granite. It was a chaise lounge away from charging admission.
     
    -----And this wasn't just the inside of any old gas station. It was closer to a general store. In addition to the goodies found in any convenience stop, they sold button-up shirts, novelty socks, NFL hats, a full cafeteria's worth of meats and sandwiches with booths at which to eat their goodies, and much more. Our lunch was a small sampling of their wings, which, while small, were surprisingly good.
     
    -----Outside the station, as my dad began to climb into the driver's seat, a man came up to him and began a sales pitch about an all-natural car cleanser. Initially intrigued by the possibility of acquiring some to finish our heretofore pointless squeegee search, he went over to their tent which they'd pitched outside the store and managed to get a deal; we ended up getting two bottles of the stuff (which actually does work and will help on dustier points north) for half of their initially absurd asking price. As it turns out, one of the four entrepreneurs who started the thing had a relative in Raleigh.
     
    -----We continued on the road past Valleyview, where we picked up a great many trucks en route to Grande Prairie. But while the direct route would have taken us through the city, the fastest route was a straight shot around as provided by secondary roads. These roads took us over hill and dale, past prairies demarcated for use as ranches, farms, and oil fields, on what must have been one of the straightest roads I've ever seen. The only variation in its path, aside from the constant rolling hills and the ever-increasing bumpiness of the roads themselves, was around one single lake.
     
    -----We rejoined Route 34 westbound and found ourselves not far from the British Columbia border. It began to rain as we found ourselves in decidedly more hilly and mountainous country as the fields of the titular Grande Prairie fell away to more lush forests. Yet as we climb north, the nature of the forests change; within a day or so, the last of the skinny deciduous trees will give way to a sea of evergreens.
     
    -----Within short order we passed through the village of Pouce Coupe, which is one of the great town names in all of Canada. But our time in its quaint surroundings were short-lived, as we soon made it to Dawson Creek: mile 0 on the Alaska Highway. Two signs mark the beginning; the first, at the actual site of the beginning of construction, welcomes travelers to the world-famous Alaska Highway, while the second—in the middle of an intersection in the small downtown—is a reconstruction of the actual monument at milepost 0 which used to be at the first location before it was destroyed by a drunk driver not too long after the highway opened.
     
    -----We exited the car to get pictures and to stretch our legs around the small museum that adjoins the welcome center. Of all things, the previous visitors to log their names in the guest book are also from North Carolina. Much of the information about the construction of the Alaska Highway—known as the "ALCAN" to the military when it was built—was what we already knew, but it was nonetheless still astounding. In eight months, the crew built, logged, blasted, and problem-solved their way over a thousand-plus miles of theretofore barely charted terrain. It stands among the foremost engineering achievements of the twentieth century, and it is a testament to the urgency of their initial mission that the road, though long since built, was only fully paved in the recent decades.
     
    -----Dawson Creek also exploded in the 1940s when a fire got into a building that contained improperly stored dynamite. Without a central firefighting system in place, many believed that the entire town would burn. In the aftermath, martial law was declared, and today only one building stands from before the explosion.
     
    -----No such eventfulness happened to us during our time in Dawson Creek; we were happy to have made it to such a momentous occasion on the trip, but our day's drive was not yet complete. We struck out north on the Alaska Highway towards our ultimate destination of Fort Saint John, only to find an inordinate number of trucks coming in the opposite direction. The path between the two cities is so well-traveled that the authorities are in the process of making the route between them four lanes. Aside from the nature of the trees, it was indistinguishable from a route in many of the contiguous 48.
     
    -----We deftly avoided the few present potholes and gave oncoming trucks as wide a berth as possible, but we soon slowed and presently came to a complete stop. We even turned off the engine as we saw a cavalcade of vehicles coming in the opposite direction. We went forward perhaps half a mile before stopping again, and then finally we were sent forward for good. Road construction—ever-present amidst the forces of nature this far north—made for one-directional travel up and down what is known by locals as Taylor Hill but what reasonable folks like us would call a big freakin' mountain. The grades reached 10% at maximum, but most of the drive wasn't as steep and in many places we could simply coast. The most horrible thing was what awaited us at the bottom of this "hill:" a long bridge, slanted uphill, with metal grates for a driving surface. This was not particularly pleasant, but made the blacktop on the other side feel all the sweeter. Before we knew it, we had come into Fort Saint John.
     
    -----One does not realize how clean and neat roads are further south. Dust and grime and dirt are ever-present, as many locals use unpaved roads as a matter of course. How well one drives has no impact on how dirty one's car gets; before long, everything has a layer of grime. The route to our hotel—which is all but right on the Alaska Highway—featured multi-lane roads with no markings as to the differentiation of various lanes.
     
    -----Our vehicle, which is of considerable relative size in the contiguous 48, is now dwarfed by the immensity of the trucks with which we find ourselves surrounded. It makes it easier to park because all of the parking lot spaces are built for these enormous trucks—that is, when we can actually see the spaces.
     
    -----The ladies at the front desk of our hotel said that Fort Saint John did not have very many local places; indeed, it's of a very industrial nature. We ended up at Original Joe's, which was a bit of a bar-and-grill. It didn't have very many patrons, which allowed us to establish rapport with our gregarious Australian waitress. She admitted that the only reasons anyone ends up in Fort Saint John was for love or money, and in her case it was the former—but the plethora of oil industry jobs in the area mean that many are here for the latter. We discussed the hilarious umpiring of Australian-Rules Football, why they call Taylor Hill a hill and not a mountain, and other timeless subjects of interest.
     
    -----I got a massive Caesar salad with a grilled chicken breast and a single garlic breadstick, and all of it was quite good. I've always thought that restaurants could be judged on the quality of their croutons, and I have reason to believe that theirs were made from day-old garlic breadsticks. I wolfed it all down in short order and then finished what my mom didn't want of her bruschetta chicken pasta with a pesto cream sauce, which was quite tender and excellent as well. My dad got what he'd been seeing grazing out in the fields all day: a slice of tender, succulent, perfectly cooked Alberta beef and a skewer of shrimp. On the side, he got cole slaw in lieu of broccolini, and I'm not sure whether this is because of how much he likes cole slaw or because he's not sure what broccolini is. (To be fair, I'm not entirely sure either. It sounds vaguely like a genetic experiment.)
     
    -----For dessert, my dad and I split "dirt pie," which is the local equivalent of mud pie. It came in two solid square logs with about an inch of diameter, and it had chocolate ice cream and maple ice cream blocks interleaved with chocolate wafers. I'm not usually a fan of darker chocolates, but in the case of the dirt pie I made a rousing exception.
     
    -----It was during this meal that my dad recalled a box of maple cookies that we'd gotten at yesterday's impromptu Wal-Mart run in North Battleford. We'd finished them off in the car that very same day and he'd been talking about them ... well, not constantly, but often enough to be annoying. Thus, after dinner, we went across the road to ... a Wal-Mart.
     
    -----We do not eat out often—if at all—at home. Furthermore, I cannot tell you the last time I've been in a Wal-Mart at home. We go to the ends of the continent to do the kinds of things that most people do much more often, which tells you everything you need to know about the nature of the whimsical misadventures that we get up to.
     
    -----We avoided piles of broken glass and potholes the size of ATVs to get to the Wal-Mart, where we bought two boxes of these maple cookies and one box of fully cooked, sealed-up, ready-to-eat bacon, partially because we need meaty supplies for points north and partially because we can drag the box all the way to the Arctic Circle for a picture in honor of the fully cooked bacon we hauled around—without consuming—on the first Great American Road Trip.
     
    -----Tomorrow: our first full day on the Alaska Highway north to Toad River. We may not have Internet access, but an entry will still be written for posting at a later date should such a situation occur.
  11. Sumiki
    -----Sleeping in in St. Cloud was a great help, and we got up at 8:00 and left by 10:00. We took I-94 westbound and traveled to the Fargo metropolitan area. Our return to Fargo was marked with a return to a Jimmy John's at which we'd eaten on our second trip in 2013. It was not raining this time, which made for an easier journey, and we were able to go the speed limit, which was a whopping 75 MPH.
     
    -----We continued on I-94 due west until we reached the city of Jamestown, where we split north on US-52. There was a slow rise throughout this journey; regardless of whether we traveled north, west, or northwest, we were always going up—although sometimes imperceptibly so. Sometimes it was by just a degree or two, but it was always uphill.
     
    -----This went on for hundreds of miles as we traversed US-52's two-lane blacktop, working our way past derelict towns with unusual names that seemed deserted for everything but the fact that there were some people still living there. The terrain was also surprisingly hilly; one tends to think of the plains as being ... well, plains, but these are not. Low-lying areas are oftentimes filled with standing water.
     
    -----After passing such quasi-quaint villages, we made it to the southern outskirts of Minot, and I cannot say with a straight face that it's particularly pleasant-looking on a Sunday evening. We took one look at the deserted buildings and graffitied dumpsters and went through a mess of abandoned downtown road construction areas on the way to the northern end of town. Sunday evening meant that most stores were closed and the whole place had the aura of a ghost town; I'm sure we'd have a different opinion of the place had we come in the middle of the week.

    -----Fortunately, a Jimmy John's was within our sights. We parked next to a large truck with its windows down and its engine on ... but with no driver. Once we exited the Jimmy John's armed with some sandwiches, we noticed the Jimmy John's delivery sign affixed to the truck's roof. Apparently, turning the engine over before delivering a "Freaky Fast" sandwich would simply take too long.
     
    -----Tomorrow: we cross the border and travel to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
  12. Sumiki
    -----Our phone alarms went off at seven o'clock in the morning, and after a requisite five minute snooze, coffee was acquired and the day began. We managed to leave Knoxville at 9:00, bearing north for the Kentucky border.
     
    -----Our goal was to get to Cincinnati a little after lunchtime, and the drive was uneventful until we got to the Cincinnati metropolitan area. Our first stop was lunch at Taste of Belgium, an establishment that prides itself on its waffles. It's extremely European; flatscreen televisions flash quotes from cyclists with unpronounceable names interleaved with their list of 40+ draft beers.
     
    -----Most oddly, this location—one of a handful in the Cincinnati area—has these bizarre looping animations that are projected onto the walls. A pair of immense disembodied lips painted the colors of the Belgian flag is the first to greet you once you can get your eyes off their fist-sized scones. The one that truly scarred us was one that I don't think I can describe on BZPower, but suffice it to say that it was outside the bathrooms. Let your mind fill in the blank.
     
    -----While its location in a more businesslike, upscale district subtly clashed with our basic attire of t-shirt and jeans, the food itself did not disappoint. I got the Waffles and Chicken, which is their spin on the classic. The money they spent to get their custom waffle iron shows; it was like a crunchy cake and it went very will with the hot sauce-infused chicken. (At least, they said there was hot sauce in it; all I tasted was the syrup.) Alongside, a small salad featured hidden blue cheese crumbles.
     
    -----My dad got a spin on the famous Louisville Hot Brown, where they somehow stuffed a waffle in amidst the cheese and turkey and bacon and tomato. (What amazes me is that such a thing is not called "the cardiologist's nightmare.") My mom got a sandwich where the bread was—you guessed it—a waffle! Ham, brie cheese, apple slices, and an unidentified pesto rounded out its contents. Overall, we got perfectly sized proportions.
     
    -----It had been an ordeal to properly parallel park outside Taste of Belgium, but once situated, we were primed for our second stop as well: Great American Ball Park, home of the Cincinnati Reds. With no game, much of the park was closed, but we were able to walk up to the main gates and peer into the park. On the way out, we meandered by the team store, where we got a pennant for the collection and a big floppy hat with a distressingly large Mr. Redleg on the side, replete with his handlebar mustache and soulless, gaping eyes. (Rest assured that this hat will be seen in this year's Hatpile.) We even got a few lunch recommendations from locals who were unaware of our current state of waffle-induced gastrointestinal contentment.
     
    -----There were a number of people selling things outside the main gate, where a bronze bust of Johnny Bench mid-throw greets fans. My mom, in front of this oblivious crowd, did her fake-kiss routine to the larger-than-life statue. After stopping by the Reds Hall of Fame and learning that we didn't have enough time to properly tour it, we went back towards the statue where my mom decided that one picture was not enough, and so we re-enacted the unusual scene a grand total of three more times. Fortunately for us, the assembled throng was entirely inattentive.
     
    -----Cincinnati is not a city one hears much about, and it truly surprises. It's very hilly, approaching San Francisco in spots, and though it is a Big City in every sense, it's got a great sense of small-town about it. They've gone to great lengths to revitalize a lot of the area, and the result is a town that feels much smaller than it is, with unusual architecture, actual parking spaces, and an aura of friendliness and walkability.
     
    -----We were close to the waterfront and our next stop took us around the city towards the northern suburbs to the William Howard Taft National Historic Site. While Taft is best known to the American public for the apocryphal story of getting stuck in the White House bathtub, his career as a diplomat and public servant shaped the country in many ways. His greatest career accomplishment, by his own estimation, was as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and to this day he is the only person to have been both Chief Justice and President. He was seen as a keen diplomat who kept Washington operating when President Roosevelt was out of town. He broke up more trusts than Teddy did and refused to take corporate money, although his less than fiery rhetoric on the campaign trail drove a wedge between the two, who had previously been close friends. Before Taft's term, Teddy believed that he could be one of the greatest presidents; by the end, Teddy was running as a third party because he found Taft ineffective.
     
    -----The site, nestled into the hills around Cincinnati (constituting its first suburb), was somewhat difficult to get into and out of (as there are a grand total of six parking spaces), but we got out and wormed our way back into the downtown area through an area most generously described as "artsy." Our goal was an early supper at Senate Pub, little more than a hole in the wall and known for their local ingredients in utterly unique hot dogs. We arrived when it opened and got three dogs: a classic Chicago, one called a "Trailer Park dog," which featured slaw and crushed-up (local-brand) potato chips, and one called the "Shia LaBeouf," formerly known as the "Lindsay Lohan," which is basically an arugula salad with balsamic vinegar and goat cheese atop the dog. Each hot dog was a whopping half-pound of beef, grilled to smoky perfection, and each was on a locally baked brioche bun. We split each in three and shared, and while I loved each one, the Shia LaBeouf was by far my favorite because I just love goat cheese that much.
     
    -----Our side? Duck fat fries served with harissa aioli. No fry can compete. My dad sampled their version of tea, but alas, we are not in the South were "tea" means "leaf-flavored sugar water." It was good enough for me to dump what remained of his sample into my freshly squeezed lemonade, and it made for a top-notch Arnold Palmer.
     
    -----On the way out, we talked to a fellow I can only assume to be the manager, who described in some detail their process of using local ingredients.
     
    -----Tomorrow: Rockford, Illinois.
  13. Sumiki
    -----Alaska has always been a very romanticized place in my mind, as there are very few places in the world that are like it. I've been fascinated by it since I knew of its existence, although at first I just thought it was cool because it was on the same continent as the 48 contiguous states but remained staunchly separate from its kin. Both Alaska's scale and ostensible nothingness intrigued me, especially when I first saw it overlaid on the familiar US outline. It seemed almost too good to be true, in a way; too ideal and pristine a landscape for me to consider it reality.
     
    -----Today, Alaska is still the ultimate wilderness, the ultimate destination and about as remote as you can get on the entire North American continent. It is a fantastical playground, full of untamed wilds and days that last for months. The culture of Alaska was another attraction, as its landscape and scale have contributed to the formation of an entire subculture of Americana. The Wild West may have long since been tamed, but its spirit is alive and well in the Last Frontier.
     
    -----All of which brings me to this: the ultimate road trip. Due to my college schedule and the possibility of summer internships and programs and festivals, this may very well be the last Great American Road Trip—at least for a while. A trip to Alaska is certainly the trip of a lifetime, and one that I feel honored to take simply because very few people have had even an opportunity to do so.
     
    -----I have been in each every one of the 48 contiguous United States, and I have been in nine of the ten Canadian provinces. In four years of Great American Road Trips and the Toronto trip preceding it, we’ve been over 30,000 miles. We’ve flown over the Grand Canyon, broken down in an Acadian village, witnessed my dad rubbing his beard on a reserved parking sign, and eaten more than our fair share of incredible food. The walls of our basement are adorned with pennants marking our visits to professional baseball stadiums and our Christmas tree is adorned with little else but trinkets of commemoration.
     
    -----The 49th state admitted will be the 49th state that I will have been in. We'll take the Alaska Marine Highway on the return journey, but our travel into the state will adhere to the Alaska Highway, an over-1,000-mile long strip of asphalt that has inspired legends and fueled the mystique of generations that have looked north to the future. While not as perilous as it once was—for one, it's entirely paved, which could not be said a mere thirty years ago—the "Alcan" is still no laughing matter, and myriad dangers still abound along its meandering route. The return journey will see us go across the northernmost land border crossing in the world when we take the Top of the World Highway to Dawson City.
     
    -----I've said before—both in these trip preamble entries and to members I've been fortunate enough to meet along the way—that these road trips exemplify my long-held belief that it really isn't the destination that matters. There's never been an ultimate goal for any of these trips. In essence, we've done due diligence to turn a continent into a backyard. Naming a single destination for any of these trips would be as impossible, as it would oppose their essential philosophy.
     
    -----Taken from this perspective, a trip to Alaska is fundamentally different. Our itinerary is meticulously planned and serves as the culminating point of years of research. On top of this, we have a single northernmost destination, the topmost item—in more ways than one—in my bucket list for longer than I can remember.
     
    -----I'm talking, of course, about the Arctic Circle.
     
    -----Well beyond the borders of nowhere, the Arctic Circle is the invisible line that crosses perpetually frozen tundra, delineating the true Land of the Midnight Sun from the mere Land of a Whole Lot of Sun. Getting to a place only accessible by two roads—one Alaskan, one Canadian, and neither fully paved—is daunting and more than slightly terrifying. But all that's left now is the drive itself; everything that had to be thought through has been thought through. We've got enough supplies to turn our vehicle into a mobile command post should the need arise. As my dad has said, this is a military operation in the guise of a civilian vacation.
     
    -----There are few places that remain mostly untouched by human activities and affairs, and Alaska is one of the few. It is a privilege to have the chance to drive this route, seeing wonders and experiencing life on the asphalt (and occasional gravel) far better than the sterilized pseudo-comfort that air travel affords. So much is special about Alaska and the journey there that words could not begin to describe the anticipation I feel. It's not going to be easy, but I haven't the slightest doubt that it'll be worth it.
     
    -----Wednesday—tomorrow—we leave. By the time we get back, we'll have traversed well over 10,000 miles, making this trip the most ambitious yet.
     
    -----Buckle up, BZPower. It's gonna be a whole lot of fun.
  14. Sumiki
    > HAVE TO LEARN ABOUT 50+ RENAISSANCE AND BAROQUE PIECES BY OCTOBER
    > ROUGHLY FIVE HOURS OF MUSIC IN TOTAL
    > INCLUDING COMPOSERS' FULL NAMES, DATES OF COMPOSITION, AND OTHER IMPORTANT FACTS AND FIGURES
    > CLASS TAUGHT BY INTERNATIONAL EXPERT IN EARLY MUSIC
    > WHAT IS FIXED-DO SOLFEGE? HATED BY SUMIKI, THAT'S WHAT IT IS
    > HAVE TO GET UP AT EIGHT O'CLOCK EVERY MORNING
    > HAVE TO EDIT MY 100-PAGE SYMPHONY
    > AS OF A FEW DAYS AGO I'M NOW IN A GAMELAN ORCHESTRA AS IF THE REST OF THIS ISN'T ENOUGH
  15. Sumiki
    So I've started, according to my estimation, four epics in my time on BZP. The first was this atrocious monstrosity of a story that lasted all of about three chapters and was fortunately deleted. The second was an actual attempt at a legitimate story that I started when I hit 10,000 posts. It was called Annus Mirabilis, and though the concept was (and still is, I think) quite interesting, I didn't have enough of a story planned out to make it work. The third attempt was a gritty Hero Factory reboot where the characters were a set of human vigilantes, like if the Avengers were made up of Iron Men. This too fell through because I didn't do enough planning, although it too is a concept to which I would like to return.
     
    So as you can see, one of my long-term goals was to finish an epic, and after the conclusion of the four-part Adventures of Sumiki's Dad saga in Comedies, that was the one BZP goal left that I was entirely under my control. So I made sure I sketched out every chapter in detail before writing the story proper.
     
    Just a few minutes ago, I posted the epilogue to the epic Where Words and Steps No Longer Hasten. If you've not read it and would be interested in a G1 story exploring ethics, destiny, and Matoran free will in an all-encompassing mystery, I'd encourage you to check it out.
  16. Sumiki
    HATPILE REACHES 66 HATS
    MY NECK STILL HURTS
    BRICKEENS TOUR NEVER MATERIALIZES (SORRY BRO)
    PABLO DRIVES THE FARM ANIMALS TO THE TYSON'S CORNER LEGO STORE
    A TERRIFYING EXPERIENCE TO SAY THE VERY LEAST
    XAERAZ ARGUES IN FAVOR OF THE AMERICAN PERSPECTIVE OF DEFENSIVE DRIVING
    WE LAUGHED, WE CRIED, WE FELL OVER
    XAERAZ LEAVES EARLY TO DEAL WITH HOUSEHOLD EMERGENCY
    NO ONE WINS ANY DOOR PRIZES
    VALENDALE WINS THE GHOSTBUSTERS SET
    AT ATTEMPTS TO HACK A SMALL TV
    BLACK SIX: "Galidor 2018!"
    DEEVEE: "Dream about farm animals."
    DEATH, TAXES, AND BIONICLE'S CANCELATION
    SURPRISE RUN-IN WITH Sumiki's Dad
    red axles, (!), grunts, inika torso, not a cop, frank (kooky ostrich detective), squid ammo, bzptweets
    Why must BrickFair end?

  17. Sumiki
    IT'S THE END OF THE FARM AS WE KNOW IT
    SUMIKI'S DAD APPEARS
    THE FARM ANIMALS AND FRIENDS CONVENE AT THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT
    COLOMBIAN MIME AT THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL
    THE SEARCH FOR FOOD TRUCKS ft. SEVERAL WRONG TURNS
    FOOD TRUCKS FOUND, LUNCH CONSUMED
    AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM, LADY K'S BROTHER IN AWE
    THIS ISN'T A CAR
    WALKING AROUND EVERYWHERE
    PETTY ESCALATION ft. PAT AND MADDISON VIA FACEBOOK
    GROUP SELFIES!
    AT READS EVERYTHING
    GET FUSSED AT BY OVERZEALOUS ANTI-RELAXATION SMITHSONIAN VOLUNTEER
    XAERAZ LEAVES, GROUP HUGS ENSUE
    OUR FEET REALLY HURT
    LADY K AND HER BROTHER LEAVE, HUGS ENSUE
    SUMIKI'S DAD REAPPEARS
    A FINAL GROUP PICTURE BEFORE LEAVING

    Less than a year left until it happens again! I'm very tired and sore and ate a ton of food to replenish myself for the past few days' fun. Tomorrow, a long car ride.
  18. Sumiki
    Pablo begins day by nearly shorting out his electronics
    Lady K drew the Su-MOC-i
    Saw Hevin Kinkle, achieved 3/4 Hinklefigpletion
    Two Farm Animals at Five Guys, which is honestly just plain confusing
    AT breaks the servers in the Pokémon hunt
    The hat shipment arrives from Sumiki's Dad
    Children admire a three-hat pile
    8 people, one hotel room
    Having to say "Comic Sans is awesome!"
    ANCIENT AND POWERFUL BEAR WIZARD
    ankle wrists, criminalism, jurj, lernerner, doctor whom, gregf, takuuuuuuua, bob dole!, nietzsche, lhikan't, sentient slinky riding an elevator
    GSR sweeps games
    AT abandons Farm Animals for Jared Leto, returns with Will Smith
    Sumiki finally wins
    Chinese Journey to One
    Big Buff Bismuth Puff
    Steven Universe discourse in the Barn

  19. Sumiki
    ham sandwich, pope pablo v, in&out beard, eljay's mask, adultman, onion, jaws 37, jens, 8volt train, knob hobble
    Valendale: "Bricks Out for Bionicle!"
    We all get orange 1x1s for our badges
    Even Hevin Kinkle Kevin Hinkle gets Bricked Out for Bionicle
    #dontcrinklethehinkle2k16
    BZP+TTV Panel, Maddison asked at the end if she dreams about farm animals
    Italian lunch! Three members stuffed into the hatchback of the Pablomobile
    Pablomobile is no longer Colombian soil but now features the patent-pending Curb Brakes
    Uncrinkled Hinkle lost and relocated at Italian deli
    MASKS AND GALIDOR at the YARD SARD
    Black Six on Galidor: "This is a problem"

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