Katie's first ever Dempster adventure Part Three

So where was I? Ah, yes: the music fest from a month ago. This has gone on long enough.
Which is exactly what I was thinking on my way to and from the "big event." I made it there in time to snap some photos of the band - a country/rock setup from the prairies that played Pink Floyd's "We Don't Need No Education." Not super-appropriate given the audience, I thought, but maybe I'm just losing my edge.

I can't post any of those pictures here, since the copyright belongs to my employer and posting photos taken on assignment, no matter "the hour or the camera used" has been expressly forbidden via staff memo.

Anyway, I also made friends with some little kids who were catching leeches in the lake and secretly wished someone would invite me into their camp for dryfish. Or s'mores.

It was a long, dark drive home, sprinkled with a couple skulks of almost-road-killed foxes, a bald eagle and (oh shit!) a wolf. Though I only had a little less than half a tank left upon arrival at Midway Lake, I didn't stop for gas back in Fort McPherson. I didn't want to miss the last ferry and besides, it was only four hours between gas stations and by that time I'd be home, safe and sound.

The worst thing that could happen was that I'd run out of gas and be stranded on the Dempster in the middle of the night under the almost-autumn dusk. I thought I'd wing it. That was before I encountered the wolf, obviously, or I might not have been so blindly brave.

But four hours later, around 3 a.m., with the gas meter drooped half a milimetre below the red line, I saw city lights and my tires once again felt the ecstasy of pavement.

So, my first Dempster adventure turned out to be a successful execution of beginner's luck. Just what I needed to boost my already foolhardy personal sense of invincibility. I'm not exactly looking for excuses to do it again, but I won't look for excuses not to, either. My next road trip won't be for quite a while, though, mostly due to a vehicular incident in which I had absolutely no part. But that's another story.

I still haven't checked to see whether there was actually a spare tire in the trunk. Better not to know.