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At the End of a Long Drive


Shreesh and Neena Taskar

We didn't make the decision, the decision made us. On October 20th, 2007, we left our comfortable city of San Francisco to follow a simple algorithm - go North till the road ends then turn around and then go as far South. In between those two points was the stage, the timeline, the space, where we made things happen and things happened to us.

The past is fleeting and the stories, the sights and the feelings are perishable. One sees what one wants to see, and perhaps we are not capable of more. We saw that people are kind and helpful even if they were not materially rich. Some we could understand even though we didn't speak the same language, the motivations of others were incomprehensible even though we did. In the end fragments remain - the smell of roasting chocolate, a flock of snow Ptarmigians on snow, the creaking of the rainforest, the rough feathers of penguins, and the intoxication of Curanto.


So these are our stories. Every time you visit the site you will see a random post below. Each starts with Lo que pasa es que...

A Small Delay

Oct 12th, 2007 by

Shreesh Taskar

Man in a
Yellow Jacket

The schedule slips slightly. Not bad by the yardstick of Software Development.

It is now official – the October 15th departure date has now been pushed back to October 20th. The packing, planning and organizing has taken much much longer than expected. What a surprise this is! The packers are here on time but unfortunately we still have too many items on our to-do list. The extra days will also give up more time to spend with our friends here in currently rainy San Francisco.

The slip is a disappointment since each day we delay the hope for making the Peel River ferry dims and the chances of reaching Inuvik become slimmer. But we have decided that in that event we’ll go as far as we can; why cleave to some goal simply to reach just the goal? The journey is more about exploration and discovery, not meeting some arbitrary goal at some arbitrary time. I will miss seeing the Igloo Church but there is always time – time to return or get distracted by another interesting bauble. I guess if we REALLY delay we can do the ice roads, heh, heh.

I’m sure things won’t go according to plan on this trip. I hope they don’t go according to plan – if they do then they indicate a poor and restrictive plan.

6 Responses to “A Small Delay”

  1. madhuri says:
    October 12, 2007 at 3:33 pm

    The fun is definitely in the journey and not the destination. Have no idea about the places you are talking about though 🙂
    Have fun packing and teach the packers a thing or two about packing and power of mighty spreadsheets 🙂

  2. Shreesh says:
    October 12, 2007 at 9:53 pm

    Madhuri –
    I think I have over-packed. Even a bunker buster bomb couldn’t break my vases wrapped in bubble wrap, wrapped in saran wrap, surrounded by packing peanuts, and in a double thick corrugated box!

  3. Fred says:
    October 14, 2007 at 6:42 pm

    Dude,

    Did you see that guy who is taking a blimp over the North Pole for several months to map the ice? You should install a James-Bond esque Blimp gadget on the roof of the FJ then deploy it to simply fly over any northern obstacles! 🙂

    You’re welcome.

  4. Sir Rozmus says:
    October 15, 2007 at 8:30 am

    Damn, yo, that yellow jacket is fly!

  5. Shreesh says:
    October 16, 2007 at 8:00 am

    Fred –

    I don’t have enough James Bond equipment in the FJ. “More apparatus, nurse!”

  6. Fred says:
    October 16, 2007 at 4:43 pm

    And the ejection seat! I’m surprised you didn’t get one installed right away.

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