Afterlife, Part II: A Conspiracy Uncovered
The second part in a trilogy is usually inferior in quality to the first and last. Think about it – all the characters are already introduced and well on their way. The plot and background have been established, all the pieces are set in motion, the conflict is clear as day. And yet, nothing of import can be resolved, no major plot twists may happen, both the heroes and the villains are mostly safe from harm, no important story line can really be tied up. After all, there needs to be a grand finale, the boss fight and a surprising twist in the third part. And so they fill Part II with chase sequences, fight scenes, meandering dialogue and pretty pictures. As will we.
Previously, on ‘Afterlife’: three generations of Schädler-Lojeks left The-Opposite-of-Hobbiton on their quest to destroy the One Bad Mood that comes with living downtown for an extended period of time. At the end of Part I, they arrived, wary but happy, in Ucluelet, where they were greeted by a pair of deer.
“Yeah, yeah. OF COURSE you were greeted by deer. Just as we ride dragons and ward off demons every day. Writing about it more often doesn’t make it one bit more believable, you know.” Well.
Agreed, there’s only one deer in this picture. The other one was further to the right.
Now that we’ve cleared that up, let’s jump right into the pretty(-enough)-pictures part. For the first days, we drove to different sections of the Wild Pacific Trail and spent some time exploring. The path always stays close to the coast, so that, time and again, you get to great open spots where you can look over the ragged cliffs onto the Pacific Ocean.
Large sections of the trail are perfectly accessible even with the stroller. Which is a good thing, because carrying Albert on my back in the sling didn’t turn out even remotely as comfortable as I would have hoped. We didn’t cover large distances, of course, and often tried to make Albert walk with us for as long as he could or would.
Pff. They said Eagles were large birds. How is that large? Their wing span is barely larger than mine, and I’m a puny human.
Albert has kind of imitated us talking for a long time, but always in a very abstract way. He would usually use either ‘Da’ or ‘Ba’, string them together endlessly and imitate our tone and speech melody. Then, one day, we’re out walking with him and a few older women pass us. ‘Hullo!’, says one of them. Albert stops in his tracks. He just stands there, looking after the women, considering what’s been said. Then, after a good amount of deliberation, he decides to loudly and clearly shout ‘Hajo Haaaajooo!’. And that was that. Our son has started talking.
Albert, walking along on the trails, found out that walking along on trails is much more fun when you pick stuff up. Pine cones were his objects of choice, but when necessity arose, he would make do with stones. Walking over a bridge, he thought it was a brilliant idea to drop the stone in the water. ‘Platsch’, I said. ‘Bliapf’, he said. And that marks the last time we were able to pass a bridge, a body of water, or stones, without Albert insisting on Bliapfing. Which is especially great on gravel paths along a lake. Yesterday, we bliapfed a shopping bag full of stones into the Lost Lagoon. Moving on, it took him all of three steps before he picked up new pebbles, pointed to the water, looked at me and demanded: ‘Bliapf!’
Okay, before it gets boring, we need to cut to another location. Because we’re two days into the Vancouver Island experience now, and haven’t even seen any beaches, right? You must have missed beaches. It’s a matter of habit. The last three dozen blog posts contained NOTHING BUT beaches. So, to make the transition to different scenery easier on you (and for that reason alone), we went to beaches. They’re not as nice in Ucluelet as they are in English Bay. Too many stones (too much Bliapf). We drove towards Tofino one day, expecting to find proper sandy beaches, only to find them all closed for construction. Bummer. Don’t let it get to you, though. There need to be a few set-backs to keep the tension high and the viewer engaged.
Funny side-note: nothing can convey the exuberant friendliness of the Canadians just like the parking ticket vending machine at one of the Pacific Rim National Park trails, a sign on which said: ‘Parking is complimentary during construction. We are sorry for your inconvenience and thank you for your patience.’ Excuse me? You’re sorry I can’t pay for a parking ticket at the moment? Yeah, you better be. Insolent little useless machine.
(Great shot, isn’t it? I like the accidental geometry here.)
If you ever need to look especially dynamic in a photo, try skimming stones. That’ll do it.
Okay, phew! Beaches: done! Back to the rain forest, where we went to a lighthouse on one day, and on an incredibly stroller-friendly boardwalk trail the next. Both were reasonably nice and quite short. The second one, though, because it was so stroller-friendly, made somewhat less of an impression.
I needed to put this in there, because it’s from the Rollei. But in this case that also means, I wasn’t able to get the angle I really wanted, so here’s another one from the Canon. 🙂 Zoom lenses ftw.
What you (luckily) don’t see in these is just how many stairs that boardwalk trail had. We didn’t count. But there were too many.
I’m going to jump around in the timeline a bit, here, if you don’t mind. It’s more convenient, so I can keep the least boring for last. On the last day, lacking anything better to do, we drove towards Tofino again. We found a nice botanical garden there, spent some time walking around. Han, the old adventurer, decided to show up out of the blue. No, not the blue, really…
Wait, is that…
Oh… my…
Is that The Crystal Skull? That one is a Han Solo movie, right? Han Solo and the Crystal Skull? Oh, no, that was Indiana Jones. But now that I mentioned it… don’t you think they look a bit alike? They even wear similar clothes. Granted, one has a blaster and the other a whip, but… might we be on to something here? A conspiracy, uncovered after decades? Might Han Solo and Indiana Jones… be ONE AND THE SAME PERSON? (Confused, wide-eyed gasps from the audience, please!)
(That’s not a turd. It’s a snail. Better, don’t you think?)
Lots of beautiful, impressive nature on the Pacific Coast, I have to say. And plenty excitement for Albert, of course. However, for us older chaps, the novelty of it all started to fade away. Because of this, my parents, Han and I decided to go on a Whale Watching tour. Agnieszka and Albert made the sacrifice to look after the condo in the meantime. But only because we can’t leave Agnieszka by herself, otherwise Albert would have come along.
They told us to wear the warmest clothes we had, and then they gave us the thickest overalls I’ve ever seen to wear on top of all those clothes, and then a proper rain coat to wear on top of the overall. We looked (and felt) like a very weird love-child of The Marshmallow Man, the crew from that horrible movie, ‘Armageddon’, and the Space Rangers. Here, see for yourselves:
That was a long post, I know. Sorry. And like any second part of a trilogy, it will end very disappointingly, just when things are starting to get interesting again. I didn’t plan to do this (well, maybe a little bit), but this has really gone on for too long, already. So I’ll leave you with an appropriate and memorable last image, one that will haunt you and gnaw at you and make you wonder about the future. For roughly a year, until the final entry in this trilogy will be released.
Our band of heroes, now separated, will have very different journeys from here on. Maybe. Possibly. They have lost The One Bad Mood somewhere along the way and are now running away from it. The larger group is heading out to sea, wondering just ‘Where lies the final harbor?’ (to awkwardly force a Melville quote in here), while the smaller fraction can but stand at the shore and follow the little boat with their gaze, until it vanishes in the mist. Or… something like that. Anyway.
