Day 81
   
   7/17/01
   Petersberg, AK
   
   We, the foot passengers of the Ferry, trudged through the dark onto
   the gangplank at Juneau about 3am, and immediately plopped down into
   whatever sleeping locations could be found.  Nobody talked, and nobody
   stirred much until late in the morning when the sun was already high
   in the sky.  But it was good weather ahead, and the day was a calm one, in
   more ways than one.
   
   It was time for me to take a day off.  Really off.  The entire trip, I
   had stopped at every exhibit, read every interpretive sign along the
   road, studied every scene, absorbed every stray scrap of local
   information I could see, and now I was cross-eyed from the overload.
   
   I was reminded of another long bike trip I had taken, the one where I
   had started in Calgary, Canada and went down the Pacific Coast.  I had
   toured every museum along the entire route, dozens of them from the
   major to the picayune, and by the time I got to San Diego I couldn't
   stomach going through another one.  I laid face down in the grass
   outside the doors, trying to drag myself inside but too burnt out to do so.
   
   I stared out the window, watching the  humpback whales cavorting
   about, doing as little as possible for the day.  I decided that even that was
   too much, so I took a nap for a couple of hours.  I played hooky from
   the Ranger's lectures.  Maybe I had gotten thrown off by the
   middle-of-the-night ferry departure, or maybe it was chronic fatigue
   syndrome or sunspots or plain old laziness, but I was in no frame of
   mind to care.
   
   So sue me!
   
   We docked at Petersburg late at night, about 11pm, for about an hour.
   There was naught to do but walk along the docks in the darkness;
   nothing was open but a solitary liquor store next to the ferry
   terminal (alcohol is a time-honored tradition in these fishing villages).  I
   walked on past the store, beside rows of street lights illuminating the night
   in vain, for not a creature stirred.  The town was asleep, and the air
   hung heavy and still along the edge of the waters.  No cars roamed the
   streets, for there was no place to go.  It was an eerie sensation
   walking along with no direct evidence that the town was still
   inhabited.  I imagined it felt like being here in mid-winter - save for 
   being about eighty degrees warmer.
   
   Cool.  Sometimes even nothing is something.

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