I“It’s just for a photo.” “It’s just a
tiny piece.” “It’ll just be for a second.” Those were some excuses I used when
I violated a rule to get a thrill. Now at 75, I know there is no place for
this.
Snow and Ice in the Yukon
On the way to Whitehorse, the biggest
city on Alaska Highway, between Upper Liard and Rancheria, we saw rocky
embankments with many names of people assembled from rocks. We had just come from the Signpost Forest
where ours became the 67,000th addition. I was in the “leaving signs
mode” so I pleaded with Bill to stop. When
he did, I quickly collected some rocks and began to form the letters of our
names. Bill followed. But it was so time-consuming that we just did two letters:
B & C, not British Columbia, not Before Christ, but Bill and Carol.
Then I saw the sign. It said, “Take
nothing but pictures. Kill nothing but time. Leave nothing but footprints.” It
was too late. I had already committed the crime. Later, I learned that the warning
was to prevent people from displacing too many rocks because that would weaken the
wall built to protect the road from onrushing snow or ice.
The Glaciers of Alaska
A week later en route to Valdez,
Alaska, I remarked “Gosh, the glaciers are puny around here.” There were just
tiny patches of white. A few minutes later, as our 24-foot Class C RV was
negotiating a bend on the road, a white glistening mountain loomed larger and
larger. It was Worthington, a 113-acre road-accessible glacier on Richardson
Highway.
Bill was ecstatic, parked the RV, and
began to climb the ice mountain. As usual, I was not as inclined to risk the
slippery slopes and shouted for him to bring back a chunk of the glacier. He
did. But it was too late when I realized it was quite foolish to break another golden
rule, for a block of ice that will not last long anyway and only hug valuable prime
space in our RV’s tiny freezer.
The Littlest Penguins of Australia
Another opportunity to break another
rule presented itself in Melbourne, Australia while I was babysitting my
youngest grandson. Every weekend when the young parents were home, I went out to
see some sights. One of my first outings was to Philip Island, only a
one-and-a-half-hour drive from Melbourne. It’s the home of the world’s littlest
penguins, about a foot tall.
The ranger explained that the
penguins waited for dark before they came in after feeding in the ocean. They
waited for each other about a hundred meters from shore and waited to form a
group for more security against birds of prey. At 5:49 pm, when there were eight
of them, they slowly walked into the space between the two viewing platforms. The
ranger repeated the rule: No Photography Allowed. But I couldn’t help it. It
was the cutest sight. I took a shot.
The ones who did not swim to feed
came out of their burrow to join those who did. Soon they were all around,
under the boardwalk. I could not help myself and took a few more shots. I thought
I was going to get away with my crime, until a ranger approached me to say, “The
penguins do not do well with the light coming from cameras.” I felt so ashamed.
I was almost seventy but still unable to follow the rules.
They are not made to be broken. They
are there for a reason. You will be horrified at the consequences when they are
not followed. Just look at the tons of plastic floating on the Pacific Ocean. There’s
no reason for breaking rules when traveling. There is no reason at all, even
when you are not traveling.