A wandering soul read my sign and said “Oysterman?” I laughed, dismissively. “Yep.” He said “Sounds like a super hero.” And a few minutes later he said “Have fun with the super hero” and walked onto the ferry with my bags. 

I looked at the ferry and was instantly transported to the Grimaldi line from Barcelona to Civitavecchia (one hour from Rome). My ticket was only about $100, to stay overnight and travel on a massive boat with a bunch of Serbs across the Mediterranean Sea. It was so much fun and I remember it vividly. I made a friend, Stefano Pianu. We helped each other get our bags to our rooms and sort out the drama of being booked double-booked with a bunch of rambunctious kid chefs. Stefano didn’t speak any English, like any, but he was Italian so he spoke Spanish and my Spanish was enough to manage with an abundance of hand gestures.

Anyway, that was a beautiful 38 hours for me. I made it to Europe, to Barcelona. A dream I’d had for at least five years. 

Eventually the (not) Oystermans appeared at my sign and said “That’s us!” They looked to be married and both seemed in good spirits. I wasn’t sure if I should expect the slumped-over exhaustion that I feel when I travel, or the exuberance you see on the faces of people who have just been let out of their routines back home, or a bit of both. But they seemed energetic and ready to take on Ketchikan, be it dark and far past the hours I care to work. 

I jumped in with “Here are my adventurers!” 

And they said “Yes, here we are.” I asked if their hand luggage was all they had. They said “Oh, no” the luggage from the ferry should come out on a cart. I could already tell that they were an effusive, energetic couple by their response.

I asked how their trip was going. The lady, blonde with glasses, started in. 

“It has been very good. We left from Ohio and drove to Toronto. We left our car with our sister-in-law who drove it back to Ohio. Then we took a train from Toronto to Jasper. And then we went from Jasper to Prince Rupert.”

“Oh wow, so you’ve been traveling for a long time?” 

“Yes, all in all we’ve only been traveling for about 4 days.” 

“You covered all that ground in 4 days?” 

“Yes!” 

“Wow this sounds like you’ve been planning for a long time.” 

The woman looked at me. 

“I’ve been planning this trip for 34 years” she said, putting emphasis on 34 years, as if a tree has grown out of her soul in those 34 years and has finally grown to size in the time that it’s taken to get here.

She said “I looked out at the ferry earlier and I started to cry!” She was being playful with her sentimentalism, as I tend to do, but I could see that her eyes were welling up beneath her glasses. 

She continued on, with the man chiming in at points: “We saw the area where the glaciers used to be but now most of it has melted. The effects of global warming!” She was very saddened by this, too, it wasn’t just a thing that she was saying just because she is in the Pacific North West and everyone here refers to global warming like they do the weather. She was concerned, saddened, possibly even going to write to her senator. 

But I noticed that there were actual misty tears gracing her cheeks as she spoke on. She eventually wiped her eyes. 

This has been the trip she has planned for 34 years. 

Maybe she feels better than a superhero.