Again Ready... Kinda

We fly out tomorrow, and I find myself more nervous about this holiday than our previous two ventures into the Great White North.  I was nervous about the Peace River section of our Alberta holiday, because I couldn't find out much about the town from teh_internets or books, but this time the whole holiday is like that.  There is no detailed Moon travel guide for the Yukon, so instead I'm relying on this travel guide by Polly Evans.  The single review of the book on Amazon is rather terse; the book itself is helpful but maybe a little out of date.

I've checked the itinerary over and over: all the flights (six of them), the car booking (just the one), the hotels/motels (only 8 this time), all of the extraneous trips, and everything looks okay.  The dates all match, the confirmations are all printed off, we've got the holiday money and traveller's cheques, passports, driving licence, the old sat nav is loaded with the Canadian road maps (there seem to be only three roads in the Yukon, not sure if we need a sat nav, or indeed if this sentence will come back to bite me on the bum)... everything is sorted on paper.

When I've booked hotels in Canada in the past, I've used on-line booking systems: simple, accurate and effective.  A number of the places I've booked in the Yukon haven't had such systems, and I've reverted to using email.  My last hotel confirmation was a delightfully quaint but not very confidence-boosting "yes you are in".

But still I feel nervous.  Is this what adventure tastes like?

For the first time since I've known her, which is over twenty years, Sandra's suitcase weighed in at (just) under the baggage limit during our test weigh-in on the bathroom scales.  A good omen?  Neither of us know what clothes to take.  Shorts?  Jumpers?  Posh clothes?  Walking gear?  We've gone for a mixture of them all, plus I've even bought a mini First Aid kit and a decent compass, not that I'm intending us to go on walks that last more than a few hours at most.  It's this whole "not knowing" thing that's making me feel apprehensive.

It's not like we're going to the Congo or anything, no canoes up an alligator-infested river, no jeeps bouncing over dirt roads, but we're still venturing out into the relative unknown.  Billy Connolly went to some of the places we're going to on his Journey to the Edge of the World tour, and he got out okay.  We'll be fine, I'm sure.

It's got all the hallmarks of an adventure.  Part of me is as nervous as hell about it and wants to stay at home, but most of me knows I would kick myself if I never did this.  We're going to see parts of the world that most people never will, that most people don't even know exist.  We're going to do things and go to places that most people never will.

I like that.  I want that.  I'm ready for that.

And so, for the third time, let's play.