Oh, the empty spaces where our loved ones used to be.

If the plane took off on time, Dad's been gone 22 minutes from Anchorage. I didn't cry when we hugged goodbye, nor the second time, after he showed the TSA guy his ID and then said, "One more hug!", nor when he crouched down on the escalator to keep waving goodbye, but I do admit that after I couldn't see him any more, I went to the Anchorage North Terminal women's bathroom and cried. And then as I was driving home in the Mighty Mighty Subaru, with the balding tired tires, I looked over at the empty seat next to me and I cried then too.

We did have quite a memorable weekend. I'd planned for backcountry camping in Denali with a whitewater rafting trip at the end, but I'm glad we scaled down -- turns out that my dad had been on a long business trip in Korea the night before, so he slept about 12 hours on Friday night. We did a lighter version of the Denali trip (which I can still save for bigbro now! hear that, bigbro?) in the Kenai peninsula: Saturday we drove down to Seward and pitched camp in Kenai Fjords National Park, at a campsite where the food has to be stored in a bearproof locker and you're warned not to bring anything fragrant (included moisturizer) to your tent). We then walked to Exit Glacier, a nice easy hike with a great payoff -- the end of a great big tongue of ice, moving about a foot a day.

I think my dad was a little nervous about the bear thing, 'cause he kept making comments like, "You're going to put rocks inside the tent to weight it down? Good, good. We can use them to fight the bear if he comes." It was a little nerve-wracking, the whole bear business. We'd spilled some wine in the car earlier, so the interior smelled strongly of Columbia Crest Cabernet Sauvignon, and were nervous about a bear deciding it was an interesting smell. So when I woke up at about 2 in the morning because of the cold, and because I had to use the bathroom, I lay there a long time wondering, "Maybe I can just hold it for another 5 hours." Luckily, Dad had to go too, so we went together through the near-darkness, through the trees where a hundred bears could have been hiding, to the pit toilets at the entrance of the campground. Dad was carrying a rock in his hand the entire way. Hee!

Sunday we hiked the Harding Ice Field trail, which was great and magnificent and freaking COLD. It started raining while we were admiring the edge of the 500-square-mile field of ice, which might be thousands of feet thick (no one knows), and with our clothes wet with sweat, we were very glad for the change of clothing we had brought. Dad especially had brought, like, a magical backpack. He kept pulling things out -- a change of shirts, a wool sweater, a wool scarf, gloves.

On the way up, we saw a mother bear and cub in the distance, and several marmots, as well as a ptarmigan (I think) and her chicks. Glacier-fed streams, magenta fireweed, two skiers, a trillion flies and mosquitoes -- wait, did I mention the skiers? Yup, two skiers were coming down as we were going up -- a father and son, it looked like. I should have asked where they were skiing -- not the ice field, surely? Dangerous, no? -- but I merely smiled and asked if they'd been skiing. Yup, said the younger, who looked rather handsome, as I recall, and inclined to talk more. Oh well.

After making it down the mountain, we packed up our tent and drove to Homer next. We stayed in the Bay View Inn, where the rooms look over the bay and continental breakfast consists of granola bars, yogurt, OJ, and coffee. Dad and I had the rest of the wine and some Korean food my grandmother packed, while sitting in front of the bungalow and looking out over the bay. The rain had let up, and the water shimmered.

In the morning on Monday, after the "continental" "breakfast," we drove out to the Homer Spit, walked down Ramp 2 of the small boat harbor, hopped into a boat called Seabird, and went kayaking in Kachemak Bay. Saw one otter eating, another sleeping, and yet another one grooming. Two sea lions and several bald eagles later, we were fairly wet from the rain and glad to head in.

After a late lunch at Captain Pattie's, where the one poor server for our side of the restaurant looked harried indeed (she later gave us our drinks for free because our meal came so late), we started on our biggest adventure: driving home through the mountains in a rusting car with balding tires (one down to the threads), in the rain. It was the second scariest car ride of my life (after that initial one in the Sube, where I didn't know I needed to be in first gear instead of neutral in order to move the car). Add to the rain and balding tires the Subaru's inability to drive over 65 miles an hour, its disconcerting habit of slowing down on hills unless you shift back into 4th gear, and the general craziness of people passing at 80 miles an hour regardless of the weather, and oh, it was fun, all right.

But we survived! And slept 12 hours again last night. And went up to Flattop in the car with balding tires and looked around and ate good Korean food and went to the airport all in two and half hours.

And now my dad is gone, and there's an empty space in the car where he was hanging on for dear life in the 10 hours I was driving that car, and I miss him. It was a great weekend, soggy as it was, and I miss my dad.