Day 21 – The Quest for Denatured Alcohol – 78.33 km
In the morning today I was supposed to meet up with a reporter in Smithers who was supposed to do a story on my trip, but unfortunately he was off for the day. Perhaps I will get in touch with him by phone later on. Either way, I still decided to stop for breakfast in the town of Smithers. I stopped at an oasis with the name of “Tim Hortons”. Here I feasted upon a toasted twelve grain bagel with cream cheese and a medium Iced Cappuccino with a flavor shot of hazelnut. As you can tell by now, I might as well have Tim Hortons running through my veins!
Today I was not only partaking in my epic journey from Alaska to Panama, but I was also on a quest. My sole mission for today was to find denatured alcohol for my cooking stove. I visited four hardware stores and two outdoor stores in the town of Smithers, but it was to no avail. It was beginning to seem as if my quest for denatured alcohol may as well be a quest for the Holy Grail itself! I have been looking for the stuff since Whitehorse and haven’t been able to find it anywhere. Needless to say I decided to give up on my search, and opted to buy a new stove at the next REI I pass that will burn anything.
From Smithers, which is a very cool town with an absolutely awesome main street may I add, I traveled to the town of Houston, where I am surfing someone’s couch today. While fixing my bicycle in the garage, my host for the night, Paul, came in and asked if I needed a hand with anything. I explained to him my dilemma of my lack of denatured alcohol. No more than twenty seconds later I was staring at four liters of precious denatured alcohol. It turns out that over here it is called by many different names, and denatured alcohol does not happen to be one of them. With my fuel bottle filled I showed off my very cool alcohol stove and my superior light weight packing skills.
So I managed to find denatured alcohol, tuned up my bicycle, and received a monster of a dinner meal. All in all I must say it’s been a very good day! Remember that I post photos on my website, check them out!