SLOW DOWN

On Memorial Day the Mrs. and I went for a hike in the foothills east of Anchorage at the O' Malley trail head. There is still some snow up there and lots of runoff, so it's still pretty wet.

After we finished up we drove to another more popular hiking spot called Flattop to check it out. It was really crowded and the views that day looked great. We were already tired, so we started heading back down the hills into Anchorage.

Ahead of us on a narrow road were two cars stopped and they left a space between them that I could fit in. I was hungry, and got frustrated so I started to go between them when I noticed the people in the car facing uphill getting out their cameras.

"What are they taking pictures of," I demanded of the Mrs.

"There's a bear stealing a garbage can and dragging it into the woods," she declared.

But in my haste I'd already driven too far and didn't get to see it.

The new steeds

Here he is (you can click on all of the followig pix to make them big):

This bike spews it's aging testosterone. I bought it from a man who is about 6'3", (I'm a mere 5'10"). Here's the crazy part: my inseam is longer than his! He must have a long set of lungs in that stretched torso.

So far it's been about all I could ask for. There is some random ghost shifting, but I haven't cleaned up the drive train yet (just bought a bottle of simply green for the degreasing).

I'm going to try this chain cleaner:

I've tried the Park version and the thing fell apart in one season. Some may be attributed to a rookie trying to use it by moving the chain in the wrong direction a couple of times, but the majority would be due to the silliness of cleaning a series of metal objects with an assembly of plastic ones.

I bought this rack at Home Depot to transform the bike into my grocery/ beer getter.

We got a rack for my wife that is similar to this one, but sturdier last fall (mine is already bent and I've only brought home one 12-pack!). Her rack worked well throughout the school year and she was carrying a LOT (law school).

Here is the Mrs. new/ used bike:

She is using it to commute to work from our apartment (17 miles round trip). She is mostly on the Campbell Creek trail, so she gets a scenic ride to work. And an occasional moose.

I accompanied her on today's ride and we got spooked when we came around the corner to face a young moose (maybe one or two years old) about 10 yards away! He was a lot less concerned for us than we were of him.

Later in the ride the Mrs. spotted a big mama moose across the creek and when we looked closed we saw that she had a newborn hanging out almost under her legs.

The final ski day

Here's a couple pix from the final day of skiing here in Anchorage.

This was one of the few times I actually saw someone else on the trail. He caught up with me while I was taking a pix and then my competitiveness kicked in and I kept up with him for a while and then passed him and then after a while headed back to the car. I do this on bikes too, but I'm not sure why. It just feels better to be in the lead.

Since that day I've traveled to Nebraska for a wedding and when I returned there was no more snow. I've been biking and that has been fun.

I bought a commuter which I'll have to post up a photo of and also one of my wife's new/used commuter. It's been a very busy time. Now that she is up here and life is settling down a bit I should be able to blog more.

Today we went on a HUGE bike ride after church. We were supposed to ride back to the apartment and change, but they fed us at church. So what I thought might take us an extra 1/2 hour, took us an extra hour and 10 minutes to bike home the scenic way (the two bull moose were cool)!

It was gorgeous, but we should have gone home first so we could have been more comfortable out of our church garb.

Later we hung out downtown and read the Sunday paper as ships were moving about on the sunlit harbor. I like it here.