Matanuska Glacier

On Saturday we drove with another couple to Matanuska Glacier. Here's a photo the Mrs. took from the backseat:

Driving in this great state is fun! There is a lot to see and makes the trip go by faster when there is actual changes in the road (unlike parts of the Midwest where I've driven many miles, almost all of them awake).

Here we are posing in front of the glacier which is 29 miles long:

Here is a cool amphitheater (TURBO-PUN!):

After we finished walking out in these parts we stopped at the Long Rifle cafe to have some $4 a slice pie and look at all the dead animals they had posed throughout the dining room.

Not too sure about a "cinnamon" bear. Is it the black one or the brown one? Do I duck and cover or fight it off? Now they tell me that 1 in 12 bears are albino! What then??

That evening I tried to take a nap before I flew the Los Angeles red-eye.

Hike to Flattop

On Memorial Day we hiked up a trail to Flat-Top a ways above the city. It was tough going because the wind was over 30 MPH that day!

Here is some of the snow covered trail we scampered up:

Here we had someone take our photo at the top while we watched a bunch of 8-12 year olds climb up the last bit of vertical snow to reach the very top. We chose not to.

Here is a view of the Anchorage bowl from up there (if you click on any of these images they get bigger/ full size):

One the way back down the week before, the Mrs. saw a black bear stealing someones garbage can and haul it into the trees. No bears this day though.

We were pretty tired that night, so we chose to not play in my companies annual Captain versus First Officer softball game. We did enjoy the food.

down facing ride

On Tuesday I went mountain biking on the Kenai Peninsula. I chose Resurrection Pass as my virgin trail and it pretty much kicked my butt.

It was beautiful scenery, and I made lots of noise so as to not spook grumpy furry beasts. I did manage to spook two grouse while biking and watched a porcupine waddle away as I was driving in.

There were lots of campers on the trail for mid-week. I like that when I'm biking solo.

I couldn't go all the way to the pass as there was 4' of snow there. In fact, I never made it to the snow.

I climbed 10 miles, over 1000' in a little over two hours. It only took 1.2 hours to get back down, definitely the fun part!

Here is the mighty steed:

Notice in this one you can see the exorbitantly priced stars and stripes bell (it's next to the bright yellow GPS/ radio):

This photo reminded me of the movie Into the Wild where a boy tries to live in the last frontier with no actual experience.

He tries to learn how to make it by reading books, taking notes as others tell him how to hunt. In other words: he had no experience, just the book-learning. I would compare that to reading how to walk and then thinking you are going to run a marathon.

I won't give away the ending, but it doesn't go well:

Ever wonder what it would feel like if you got injured and had to ride on the back of a bike/ horse/ ATV looking down as the rider tried to get you to help quick-like? Well my helmet cam was pointed a bit down so here ya go:

Fairbanks

Today I'm in Fairbanks. I broke out the Dahon folder for an 18 mile jaunt. There is a pretty good bike path along Farmer's Road. Too bad I thought I was still on the highway.

I did manage to find College Road which had the Cosmonaut Cafe serving Russian food. Going to have to check that out next time.

A block or two later I came upon a restaurant called the Food Factory. Might be the winner for least appealing restaurant name...ever.

Right now I'm sipping a Stone smoked porter, listening to my Current via MPR.ORG. I'm thinking it's about time for some Thai food at the mom-n-pop across the road.

Today was the first time I brought the bike to work and it went really well. I may take it to Los Angeles on Sunday and see if I can find any bikeable places in the city of autos.

Later this month I have an overnight in San Francisco and can't decide whether to bring the bike.

Last night I showed up for the Arctic Bicycle Club MTB ride at Hillside in Anchorage. The ride started at 7:00, I was there at 7:05 and they had already left.

I saw another guy there and asked if he was there for the ride, he said yes, I said it's my first time, he said let me show you the place, he didn't know the place and couldn't read a map, I read and interpreted the maps and tried to instruct him, he ignored me, I left him somewhere convinced he was right and me left as he did loop upon loop trying to find his way back. Moral of the story: don't say you can do something that you can't.

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.