Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Finally, after an epic amount of time, the last remaining pile of snow melted on Sunday. We awoke to our shady deck finally bare. The shade did not help, but this is still a little late in the year to finally see wood everywhere out there.

All the bikes here now have new chains and tires and have been cleaned and tightened up. The trails are dry, clean, and exploding with riders and pedestrians. Time to start climbing the 2000 feet up Hiland road in Eagle River. I suspect there is still snow up there.

As I hike through the neighboring bog this time of the year I am reminded daily that cows are dropped calves any time now. The moose deserve some extra space this month.


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Friday, May 18, 2012

Growing up, I never knew that Dressel's cake was a uniquely Chicago treat. I only knew that those frozen cakes appeared for my birthday every year. And I loved every one of them. They were not terribly fancy, but now that they are gone I really would like to have one. It looks like that will be possible as some wonderful soul has cracked the code.

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Becky had knee surgery last week and everything went exactly as expected -- tears were fixed and soreness lingers. Henry and I spent quite a few hours cruising throughout the hospital, looking at the mountain views, and checking out the folks drifting about. Most of the folks are either employees or patients and it was a somewhat jarring experience. The last time I was in the hospital Becky was having Henry so my walks were mainly through the maternity ward, which is a place filled with happy people living on some degree of recently found energy. This time I saw almost every place except the maternity ward, and in general that is not as happy a  tour. I understand terrible health problems happen for a variety of reasons well beyond our control, but it sure looks like many are slow moving train wrecks due to atrocious eating and activity habits. Within a few minutes of settling on this thought, I decided to make an even better effort to be a healthy person. I feel that I do a pretty good job already, but there is always a little more to do. I'd like to live long and strong. 

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Today in Anchorage was Bike To Work day and when I left my house at 6:30 it was 32 degrees. There was a noticeable surge in new riders using the trails and they all seemed to be dressed in one of two ways: ready to go ice fishing or freezing in their free 2012 BTW t-shirt.  Hopefully these folks are out on the trails next week with a simple fleece and some modest gloves.