Welcome, almost summer

The coming of May always seems to ignite a flurry of new activity among Alaskans. In my four summers here (five if you count tourism), I have yet to fully grasp why the frenzy is so sudden and furious. I mean, yes, it is a bit warmer outside (42 degrees when I left the house at 11 this morning. Strangely does not feel warm after three weeks in Utah and California.) And yes, there is still usable twilight at 11 p.m. (which I haven't used since 8 because I've been inside typing up a resume/cover letter and an article query; and, yes, I am proud of myself for spending three hours doing this.) And yes, the snow is mostly gone (but seriously, who doesn't like snow?) What I can't understand where everyone went in January, during one of those crisp bluebird days when the land was full of sparkling beauty and the trails were empty. I just don't get it, I really don't, why the mania is so acutely seasonal.

Still, summer fun is incredibly fun, and the timing is good when I'm trying to learn new landscapes and meet new friends. On Saturday, a woman who I worked with very briefly in Juneau, who now lives in Anchorage, invited me to join her on a group bike ride. The circumstance itself was interesting, because we were coworkers for all of a week when I first moved to Juneau four years ago. She understood my plight of being a stranger in a strange town and invited me to a barbecue, which happened to be her goodbye barbecue because she was moving to Anchorage. Now, four years later, I'm in the exact same position and she's still as friendly as ever. We met up with the Arctic Bicycle Club for their Saturday ride from Anchorage to the Eagle River Nature Center. Despite a few inches of fresh snow on the hillsides and a forecast that called for more white stuff, nearly a dozen people showed up for the May Day ride (this is one of the things that amuses me about Alaskans, because dates seem to matter more than actual weather.) We endured a brief hail storm, but the rest of the 40-mile ride was washed in sunlight, with a mellow pace and smiles all around because for some, it was the first outdoor ride of the year.

Saturday night was the "Welcome Almost Summer" barbecue with several Anchorageites/fellow endurance nuts that I met when I visited Fairbanks in March. We grilled outside the house in light, cold rain as a small herd of moose casually grazed the brush in the front yard; we ate big plates of fresh grilled vegetables and summery salads, and then drooled over pictures from the Wilderness Classic, where the guys who completed the race skied 180 miles in about four days over a remote, rugged and deep-frozen mountain range in northern Alaska. That's Alaskans for you - celebrate summer prematurely while dreaming and scheming about faraway winter.

Today I met up with a man I met during Saturday's club ride and a few of his friends for a hike up Mount Baldy. It was a pretty laid-back trek, more about the "thinking about it" breaks and "butt sledding" than hiking (we actually trudged back up hills a few times just so we could "sled" back down.) I have to admit that even I will be pretty excited when these ridges finally clear of snow and their possibilities really open up. But as long as the snow remains, at least the trek down is fairly fast.

Later in the afternoon, we regrouped for a ride around roads in Eagle River and Chugiak. It was great fun, and we already have a hill climb slated for later this week and a possible ride to Palmer on Friday (I don't know why I have become so fixated on riding a bicycle from Anchorage to the Mat-Su Valley, but I seem to already be recruiting others in my cause.) It's been fun to spend a weekend hanging around several groups of people and wonder if I may eventually work my way into part of a "crowd." It will be pretty funny if a simple group bike ride leads to me hanging around a bunch of people from Eagle River, who seem to share a healthy rivalry with Anchorage (as we stood on top of Mount Baldy, I looked out at downtown Anchorage and made the mistake of saying, "Yeah Anchorage," wherein I was warned to instead say, "Boo Anchorage; Yeah Eagle River.") Either way, that's part of the fun of being a stranger in a strange town.

Getting to know you

It's only my third day in Anchorage, and already I feel a mixture of triumph and guilt. Although I did get my most important resume package sent out and met with one editor, I really haven't settled in to start much of the work I promised myself I would start. So far I have a good excuse. It's not that I'm a bad self manager (cough, cough) ... it's just that I need to spend a little time getting to know this city.

And there's really no better way to get a feel for a city than by bicycle. On Wednesday, I honestly couldn't have told you where my house was in relation to downtown (and was yelled at by a taxi driver because of this.) By Thursday, I understood the triangle shape of the city, where many important landmarks were located on this triangle, and how to use bike paths to navigate the northern and central portions of town. By this afternoon, I could locate a multitude of different parks and major arteries, and already feel like an old pro of Anchorage (OK, not really, but at least I can tell a taxi driver where I live.)

All it took was 40-60 miles a day of relaxed if confused pedaling - sometimes in circles, sometimes on roads not all that suitable for biking, but always new to me, and always an adventure. I actually love biking around strange cities. I love the feeling of being completely, bewilderingly lost, and then passing unique and intriguing places as I search for somewhere familiar. Riding aimlessly around Portland and San Fransisco was one of my most effective methods for coping with my relationship breakup last May. Getting purposefully lost in the city also is great therapy for coping with the unsettling feeling of being temporarily displaced from my career.

On Thursday I wandered around the north end of town, finally putting together the Chester Creek greenway (seriously, what is up with all the spurs?) and checked out Government Hill, Mountain View and Muldoon. Then it was on up the Glenn Highway bike path, lost again in Eagle River while searching for a bike route north (how do cyclists get to the Mat-Su Valley? Do they just ride on the highway?) Then I took a nice respite from spastic city riding with a jaunt up the Eagle River Road, a quiet, narrow country road with light traffic.

On Friday I decided to ride around the perimeter of the city. My favorite ride in Anchorage so far has been the Coastal Trail. It's scenic, quiet and only seems to be lightly used, at least on weekday afternoons in April. I have yet to see a single person beyond Point Woronzof, so past there I really crank it up, laying into the pedals in my highest gear and leaning hard into the multitude of swooping turns. It makes road biking feel like riding singletrack (don't worry, I always slow way down if the turn is blind or if I see another person or animal. I understand the etiquette of multi-use paths.) From there, I made every effort to stay as close to the Turnagain Arm as possible. This allowed for lots of fun discoveries - winding through scenic neighborhood streets and riding rocky singletrack trails through parks with my skinny-tire touring bike. Using back roads, I managed to work my way to the Old Seward Highway, and from there jumped on Rabbit Creek Road and climbed up to the foothills, where I proceeded to make my way around the outskirts of Hillside (hilly). Then I raced a bus all the way home on the Lake Otis Parkway.

Now that I'm an expert (ha!) at riding a bicycle through Anchorage, I just need to find some riding partners. I have loads of free time as long as I can keep coming up with excuses not to do the work I promised myself I was going to do. So if you live in Anchorage and have a favorite place to ride, and don't mind showing it off to a newbie who doesn't own a real road bike and may never own a real road bike, because deep in her heart she understands she is merely a simple bike tourist who sometimes likes to play in the dirt and snow ... please get in touch! You can comment here or e-mail me privately at jillhomer66@hotmail.com.

A place to get lost

A hot and heavyset fog hangs over the coastline. I ride along glistening sand but the ocean is nowhere to be seen. The cloud blanket can't be more than a few dozen feet high and I can still feel the blistering sun on my skin. I only have a couple of hours to ride before I have to be at the airport, so I ride as fast as I can muster on the missionary bike with the bouncy tires and blistering seat. Since I can't see the ocean, I turn off the Pacific Coast Highway and veer up the bike path along the Santa Ana River. I have this vague idea that if you ride far enough inland in Orange County, you hit mountains, or at least hills. The fog dissipates into a gray haze and the path turns to dusty gravel. The river corridor is lined with sun-faded houses and exotic-looking crops. Multiple signs warn me not to drink the irrigation water. I ride beneath freeways and skirt the edge of massive industrial complexes. The river itself fades from flowing water lined with grass, to stagnant water and marshes, to mud flats, and finally to stark concrete. A thin strip of brown water trickles down the manufactured channel. I stop and look for the haze-obscured hills.

Where am I?

The next day, I'm in Sandy, Utah. Delta Airlines couldn't find a space for me on their nightly flight to Anchorage, so I'm spending a bonus day with my family. I have a little bit of time before I have to return to the airport, so I go for a run. 40 and 50 mph wind gusts tear down the streets and the air is choked with dust. I can't see the mountains to the east or west, only a thick brown mass swirling into gray sky. I sprint with the wind at my back, past my former middle school, past my old high school. I laugh at the student drivers in their matching, lurching cars. I reminisce about the time I almost joined the cross country team until they sent me out to run two miles around the neighborhood streets. I remember that I quit because I had never experienced anything so simultaneously boring and painful. I reminisce about the time that freckled blond kid in my English class rode by on his motorcycle as I was walking home from school, then turned around, stopped, and gave me a ride. I smile and fly north, carried by an unholy wind that I don't even recognize until it is time to turn and face it. For two miles I plow into an invisible wall, holding my hand to my forehead to shield it from blasting sand. I squint until the world is a blur of uneven shapes. I feel suddenly bewildered by this place I know so well.

Where am I?

The next day, I'm in Anchorage. I spend the morning working on my resume and cover letters, so I decide to reward the afternoon with a "research" trip around this city where I supposedly live. The fact that I'm not going back to Juneau still bewilders me. There's a reason I ripped myself out of my comfort zone, but the truth is I'm still looking for it. In the meantime, I'm only wandering. I ride south on the Coastal Trail and marvel how most of the snow is already gone. I loop around Kincaid Park and grumble about how much snow and mud is still covering the singletrack trails. I zig-zag through the south part of town, end up on some rough trail near Campbell Creek and find myself ducking beneath the Seward Highway in a rocky underpass scarcely taller than me. I climb into the foothills, where the streets are lined in rippled layers of snow and the mountains capture streaks of silver sunlight filtered by an overcast sky. The city is far below me now, sprawled across the valley on a scale that was familiar to me a long time ago, but feels more foreign now. I try to pick out the neighborhood where I reside, but the orientation isn't there. I grasp for a sense of place, but it slips away in the wind.

I feel a rush of new perspective, because I don't know where I am.