March 5, 2006

I am getting a little lazy about my updates. My previous excuse was the routine nature that our lives have taken on, but that won’t work this time.

Daylight is accelerating. This past week was weird. At the beginning of the week, I had to check my watch as I was arriving at work since it was getting light out. At the end of the week, I had to check my watch as I was leaving for work since it was getting light out. Each day made me feel like I was running late even though I was on time every day. Soon we will have no darkness to indicate time. I am worried about how that is going to go with a job.

Last weekend was our first full weekend of skiing on our new skis. We skied on Saturday at Alyeska. They haven’t had much snow over the last few weeks so the ungroomed snow was mostly bumps. Of course the main trails were nicely groomed, but even without new snow, we still prefer the rough stuff. The bumps had a strange consistency to them. They were soft enough that the skis sunk in, but the snow felt heavy, like drying mashed potatoes. This had a strange effect on our new skis. The wide shovels seemed to grab in the heavy stuff while the tails slid a little. This caused our turns to be quick with an ending in a slight uphill direction. It was a fun day of skiing, as are all, but I did tell Kris that I wouldn’t have bought these skis if I had demoed them in these conditions.

We played around on the really steep stuff a little more. We dropped into a chute on the steepest area of the resort. We found ourselves navigating around rocks and cliffs that were invisible from above, but frightening once we got below them. It is a little scary how you sometimes can’t see cliffs from above. We are always cautious in new areas and we can maintain the necessary level of control when necessary. In fact, we slid sideways down much of the scary stuff which gave us excellent control. We didn’t go back into that chute, but we did take a couple more runs in the general area as the snow was still pretty nice.

We woke up Sunday to some new snow. We decided to go to Alpenglow, the little ski area up above Anchorage. It was awesome. We made lap after lap in fresh snow. It was a little crowded. Sometimes we had to wait in line for the lift. The snow held up great all day. Our new skis were wonderful in these conditions. And the weather was perfect. It was sunny and warm. It was one of the best days of skiing of the season.

Last week was relatively normal. Our only extra event was the Iditarod Banquet. It was held at a local sports arena. There were about 1000 people present. We had a nice steak dinner which was surprisingly good for a sit down affair for that many people. We visited with some interesting people at our table. There was a mother and her 12 year old son from Wisconsin. The son had an interest in dog sledding and his mother was nice enough to bring him up while her husband stayed home. We met a school teacher from Michigan who was part of a teacher’s program that looks for ways to include the race in the classroom. We also met two teachers from an Alaskan village. One of the teacher’s daughter and granddaughter from Sacremento were also at our table.

There were many local celebrities at the event besides the mushers. The main purpose of the banquet was for the mushers to draw their starting positions. The mushers were called in the order that they had signed up for the race. They had the opportunity to speak while choosing their starting position. With 84 mushers, this proved to be a little boring. We paid half attention while visiting with the people at our table. We saw most of the famous mushers before leaving. The last mushers to choose position were probably speaking to an empty room.

On Saturday, we went to the ceremonial start of the race. It was a nice morning to walk around downtown. We found a convenient parking space in my normal parking lot near 5^th and Cordova and walked downtown to the start. The race course started at 4^th and D and headed down 4^th street to Cordova. Cordova leads down to the Chester Creek greenbelt where the racers were able to get off the city streets. Dump trucks had brought snow in to make a track down the middle of the roads. 4^th and Cordova were both closed, although we were surprised to see that traffic was still be allowed through the cross streets as directed by the police who stopped the traffic in time for some quick repairs to the course before the next dog sled came through.

The ceremonial start is not an official part of the race anymore. It is just an opportunity to put on a show, exercise the dogs, and make money by selling rides on the sleds (each sled carries one rider, the high bidder for that sled). It is a pretty casual atmosphere as a result.

Things were under way when we arrived downtown. As we hiked up 4^th street, I think the first sled we saw was number 5. We walked all the way to the starting line and beyond. The dogsleds were separated by 2 minutes. Beyond the starting line we saw dogs in trucks, dogs being harnessed, and sleds being staged.

It was pretty crowded with people lining both sides of the street. Right at the starting line, it was impossible to get a close view, but only a block or so away, you could find plenty of space to watch and take pictures. We continued to watch as we slowly walked back toward Cordova. On Cordova, there was no longer a rope keeping people away from the track that was made in the middle of the road. We were able to sit right on the side of the track and watch as the sleds went past.

We also stopped in my office which is right on Cordova. From my cubicle on the third floor, we looked down as dog sleds went right past the building down below. It was strange to watch a world famous event taking place from my office.

It was a fun atmosphere downtown, but we were ready to leave after a couple of hours. There were still about 30 more to go when we left, but we had seen most of the famous mushers.

From there, we headed up to Alpenglow for some skiing. There was a few inches of new heavy snow. Alpenglow isn’t open during the week so Saturday gives you access to the whole week’s worth of snow. There was practically no one there. We made lap after lap, most of them with some fresh tracks. Even our last run was made in virtually untracked snow.

I did take a spill. We are both playing around with jumping off of bumps, ridges, and cornices. Kris pulled up to rest and as I was skiing down to her, I noticed a nice ridge to catch a little air off. As I approached it, I noticed another bigger ridge just beyond it. I set my focus on the second ridge and the first ridge knocked me off balance. I was leaning back as I hit the second ridge which popped me up and landed me on my back. Kris enjoyed watching my crash. It was a nice soft landing and it didn’t hurt too bad.

The heavy snow took its toll. So did our enthusiasm for the conditions. We were exhausted when we finally quit. In spite of that, we went to a party in Eagle River. It was a 50th birthday party for one of the managers in the Air Quality group. It was a typical Alaska party with a broad mix of people. It was a lot of fun even though there weren’t too many people from the office there.

We were tired today. We didn’t even go skiing. We went to a few furniture stores. With guests coming every month this summer, we probably need some bedroom furniture. After shopping, we came home and went for a walk along the greenbelt. We ran into a couple of moose. One was a male who still had spots on his head from his antlers. They were right along the trail.