October 2, 2005

We took a nice hike yesterday afternoon. We went to the ski resort in Girdwood. The ski resort is in its own micro-climate where the geography results in higher levels of precipitation than surrounding areas. As a result, there is a section of rainforest there. It is a different environment to walk in. The floor of the forest and many of the dead trees are covered in moss.

It was a mixture of drizzle and sun, with temperatures in the 40’s. We hiked about 5 miles round trip. It is a popular trail and there were many people on the trail. The first half mile or so was nice gravel and boardwalk. After that, the trail became very muddy. It was as painful as walking in loose sand, perhaps worse as the mud sucked at our feet at times. We took a leisurely pace and enjoyed the different scenery. There were interesting mosses and mushrooms everywhere. Seemingly out of place were the blueberries. It is really late in the season for blueberries, but we found quite a few to snack on.

The trail is part of the historic Iditarod trail and is a through trail that goes up through Crow Pass and over past Eagle River before heading to western Alaska. One of the unique features on this portion of the trail is hand tram that crosses a river. A heavy cable was anchored to stout steel structures on either side. A rope looped over a set of pulleys on either end and was attached to the top of the basket. The occupants of the car pulled on the loose end of the rope and the pulley system moved the basket across the water, riding on the steel cable. The basket was about big enough for two people and was rated at 400 lbs. We didn’t ride across. We watched some people cross while we ate our lunch. It looked like a pretty physical effort to get across. We decided that would be a good place to turn around.

Today we went to a winter outdoors show in town. It was mostly directed to the snowmobile crowd. It was held at one of the local arenas that we hadn‘t seen before. The bulk of the show was down on the floor. We didn’t find anything we wanted. We looked at gloves a little, but mostly they were selling really cheap stuff. Snowmobiles still don’t hold much draw for me, but maybe some day we will want a couple to provide access to backcountry skiing. We had hoped to attend a seminar on avalanches, but it was cancelled.

Afterward, we stopped at a new furniture store that opened in the last month. It was actually a chain of furniture stores that decided to build one huge store. We had been to a couple of their stores in the past, but they were really junky since they were preparing to move to the one big store. We found some bar stools that looked good and we think the price is only $45. We will go back during the week when they are not so crowded. We couldn’t find an available salesperson.

Our cat is continuing downhill. She has eaten very little in the last couple of days. She continues to throw up daily. She is very skinny and starting to get weak and wobbly. At one point, I had seven different cans of cat food opened in the refrigerator. I hold the open cans under her nose until she meows at the one she wants. Once she throws up a particular flavor, it takes at least a couple days before she will come back to it. Even when she finds a flavor that she wants, she just licks at it. She just isn’t getting enough intake. We are in her last days. It is sad.