On Saturday, Fran had decided to go by train to Whittier to take a cruise in the hope of photographing some wildlife. The trip ended at 9:15pm, so I had the whole day to kill by myself.
First stop, the bike rental place. I decided to rent a mountain bike and cruise around 'checking stuff out'. I started on the Coastal Trail which is paved and quite pleasant. It was quite funny when I came up behind a guy on a road bike chatting to a guy on a hybrid. Not wanting to startle them, I slowed down and waited for them to notice me. After a few seconds, I had to apply the brakes which screeched a little, and the guy on the road bike looks back, sees me and rides off the trail. He rides onto a pile of loose rock and loses control. He stayed up, but slid to a stop. I was like "easy buddy".
A few more kilometers up the trail and "oh oh" feels like a flat. Sure enough, flat as a pancake. The bike supplier did provide tools and a patch kit. After quite a bit of searching for the puncture, trying to get the pump to work and inflating the tire with a 8cm pump, I was back on the road. By this time, Mr. Off road road biker had passed me and I dreaded catching this guy up again. I rounded a corner across from Kincaid Park, which is a cross country ski facility (in the winter). I noticed a couple of cars loitering and two moose meandering into the park. I quickly dismounted and dug out my camera and video camera. By the time I had them, the moose had nicked off around the corner - so I followed and I did get a couple of snaps.
Since I was on the park and the trails were there, I decided to check them out. By now, the on again off again squeal of my back disc break was better than any bear bell. I randomly rode around a few trails. Oh that's interesting an archery range. "Woah, big bull moose". Well worth a stop. How much of a buffer zone does a moose need? I parked the bike about 20m away and grabbed the cameras. The moose was just the other side of some fencing - but not enclosed. I took a couple of photos and then the moose walked around the fence and took a stride towards me. I hastily jumped on the bike prepared to leave the backpack and helmet and cycled a few meters away. The moose stopped and proceeded left. I was relieved and got a few more wary shots and some video. The video will go on Facebook when I return.
After leaving the park, I saw 4 more moose in fields close to Kincaid.
By this point, the mountain bike was squeaking badly, the back brake was rubbing, the tire was holding about 40 Psis and the gears were skipping badly. Nevertheless, across town to Anchorage's second set of cross country ski trails. There, I had lunch and cycled around a bit more before returning the bike. I'd paid for 3 hours and returned the bike after 5.5, but they let me off the extra hours. I told them I would have been back on time if not for the technical issues.
I returned to the motel and cleaned up. It had suddenly turned into a really nice day and so I decided to check out the ski hill. Maybe there's a good view from up there. It was a 5 metre climb up a dirt road towards where I thought the ski hill was. There had to be something up there as I kept seeing all these cars coming down the hill. When I finally got to the top, there was indeed a ski hill, and a wedding and about 50 people all over the mountain taking advantage of blueberry season. I did have a chance to sample some blueberries myself and they were small and bitter compared to the ones found on the East Coast. In fact, to
confirm the superiority of the Canadian blueberry, Fran looked at the blueberries in the store and sure enough, they were Canadian.
At the ski hill, you had to pay to park, but once again, it was the honours system. The Brit in me was telling me to just fake it, but the Canadian in me persuaded me to do the right thing. I noticed a hike up the mountain in the offing- so up I went. The view from the top was amazing in both directions. It was 2 hours well spent. All over the hill were these hoary marmots. On the way up, all I heard was squeaking, but by the time I returned it was about 8pm, the cheeky little beggars were running all over the place. One posed for photos.
After the mountain, I went to pick up Fran from her adventure. I had 40 minutes to kill and decided to snooze (without paying for the parking this time). We went to the Ale House close
to the hotel for the second time and were again, disappointed. While waiting for our table, they closed the kitchen (10pm). What is this "Hell's Kitchen"? So, we went to a Mexican Place around the corner. The food was good, but more importantly, plentiful. A good way to finish off the day.
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