lower forty-eight days

It's sometimes hard to set aside enough time to post during a vacation. Especially when out camping and far away from any wifi zone. Jon and I have been in Arizona for just over a week. Riding, camping, driving to the next spot. Seeking singletrack, a decent place to lay our heads and good food & drink to keep us going. So far, it's been a success! (And when we find a hotel with internet access, we can even check in with the world.)

We began just outside Las Vegas, in Boulder City, Nevada.
with a little ride in Bootleg Canyon.

Then we rode a stretch of the AZ Trail that's just south
of the Grand Canyon. The camping was good, too, if you
ignore the hunters who get up early and fire their first shots
at elk at 6:15...
This lookout tower is used for fire spotting and control. You can
see the north rim of the Grand Canyon from the top!

The day after we rode the trail, just before we packed up, we met a rider coming off the trail. He's been traveling the country and spent some time in Alaska, riding from the North Slope to the Lower-48. His name is Cass and he knows a few people we know... even camped in our friend Alan's back yard in Anchorage! The cycling world is sometimes a very small world.

Cass recommended this other ride on the AZ Trail, just
north of Flagstaff. Yes, it was a beautiful stretch of
singletrack. Even a few sprinkles couldn't ruin this ride!

We spent a few nights camping in the area...

More singletrack, accessed right from Flagstaff. Jon makes the drop.
We found out about this ride from a woman named Linden who works
at Absolute Bikes in Flagstaff.

More of the AZ Trail, Flagstaff.

And, on a whim, we went to Prescott where we rode more trails on recommendations from a couple people in bike shops. Believe me, bike shop people know where the good trails are! And the guys who run this funky motel know where the good food is in Prescott.

Enjoying the last of the sunlight after riding the trails.

Jon relaxes outside The Motor Lodge.

In another few days, we begin an adventure with a group of friends: biking the White Rim Trail. I'll let you know how it goes when we get back.

eklutna weekend, 2010

Lakeside - we're heading around that bend.

Last weekend, my friends & I made our annual fall trip to Eklutna Lake to spend some time at the Serenity cabin. When we began this tradition a few years ago, it was a one-night trip and maybe a half-dozen of us signed up. It rained as we biked to the cabin and it rained on our return trip. The firewood was limited and what was there was mostly wet. We had a great time.

In 2008, we extended the trip to two nights to give us a chance to spend some time exploring on the non-riding day. We hoped for better weather. More people signed up. After a summer of rain, we had glorious sunshine. Last year we had sunshine too. I'm not even sure if this was our fourth or fifth year, but after that first year, we've been pretty lucky.

This year, we booked the cabin for three nights, giving everyone extra time to hike and to do their own thing: reading, writing, adventuring. The trip has gotten so popular that we had a dozen sign ups before we even sent out the announcement and had a wait list up until a week before the trip! People really look forward to it, and it's not just the wine.

This year, the last weekend of September felt like the last hurrah for sunny weather. By the time we left the cabin to return home on Sunday afternoon, we had a headwind and wet, over-sized snowflakes. In this case, timing was everything.

Fresh dusting of snow on the peak above Eklutna Glacier.
(This is the view from near the front door of the cabin.)

Friday hike. This time of year, the sun only shines on
the upper valley for a few hours each day before slipping
behind the mountain. This made for slippery footing on
the frost- and ice-covered rocks. We did eventually make
it to the sunny zone where some of us contemplated making
a river crossing in the glacial water. Maybe next time.

Meanwhile, back at the cabin...

Corinne's stowaway.

Line 'em up! Mine is the one with the drop bars.
The cabin is about 12 miles from the trailhead.
No electric, no wi-fi or cell service. Just away.

Early Saturday morning, a 5.4 earthquake jolted
many of us awake. Those who didn't initially wake
up did when they heard the shouts: "earthquake!"
coming from the other bunks.

Rock-stacking meditation.

Rocks, Birch & Cabin.
The river changed course since last year, filling
a different channel and leaving the riverbed below
the cabin as a playground of silt and stones.
The Rock art is by Corinne.

Riding home through the burn area with snow falling on the mountains.

My old friend.
This old cottonwood tree survived an avalanche a few
years ago, though it was scarred by the force of the slide.
This year it was burned in the late May fire. Someone drew
a heart in the charred scar. I wonder if it will live. It's a
tough old tree but it can't survive everything
nature and humans throw its way.

(And, yes, that is a big cook pot on my rack, but it was great
to have it at the cabin when cooking for a dozen people!)

Riders returning to the trailhead on the Lakeside Trail.
We met lots of people on ATVs but they were all very friendly.
I even got one "you go, girl!" while navigating a particularly
rocky section.

Wind and snow, but still so beautiful!

Bikes on Bev's car. The snow was worse on the
road than it was on the trail. That's timing.

berry picking

Last Friday afternoon, Jon and I hiked for about 45 minutes to one of our favorite blueberry picking spots in the Chugach Mountains. Don't ask me where it is. Frequent hikers may figure it out from these photos, but my juice-stained lips are sealed.

Filling my first container with sweet blueberries,
ripened on the mountainside, warmed by the sun.

Aha! The prize. I found the "wow" patch for the day.

We had a few sprinkles, then the rainbow that led to...

...Jon, the berry stalker, with his pot o' berries.

Jon's pack filled with full berry containers, we watched the sunset as we begin to descend.

As we were hiking away from the berries, I kept turning back to look up the valley. We've picked here many times over the years. We've even camped here, and woke to frost on our tent. The evening light played on the mountains whose colors had already begun to change to spots of red and yellow. I was thankful for the sunny day. I was thankful that Jon was off work and that we could have some time to hike together. These mountains, these days. This is why I live here.

tutka bay

Just days after returning from two weeks in Wisconsin, with my mind still ricocheting between my sadness and my relief at being home, sinking with the weight of Dad's death and Mom's subsequent move into an assisted-living apartment, I got into my car for the long drive to Homer. A part of me didn't want to go to the writers' retreat even though I'd signed up for it a few months in advance. A part of me wanted to stay at home and try to sort through my thoughts under a familiar comforter.

But a long drive, followed by a short trip in the water taxi brought me and the other writers to a small cove on Tutka Bay. Sunshine poured onto the expansive deck and four of us swung in a hammock, getting acquainted, momentarily oblivious to the group gathering for a brief orientation. Later that afternoon I took a stroll alone to Rocky Beach. I watched an otter curl its shiny body into the water, waited for it to break the surface and float on its back, cracking open a shell and eating the contents. Repeating the process.

My thoughts moved from wonder at the surroundings to sadness at my loss. And not just my loss, but Mom's loss: loss of her husband of 57 years; loss of her memories, carefully recounted in stories; the sudden but necessary move. Her confusion seemed to have scattered my own mind, leaving me with the wrong words on my tongue, words spoken out of order. I wondered if I should be at the retreat. I didn't know if I could string thoughts and words together to create coherent sentences over the weekend. Or ever.


Late in the evening, after the hot tub, its water spilling over the sides from all the bodies soaking; after running down the dock, lowering myself into the bay, tasting saltwater, thick in my mouth as I went under; after showering and after the lights were out in the cabin, I slipped out to return to the deck.

Just over a week earlier, the woman at the assisted living center had asked: is your mom prone to wander? No, my sister and I said she wasn't, though that first night I'd spent with Mom, she'd walked down the hall to my room and asked, Where's Dad? Me: He died. Remember? He's gone. Her soft shoulders beneath my arms; new grief. Me, later, wondering, will she rise each night and leave her room to come looking for him?
A few nights later, having turned the guest room over to my sister while I camped on the living room floor, light entered the duplex. It wasn't quite midnight but the room was silent. The aged clock on the mantle hadn't been wound in days. I peered through the closed blinds, then walked to the front door. I stepped out into the driveway, drawn into the strange glow of the full moon. A good night for a walk. A warm night. But I stopped, glanced toward Mom's window. Upsetting the balance. Do not Disturb. Go back inside. I climbed back into my nest and dozed off.

I sat in one of the rocking chairs near the deck rail, notebook in my lap. The air was still warm after the sunny day and the breeze gentle on my damp head. I could hear the waves lapping under the dock, rearranging pebbles and shells on the beach. I tried to recall moments of the previous two weeks. I hadn't written much while in Wisconsin. Most evenings, instead of turning to my notebook, I'd been opening the book I'd been reading, an Alaskan book that pulled me away from the sadness and the frantic list of things to do, back to the pipeline days of Alaska's recent history. I read and slept. Woke in the middle of the night and read some more. My pen gave up after just a few paragraphs. I hiked back to the cabin and slipped under the covers, hoping my headlamp wouldn't wake my roommates as I continued to scrawl a few facts. I couldn't write thoughts.

In Tutka Bay, surrounded by water and trees, warm people and comfortable rooms, I wanted to spend my free time walking the coastline and trails alone. I was rewarded with otters nobody else saw, an eagle perched in a spruce high above the trail, whales that exhaled then dove back into the cool saltwater. And like the protagonist in a novel - center of their own universe - I believed all the creatures were present because I had willed them to be.

perspectives

I heard once that no child is born into the same family. With each new sibling, at each stage of the parents' lives and learning, the dynamics are different. After my dad's funeral, I asked my oldest brother, Mike, if I could share with everyone the story he told at the beginning of the service. Mike is 7 years older than me, so his experiences were much different from mine. The older siblings often say us younger ones had it easier growing up. That may be true in some ways, but when a retired sergeant speaks, it doesn't matter if you're the oldest kid or the youngest. It makes you jump just a little. But, I guess I hadn't realized that one of his strengths was also his silence.

Thanks, Mike, for sharing this experience with us. Good job.
(The service began at 11 a.m.)

As you can imagine, this ain’t gonna be easy. But Dad would probably say, “Just read it, boy. I’m getting hungry.”

We hear the word “sacrifice” used often. We hear the word used in relation to the sacrifices one might make for a cause or a country. There are also the sacrifices that a parent makes for their family. Some parents might remind their children of the sacrifices they’ve made, just as people might brag of their sacrifices for a cause or a country. Dad made many sacrifices, together with Mom, and never spoke of them.

Dad served in a world war. He seldom spoke of it and never bragged about it. The only part of the military he ever bragged about was when he shaved half of a drunken lieutenant’s mustache off while he slept. As for the rest of it, he said once that, “It was a job. We did it and then came home." And he never told us of the sacrifices he made for his family, never reminded us of how many hours he worked every day, every week, every year, to keep us well fed and decently clothed.

There were ten of us children, and we never went hungry a day in our lives. Dad never asked for anything in return, except maybe a little peace and quiet when he got home. We probably failed miserably at that. I don’t recall a single quiet meal with ten children gathered around the table. The only quiet part of the meal was when grace was said.

We all have our own favorite memories of Dad. But for my own part, I’m pretty sure that Dad also sacrificed a few hairs on his head. I probably gave him a few gray ones. He had a drill sergeant’s voice up ‘til the day he died. I know he could make me jump when he wanted to. But his patience, though often worn thin, was beyond reproach.

The one example I will share is when, as it often was, my report card from school was filled with, well, bad grades. Dad picked up the baseball and, instead of lobbing it at my head as I deserved, said, “Let’s go play some catch.” And while we tossed the ball back and forth, all he did was say, “So your grades aren’t very good, are they?”

“No,” I said.

“Well, you’re just going to have to work a little harder.”

He gave some other words of advice beyond that, but I don’t remember any of that. What I remember is Dad sacrificing some time when he could have been sitting down after a long day and putting his feet up, and instead inviting me outside to play catch at the end of the day.

dad

John L. Austin
June 21, 1921 - August 17, 2010

a farm boy when they farmed with horses
started the stove at the one-room school house
before doing his chores on the farm

chose the army and crossed the atlantic
world war 2; across north africa to tripoli,
to sicily, mainland italy; signal corps

stayed on after war's end
project after project; some hush-hush
traveled the states and the world

didn't talk much about those years
pulling teeth to get him to say the names
of places and what he did and what he thought

My brother said: doing his job
not bragging about what he did
sacrifices made; just what a soldier did

a long life; a good life
on his terms to the last day
then, mom on the phone

when i say sleep tight, tells me
"there will be arms around me
i won't see them; but i know they're there."

when life hands you rain

and one day, he sprouted in our yard!

For 28 days it has rained. It's official. Longest stretch of rainy days since the record keeping began here in Anchorage. On Thursday I strolled around Downtown. Not many tourists; I parked on the street next to Town Square Park in the early afternoon. The flowers, washed with rain, were bright in contrast to the sidewalks and the gray sky.

I walked toward Elderberry Park. Two bicycle rental companies are positioned just a block away from the park which provides easy access to the Coastal Trail. Bikes lined up, covered in rain, waiting for brave customers to take them out. A rough summer for bike rentals. More fenders would help. And a little sunshine.

Later, in a coffee shop, a group of 20-something women wore the trend in summer fashion 2010: skirts and tights with Xtratufs. Their guy friend in soaked running shoes. But, for all our sun deprivation, in the forest and along streets and trails; in yards and parks around Anchorage, another source of vitamin D is emerging from the soil to feed us. It's mushroom season.

King boletes

Boletes (we call these "yellow caps") ready for
sauteing, then into the freezer for later. (My job.)

The time of year when Jon fills his backpack on his commute home from work; devises another way to cook the fast-growing wonders for dinner. Then after dinner, spends the rest of the evening brushing and slicing, examining and laying out on trays, loading boletes into the dehydrator. In the morning, the garage smells like mushrooms. Laundry hanging to dry smells like mushrooms. It won't stop until. Well, we've heard the blueberries are ripening in the mountains.

The next season moves in like another chapter. He'll leave the fungi-collecting commute, trade it for the car and a larger backpack, an optimistic number of empty containers and head for the mountains after work, squeezing every possible minute of picking into the fading daylight. Another season; another obsession. Another meal; another nod in appreciation. Full freezer; full pantry. Enjoying the harvest through the long winter.