Several wildfires are burning around where I live in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley. The skies are smokey. We live near the airport where the air tankers, which drop retardant, take off. It's quite exciting when they take off, fully loaded, over my home. Everything shakes and those tankers are SOO LOUD! It freaks my dog out, he barks and chases them through the fields. Makes him feel tough, he thinks he's chased them off.
We are at 24 hrs of daylight now. Alnight parties and BBQ's!
We had a nice bike ride, bon-fire and all-night croquet tournament for Bikeboy's 16th birthday. The fire pictures are taken sometime after midnight. The sun still shining! We saw a porcupine on the ride along the Matanuska River. They sure are cute. The river is eroding the banks and getting close to the trail at some areas. It freaks me out a little to be riding along at a good pace then coming to a corner which is just about 2 feet away from a dropoff down into the river. Go over and chances of getting out alive can be pretty low. The river is deep, super cold, fast moving and full of silt which permeates clothing and shoes and drags a person under.
We were planning on going to Whitter
this weekend and go sea kayaking but the weather is bad so it's no-go. Whitter is an interesting little town. The tunnel is pretty cool as long as you don't driving under a mountain.
I am back to commuting again, it is soo nice. The gashes will definitely be scars, pretty good ones at that. One got a little infected, no thanks to Drunk John and his medical advice (for some reason this makes me think of of Midnight Rider...:)
The bike path is still torn up in a few spots but it's fine going slow over it. It seems like I see less commuters now than I saw in the spring, which is strange. Yesterday the weather was soo warm, in the low 80's. I wore a light pink jersey rather than the hi-vis long sleeve jersey I normally wear. The drivers did not notice me as much as when I wear the hi-vis,with the exception of the guy who did a cat-call at me. 2 drivers tried turning while I was crossing, both of them were on cell phones. I have ordered some hi-vis short sleeve and sleeveless shirts so I will be visible and cool.
9 comments:
I am not sure how you can deal with sun after midnight. It would be very strange for me. Have you lived up there all your life?
How do you know when to end an all night part. Is there some kind of aurora or borias or something?
I was born and raised in Anchorage Alaska. It was odd to me when I lived down south to have it pitch black outside and WARM during the summers. When it's that dark here, it's winter.
The all-night party is offically ends when the last guy standing keels over :), usually from exhaustion from no sleep or alternately the mesquitos get soo bad the last guy standing keels over from blood loss.
You're cool even without hi vis.
I meant cool as in temperature rather than hot in a long sleeve jersey....BUT...you are right, I AM COOL :) HA!
I mapquested "Whitter" just to see what part of Alaska you are in...I had no idea!! UH...I didn't see any roads into the town...or maybe that was just mapquest being lazy?
Thanks for the pictures. I am in awe of this concept of it being so light out so late at night. When I do visit it might have to be in June!!
Karen
24 hour light would be cool!
24 hour dark would kill me!
Dog vs Airplane = Dog wins every time. My Boston Terrier kicks trucks butts when they drive by so I know this.
24 hour sun means more ride time :-)
Anytine you can have open fire at a party it is good. (memories of keggars past *sigh*)
Sploosh! Stay safe ...
That route to Whitter looks AWESOME!
Chainring scars are totally hawt!
Whitter sort of has a rode into the town, it is a tunnel that is shared with trains. The staging times are staggered so trains and vehicles don't collide. Pretty unique from what I read. Giant airplane engines pump fresh air into the tunnel and suck out the bad. It also has "safe shelter" incase of a explosion or the tunnel collapses or whatever.
We don't truly get 24 hrs of dark here, in the darkest times we get about 4 or 5 hours. BUT! Snow on the ground makes the darness a LOT less dark, it reflects all light from all sources so it really helps to lighten up the darkness. It suprises me when I go down to the State at how dark darkness can be.
2 votes for chainring scars...I have found another subculture :)
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