Return to Homer

From September 2005 to August 2006, I lived in Homer, Alaska, an "End of the Road" fishing and tourism community of about 5,000 people. I still regard that year as the best of my life. There's just something about that cheechako year in Alaska - that fish-out-of-water discovery and evolution. And in a place like Homer - which is populated by sophisticated artists, grubby fishermen and general misfits living in cabins made of plywood, tires and Tyvek, all surrounded by an incredible panorama of mountains and sea - the process of becoming Alaskan is perpetually interesting. We lived in a great cabin on Diamond Ridge, with a huge single-room living space and a loft. We had cross-country ski trails out our back door, regular backyard visits from moose and bears, snow until June and vast fields of fireweed after that. I rediscovered my love for cycling and took up this little hobby called snow biking. I tried new things like run/mountain bike/ski triathlons and winter camping. I went to fun little art openings, independent movies and live music shows. Life was great. I know about the rose-colored lenses of the past and all that, and I certainly had my reasons for leaving. But seriously, I had no idea how good I had it. I just assumed all of Alaska was like Homer. Then, in early August 2006, I left Homer to start a new life in Juneau. I took one last glance in my rear-view mirror as I rounded Bay View hill, sighed happily, and I hadn't been back since.

As I grappled with homesick feelings for Juneau, I decided it would be gratifying to go down and visit Homer for the first time in four years. I wanted to be back in Anchorage in time to attend a journalism conference this weekend, so I only had a couple of days to spend down there. I hit the road south on Tuesday afternoon, wearing short sleeves with my window rolled down in the warm sunlight. As a cyclist, I have a guilty confession to make: I love driving. I love to buy a huge jug o'soda at the gas station and crank up the music and enjoy the effortless views of the world. I think my enjoyment of driving is connected to my cycling habit and my tendency to change locations frequently: I seem to be happiest when I am on the move.

The first thing I did when I arrived in Homer was park my car on the Spit and stroll along the beach. I admit I choked up a bit when I saw the backdrop of the Kenai Mountains against landmarks that haven't changed a bit: the dilapidated pirate ship, the Alaska flag flapping in the middle of the mud flats, the Salty Dawg. I went for dinner at my old favorite haunt, the Cosmic Kitchen, and then loaded up with groceries for an overnight bike camping trip.

Something I always wanted to do when I lived in Homer was ride the beach between Homer and Anchor Point. Back then, I didn't have the bike or the bravery to do it. But now that I'm armed with Pugsley and a GPS, I thought it would be fun to load up my camping gear and head north. I wanted to go luxury camping, with magazines and a pillow and a bunch of warm clothing, so I opted to take panniers. Because my rack is outfitted to only fit the front end of Pugsley, the bike bags had to go on the front. Note to self: Never, never load Pugsley with front panniers. It already steers like a tractor. Add 15 extra pounds of low-riding weight on the front, and I might as well just let the bike steer itself, because my ability to maneuver it is about zilch. Oh well. Beaches are wide, and as long as I avoid the largest boulders and the sea itself, I'll be OK. (Note to self: This isn't easy.)

Once I survived the cheek-clenching descent to sea level, the beach riding was surprisingly relaxing. I expected more Juneau-type obstacles: Wet grass, quicksand, clam shell graveyards, barnacle-coated sharp rocks and waves crashing against cliffs. What a found was mostly cobbles and sand - the riding was never fast, but for "off trail" cycling, it was about as good as it gets.

And the evening was stunning. It was after 8 p.m. by the time I hit the trail, with the sun still high on the horizon, moist air that was warm enough for a single layer, and only the tiniest breeze wafting off the surf. A deeply familiar smell permeated the air - a smell unique to Homer - salt infused with a gritty sweetness. It's different from the more earthy, musky smell of Juneau's shoreline. It filled me with nostalgia as I rode along a beach I had never before visited.

And it's so quiet down there. Even though the highway parallels the shoreline just a couple miles to the east, the beach is hidden by a fortress of sand bluffs, so I really began to feel that sense of being "away," a lone traveler in the backcountry.

I sang songs to myself; songs I genuinely hadn't thought about in years, because they never occurred to me until that moment. I sang and smiled at the strength of my distant recognition. Like the aroma of Homer's shoreline, some things just stay with you always. Even though I was only averaging about 7 mph, I imagined myself flying. Sandhill cranes and seagulls flew beside me; their shrill voices echoed in the breeze.

As late evening settled in, I came upon a brown mound rendered almost invisible by the flat light. I nearly bumped against it before I realized it was an animal and swerved quickly around it. I hit the brakes to see what it was. A ragged little sea otter looked back at me, nodded slowly a few times and then rolled back into the stones. It didn't growl at me or try to squirm away; it just looked at me with these soulful eyes, deep and black and hinting at a kind of desperation or resignation. I thought this sea otter must be injured, or very sick. I lingered for several minutes, wondering if there was anything I could do for it. It kept nodding toward its back end, as though something were wrong with its legs. Then its head would lull and it would settle back into a crouch, but the whole time, it never took its eyes off me. I was shaken by the interaction - knowing this otter was probably going to die, and there was nothing I could do to help. I wanted to call the SeaLife Center or PETA. It was all I could do to turn my back and let nature continue doing what nature does. In this modern world, lucky are the animals that aren't affected by human intervention. Still, humans are what they are, and it's difficult not to get emotionally involved.

The sun set just before 11 p.m.; its orange-tinted twilight lingered long and late. I rode to the end of a long spit of land before the Anchor River. I knew the river would block my passage, because GPS told me so, but I was having such a great night of riding that I guess I somehow hoped there'd be a way to cross it. There wasn't, not without swimming, and the water was flowing dark and fast. I backtracked a couple miles until I was out of sight of the bluff-top homes of Anchor Point, and set up camp on the cobbles at midnight.

Sunrise came a lot earlier than I would have liked. I enjoy bivy camping but I can't really sleep when the sun's out, which it usually is in the summer in Alaska. The temperature was down near freezing and there was a layer of frost on my bivy sack. I walked out to the edge of the water to take some pictures of the soft colors, and that was all it took for two ravens to attack my bag of bagels and peck disgusting holes in every single one of them. I yelled for a few seconds and resigned myself to eating a Power Bar for breakfast. I bundled up in my luxury down coat and booties and sat on the beach reading a magazine, but eventually the cold needled through and I had to get moving.

I rode to the state park and cut up to the highway, hoping to cross the Anchor River on the bridge and find a new access point to the beach. However, all of the roads I tried north of the river dead-ended at the bluffs, and I became frustrated with the effort. I backtracked down the highway and rode up the North Fork Road instead.

North Fork is a nice little backroad between Anchor Point and Homer. I used to ride it fairly often when I was training for my various first endurance races. Like most of the longer roads in Homer, it contains one big climb and a lot of rolling hills. (Note to self: Pugsley loaded with heavy front panniers does not climb.) And, like most of the longer roads in Homer, it's full of interesting sightseeing. This house is just one example of the many strange structures on North Fork Road. Why would anyone build a house shaped like that? It's such a mystery. But this is one thing I love about Homer: You can build a house shaped like that, made of plywood, and no homeowners association or planning commission is going to crack down on you.

The North Fork Road also has great viewing of Cook Inlet's famous volcanoes. I'm pretty sure that's Illiamna on the left, with Redoubt on the right. Mount Redoubt blew its top last year, and Augustine went off in 2006, so this is still a very active region for volcanic activity.

I rode all the way around North Fork, spent some time scouting out old snowmobile trails near Beaver Creek, and even rode around Diamond Ridge and back up Bay View hill, for a total of 16 miles on day one and 43 miles on day two, but I had gotten up so freaking early that I was still back to my car before 11 a.m. I had just about enough of riding the front-heavy, squishy-tire bicycle, so I headed out East End Road to do some snowshoeing near McNeil Canyon. It's crazy beautiful up there, with open, rolling hills to the north and a parabola of mountains hugging the south end.

Oh, and glaciers. There's glaciers, too. I mostly just dawdled around to kill a little time and then headed to my friend Carey's house. She spent the day fishing and caught a 45-pound halibut, so guess what we made for dinner? It's a special occasion, that first fresh halibut of the year, something to both savor and gorge on. We chatted about all the changes in our lives and flirted with the idea of going out for Cinco de Mayo, but neither of us felt like dealing with the party scene. Instead we filled sandbags on the beach for Carey's greenhouse project, and enjoyed yet another incredible sunset.

I figured the overnight below-freezing temps would lead to some nice crust conditions in the morning. I meant to get up early, I really did, so I could take Pugsley out for some summer snow biking on Crossman Ridge. But I didn't get up early; these things happen. By the time I did get out, the sun was out in full force and the snow was pretty punchy, but still rideable on the flats and downhills, and pretty darn fun, especially when you factor in the unpredictable fishtail factor and occasional dive into drifts.

So it was down from the snow, to Two Sisters Bakery for holistic organic vegetarian lunch, and then back to the beach. I rode one of my old favorite loops - down West Hill, out the Spit, around Kachemak Drive, up East Hill and across Skyline. Near Kachemak Drive, I found another good access point to the beach and did a little riding on the mudflats (yes, I did give Pugsley a real good spray-down and lube afterward.) I was back on the road north at 4 p.m., meaning I spent less than 48 hours in Homer. It definitely feels like I was there for longer than two days, and it definitely doesn't feel like I've been gone for four years.

When homesickness sets in

It was the most beautiful day of the year. I realize the same could be said about many days of similar light, warmth and clarity, but this day was the most beautiful because, like a painting strategically placed in the middle of a gallery, this day had an in-your-face boldness to its perfection. It was bright and blue and free to move whichever direction it pleased. It was a strange day to wake up in the midst of a full-on identity crisis.

"Wait a minute, what am I doing here? Why did I leave Juneau? Why did I quit my job? I liked Juneau. I liked my job. I can't even focus here. I sit down to write or edit and my mind goes blank and all I want to do is ride my bike. Maybe I should just ride my bike for a living. Travel hobo-style around the continent. I could probably get by on 10 bucks a day."

I opened the window to a rush of sweet, cool air and exhaled the sour onset of something at once familiar and unsettling - homesickness. I know this malady well. I fully expected it to hit at some point. I accepted it and braced for it. Like the fast-food junkie who devours onion rings even though they give him heartburn, I crave change despite its undesirable physical effects.

As I usually did on the most beautiful mornings in Juneau, I decided to hike into the mountains. This Chugach place isn't like Juneau's slice of the Coast range. It's much bigger, with many more readily accessible starting points. The ridges aren't quite as rolling and friendly. They're jagged and pointy, with rough scree fields flowing down the slope like a suspended avalanche. I decided to go check out the ridge I had scoped out from Peak 2 last month. I haven't yet had a chance to buy the adventure bible known as the Chugach State Park map, so I don't know the actual name of the ridge. I'll call it the O'Malley Ridge, since it rises up from O'Malley Road and the peaks have O'Malley in their names. The snow across the valley was rotten and punchy. I stamped knee-deep craters even with snowshoes, stumbling and stabbing with my poles in what promised to be a wet slog of a hike. But the day was still beautiful and my mind was still wandering elsewhere, in places where dull anxiety festers as ice shards sting shins.

"It will be better if I make a plan. I gotta start training for Trans Rockies, there's that, and it would be fun to do the 24 Hours of Light and Fireweed 200 to work up to it. Maybe just the 24 Hours of Light. I'll train every day in the morning, and then I'll spend two hours working on my job search and other such administrative stuff, and then I'll really sit down and write. Eventually I'm going to sit down and write. Why can't I just do it? Why is it so impossible? Why does it have to be so distractingly beautiful here?"

I saw a ramp to the ridge that looked friendly enough and started up; like most distractions, it was steeper and longer than it seemed. I tracked my way through thin strips of snow just to stay out of the leg-sucking scree, then took off my snowshoes to scramble up the last 500 feet. I picked my way along the jagged ridgeline, tip-toeing beside soft cornices and skirting rocks still ringed in ice. For the first time all day, I was wholly focused on the physical effort, the here and now. Having briefly forgotten my anxieties, I looked back at the city skyline, and behind that, the looming mass of Denali, sharp and shimmering in the perfectly clear air. I smiled and sighed. As long as I can remember, my identity has been deeply routed in a sense of place. One of my earliest memories is as a 3-year-old, proudly reciting to people I met that "My name is Jill Homer and I live in Allen, Texas." Then, a few years later, in Sandy, Utah, I wandered the sagebrush hills surrounding my house and buried time capsules full of mementos to forever cement my presence there. It still makes me sad to think of all the new houses now smothering those spots. I fall in love with places the way some fall in love with people. I can leave them, but I carry them in memories that sometimes feel too close to bear, and I miss them in a way that feels a lot like loneliness.

A cold wind tore along the ridge and whipped up a storm of powder snow, still dry and untouched by spring. Change is slow on top of mountains. That's something I like about them. I can pretend that time doesn't always have to move incessantly forward - that sometimes it can move up, to a different dimension, where even the future lays somewhere behind.

"So what if I've been a little slow on the upstart? That doesn't mean I made the wrong choice. I can't force these things to happen. That doesn't mean they won't. And I can miss Juneau. That doesn't mean I shouldn't be here now. There's always space to return. I should head south this week. I think it's time to go visit Homer."

Welcome, almost summer

The coming of May always seems to ignite a flurry of new activity among Alaskans. In my four summers here (five if you count tourism), I have yet to fully grasp why the frenzy is so sudden and furious. I mean, yes, it is a bit warmer outside (42 degrees when I left the house at 11 this morning. Strangely does not feel warm after three weeks in Utah and California.) And yes, there is still usable twilight at 11 p.m. (which I haven't used since 8 because I've been inside typing up a resume/cover letter and an article query; and, yes, I am proud of myself for spending three hours doing this.) And yes, the snow is mostly gone (but seriously, who doesn't like snow?) What I can't understand where everyone went in January, during one of those crisp bluebird days when the land was full of sparkling beauty and the trails were empty. I just don't get it, I really don't, why the mania is so acutely seasonal.

Still, summer fun is incredibly fun, and the timing is good when I'm trying to learn new landscapes and meet new friends. On Saturday, a woman who I worked with very briefly in Juneau, who now lives in Anchorage, invited me to join her on a group bike ride. The circumstance itself was interesting, because we were coworkers for all of a week when I first moved to Juneau four years ago. She understood my plight of being a stranger in a strange town and invited me to a barbecue, which happened to be her goodbye barbecue because she was moving to Anchorage. Now, four years later, I'm in the exact same position and she's still as friendly as ever. We met up with the Arctic Bicycle Club for their Saturday ride from Anchorage to the Eagle River Nature Center. Despite a few inches of fresh snow on the hillsides and a forecast that called for more white stuff, nearly a dozen people showed up for the May Day ride (this is one of the things that amuses me about Alaskans, because dates seem to matter more than actual weather.) We endured a brief hail storm, but the rest of the 40-mile ride was washed in sunlight, with a mellow pace and smiles all around because for some, it was the first outdoor ride of the year.

Saturday night was the "Welcome Almost Summer" barbecue with several Anchorageites/fellow endurance nuts that I met when I visited Fairbanks in March. We grilled outside the house in light, cold rain as a small herd of moose casually grazed the brush in the front yard; we ate big plates of fresh grilled vegetables and summery salads, and then drooled over pictures from the Wilderness Classic, where the guys who completed the race skied 180 miles in about four days over a remote, rugged and deep-frozen mountain range in northern Alaska. That's Alaskans for you - celebrate summer prematurely while dreaming and scheming about faraway winter.

Today I met up with a man I met during Saturday's club ride and a few of his friends for a hike up Mount Baldy. It was a pretty laid-back trek, more about the "thinking about it" breaks and "butt sledding" than hiking (we actually trudged back up hills a few times just so we could "sled" back down.) I have to admit that even I will be pretty excited when these ridges finally clear of snow and their possibilities really open up. But as long as the snow remains, at least the trek down is fairly fast.

Later in the afternoon, we regrouped for a ride around roads in Eagle River and Chugiak. It was great fun, and we already have a hill climb slated for later this week and a possible ride to Palmer on Friday (I don't know why I have become so fixated on riding a bicycle from Anchorage to the Mat-Su Valley, but I seem to already be recruiting others in my cause.) It's been fun to spend a weekend hanging around several groups of people and wonder if I may eventually work my way into part of a "crowd." It will be pretty funny if a simple group bike ride leads to me hanging around a bunch of people from Eagle River, who seem to share a healthy rivalry with Anchorage (as we stood on top of Mount Baldy, I looked out at downtown Anchorage and made the mistake of saying, "Yeah Anchorage," wherein I was warned to instead say, "Boo Anchorage; Yeah Eagle River.") Either way, that's part of the fun of being a stranger in a strange town.

Getting to know you

It's only my third day in Anchorage, and already I feel a mixture of triumph and guilt. Although I did get my most important resume package sent out and met with one editor, I really haven't settled in to start much of the work I promised myself I would start. So far I have a good excuse. It's not that I'm a bad self manager (cough, cough) ... it's just that I need to spend a little time getting to know this city.

And there's really no better way to get a feel for a city than by bicycle. On Wednesday, I honestly couldn't have told you where my house was in relation to downtown (and was yelled at by a taxi driver because of this.) By Thursday, I understood the triangle shape of the city, where many important landmarks were located on this triangle, and how to use bike paths to navigate the northern and central portions of town. By this afternoon, I could locate a multitude of different parks and major arteries, and already feel like an old pro of Anchorage (OK, not really, but at least I can tell a taxi driver where I live.)

All it took was 40-60 miles a day of relaxed if confused pedaling - sometimes in circles, sometimes on roads not all that suitable for biking, but always new to me, and always an adventure. I actually love biking around strange cities. I love the feeling of being completely, bewilderingly lost, and then passing unique and intriguing places as I search for somewhere familiar. Riding aimlessly around Portland and San Fransisco was one of my most effective methods for coping with my relationship breakup last May. Getting purposefully lost in the city also is great therapy for coping with the unsettling feeling of being temporarily displaced from my career.

On Thursday I wandered around the north end of town, finally putting together the Chester Creek greenway (seriously, what is up with all the spurs?) and checked out Government Hill, Mountain View and Muldoon. Then it was on up the Glenn Highway bike path, lost again in Eagle River while searching for a bike route north (how do cyclists get to the Mat-Su Valley? Do they just ride on the highway?) Then I took a nice respite from spastic city riding with a jaunt up the Eagle River Road, a quiet, narrow country road with light traffic.

On Friday I decided to ride around the perimeter of the city. My favorite ride in Anchorage so far has been the Coastal Trail. It's scenic, quiet and only seems to be lightly used, at least on weekday afternoons in April. I have yet to see a single person beyond Point Woronzof, so past there I really crank it up, laying into the pedals in my highest gear and leaning hard into the multitude of swooping turns. It makes road biking feel like riding singletrack (don't worry, I always slow way down if the turn is blind or if I see another person or animal. I understand the etiquette of multi-use paths.) From there, I made every effort to stay as close to the Turnagain Arm as possible. This allowed for lots of fun discoveries - winding through scenic neighborhood streets and riding rocky singletrack trails through parks with my skinny-tire touring bike. Using back roads, I managed to work my way to the Old Seward Highway, and from there jumped on Rabbit Creek Road and climbed up to the foothills, where I proceeded to make my way around the outskirts of Hillside (hilly). Then I raced a bus all the way home on the Lake Otis Parkway.

Now that I'm an expert (ha!) at riding a bicycle through Anchorage, I just need to find some riding partners. I have loads of free time as long as I can keep coming up with excuses not to do the work I promised myself I was going to do. So if you live in Anchorage and have a favorite place to ride, and don't mind showing it off to a newbie who doesn't own a real road bike and may never own a real road bike, because deep in her heart she understands she is merely a simple bike tourist who sometimes likes to play in the dirt and snow ... please get in touch! You can comment here or e-mail me privately at jillhomer66@hotmail.com.

A place to get lost

A hot and heavyset fog hangs over the coastline. I ride along glistening sand but the ocean is nowhere to be seen. The cloud blanket can't be more than a few dozen feet high and I can still feel the blistering sun on my skin. I only have a couple of hours to ride before I have to be at the airport, so I ride as fast as I can muster on the missionary bike with the bouncy tires and blistering seat. Since I can't see the ocean, I turn off the Pacific Coast Highway and veer up the bike path along the Santa Ana River. I have this vague idea that if you ride far enough inland in Orange County, you hit mountains, or at least hills. The fog dissipates into a gray haze and the path turns to dusty gravel. The river corridor is lined with sun-faded houses and exotic-looking crops. Multiple signs warn me not to drink the irrigation water. I ride beneath freeways and skirt the edge of massive industrial complexes. The river itself fades from flowing water lined with grass, to stagnant water and marshes, to mud flats, and finally to stark concrete. A thin strip of brown water trickles down the manufactured channel. I stop and look for the haze-obscured hills.

Where am I?

The next day, I'm in Sandy, Utah. Delta Airlines couldn't find a space for me on their nightly flight to Anchorage, so I'm spending a bonus day with my family. I have a little bit of time before I have to return to the airport, so I go for a run. 40 and 50 mph wind gusts tear down the streets and the air is choked with dust. I can't see the mountains to the east or west, only a thick brown mass swirling into gray sky. I sprint with the wind at my back, past my former middle school, past my old high school. I laugh at the student drivers in their matching, lurching cars. I reminisce about the time I almost joined the cross country team until they sent me out to run two miles around the neighborhood streets. I remember that I quit because I had never experienced anything so simultaneously boring and painful. I reminisce about the time that freckled blond kid in my English class rode by on his motorcycle as I was walking home from school, then turned around, stopped, and gave me a ride. I smile and fly north, carried by an unholy wind that I don't even recognize until it is time to turn and face it. For two miles I plow into an invisible wall, holding my hand to my forehead to shield it from blasting sand. I squint until the world is a blur of uneven shapes. I feel suddenly bewildered by this place I know so well.

Where am I?

The next day, I'm in Anchorage. I spend the morning working on my resume and cover letters, so I decide to reward the afternoon with a "research" trip around this city where I supposedly live. The fact that I'm not going back to Juneau still bewilders me. There's a reason I ripped myself out of my comfort zone, but the truth is I'm still looking for it. In the meantime, I'm only wandering. I ride south on the Coastal Trail and marvel how most of the snow is already gone. I loop around Kincaid Park and grumble about how much snow and mud is still covering the singletrack trails. I zig-zag through the south part of town, end up on some rough trail near Campbell Creek and find myself ducking beneath the Seward Highway in a rocky underpass scarcely taller than me. I climb into the foothills, where the streets are lined in rippled layers of snow and the mountains capture streaks of silver sunlight filtered by an overcast sky. The city is far below me now, sprawled across the valley on a scale that was familiar to me a long time ago, but feels more foreign now. I try to pick out the neighborhood where I reside, but the orientation isn't there. I grasp for a sense of place, but it slips away in the wind.

I feel a rush of new perspective, because I don't know where I am.

Weekend in California

So how do an urban girl and a hopeless outdoor junkie spend a weekend together in Los Angeles and Orange County? Our skeptical family members were all curious ("So, um, what exactly are you guys going to do?") I was open to suggestions ("Disneyland? Shopping in Newport Beach? How can I refrain from looking like one of those bored kids in a department store?") My sister was willing to compromise. ("I found a few suggestions on good hikes, but I'm not doing anything that takes all day.") There's just something about having a childhood in common, though. No matter what you do, you're going to spend the whole weekend laughing.

Afternoon at the Los Angeles Zoo. Sara and I both agreed the dancing harbor seals were our favorite. (Me: "I used to see these outside my office window in Juneau. But ours weren't nearly as talented.)

Walking around Hollywood. (There were forays into clothing stores that contained no trace of bicycle jerseys or running shoes. I tried not to stand around looking like a bored child.) We also wavered a little dinner. I had already dragged her to one sushi restaurant the day before, and she didn't see anything that appeared edible on the menu at the Greek place, so we ended up at Quiznos.

But we did agree on this: Ice cream sandwiches at Diddy Riese near UCLA. $1.50 for the most amazing rocket fuel you have ever sunk a spoon into.

Sunday cruise along the beach with a cool breeze, live music and the smell of kettle corn and charcoal wafting through the air. We rode close to 25 miles, which was perhaps Sara's longest bike ride since, well, possibly ever ... and she had a big smile on her face the entire time.

Lunch on Sunset Beach. The bikes laid out to get a nice California tan while we slathered on sunscreen and ate turkey sandwiches and extra cookies from Diddy Riese. Fantastic weekend! Back to more northerly climes tomorrow. I hope breakup is about over in Anchorage. I'm pretty sure I'm ready for summer now.

Farther south

One of the advantages of life in Alaska is that it makes everything in the Lower 48 seem so inexpensive. $1.79 for a Pepsi? You gotta be kidding me! (You know, because I'm used to paying $2.69.) Fifty cents a pound for oranges? I'm gonna buy eight pounds! (Never mind that I'm leaving this place in three days.) You know what else is cheap? Air travel! No one believes me. I once paid nearly $300 for a one-way commercial airline coach ticket from Fairbanks to Juneau (two central cities technically located in the same state.) Down here, you can jet cross-country for $149 if you catch travelocity.com on a good day. When I looked into the logistics, I realized there was no good reason why I shouldn't drop a few more hundred miles south to visit my little sister at her new home in Huntington Beach, Calif.

This is my baby sister, Sara. She'll be 23 years old next week. She's four inches taller than me, with the long legs that both my little sisters got and I always wanted (mine are more like tree stumps.) She and I share some of the same facial features and all of the same family members, but that's about where our similarities end. Basically, if you took my personality and inverted it, the result would probably be like Sara. She likes to shop. She has a great fashion sense. She's sociable and good with people. She doesn't care much for the outdoors. She hates winter. Her preferred form of exercise is bikram yoga, where people sit in a dark room in 100-degree heat and do painful stretches (oh please, just kill me first.) But despite our differences, we always got along well (perhaps because of the age spread; I was too busy tormenting our middle sister to pick on her.)

Still, we were never close. That began to change last summer as we were both dealing with life upheavals. We reconnected and began contacting each other frequently. Then in December, she announced she needed a drastic change. And suddenly my baby sister -who was still living at home, who had just barely graduated from college, who had worked the same stressful retail job for years - threw everything to the wind and moved to Southern California.

True to our differences, Southern California is probably one of the last places in the U.S. I would choose to live. While I do recognize its beauty, I would likely begin to feel suffocated by the sprawl, lost in the crowds and driven to distraction by the ceaselessly perfect weather. But Sara loves it here, and after a mere four months, she's really thriving. Watching her take this risk has been a huge inspiration to me. It's been great to come here and see major life change from her point of view. It was also fun to check out the sweet new beach cruiser she just acquired. ("It's my first bike!" she exclaimed proudly, because before this she always had to use our hand-me-downs.)

Coaster brakes and chain guards freak me out, so she let me borrow her roommate's father's mountain bike. It's a Liahona, an honest-to-goodness mission bike, custom-manufactured specifically for use by LDS missionaries. It appeared solidly built, with decent base-level parts, but it hasn't had a tuneup in a long, long time; the seat was humbling in its ability to dig into all the wrong pressure points, and I couldn't find a pump to inflate the soft tires. I had to stop at Target to buy a $10 helmet (I will give it to my sister. I doubt she'll wear it.) Sometimes I really think I should covert to running, because the gear aspect of cycling can be so annoying sometimes. But, oh, it was wonderful to get out on a perfect day, plowing into the sea breeze to Newport Beach to have lunch with my sister, dodging four-seated pedal taxis out to Balboa and grinding along the PCH to Laguna Beach before sprinting on the soft tires and limited gearing so I could beat my sister home from work. The things we will do for a bike ride.

You may at this point be wondering when and if I'm ever going back to Alaska. The answer is Monday or Tuesday, hopefully. But since I'm flying standby to avoid the breathtakingly expensive plane ticket home, my return date is up in the air.

When it rains in Utah

Compared to Southeast Alaska, the weather in Utah is so boring, except when it's not. As much as I've lamented the frequent lack of UV light in Alaska, the truth is I'm inclined to feel sun-fried much faster than I feel the effects of seasonal affective disorder. And as soon as my lips are blistered to the point where I can't even eat medium salsa without crying (and believe me, I try everything - from slathering my lips with SPF 60 to continuous applications of SPF 30 chapstick - and they still burn) ... I start to wish for a few clouds.

But the clouds weren't particularly welcome on Wednesday, when I was going to meet up with a couple of my Utah friends that I had yet to see, to go mountain biking in Draper. "I don't know about today," my mom said when I told her about my plans. "It's going to be wet."

"What you guys think of as wet is not wet!" I exclaimed. "Maybe you get rained on for a minute, but you're dry before you even look up."

Still, because I (I mean my parents) live in Draper, my friend Anna called me before coming out to get the weather report. I walked to the front window and looked outside. "It's not even bad," I said. "It's dark overhead, but I can see sunlight to both the south and north. There's hardly even a breeze."

"What do you think?" Anna asked. "Is it going to clear out?"

"Well," I said, drawing a long breath as a loud howling sound approached like a train from the north. Flowers and bushes started to whip wildly and trees bent over backward. "It does look like the wind is starting to pick up."

Before I even emitted a closing breath to indicate to end of that sentence, the sky opened up. A blast of hail pellets rained down like bullets, pounding the roof with such violence that I had to raise my voice over the racket. "Now it's starting to hail! They're the size of marbles!" Before the barrage of ice balls even stopped, a solid sheet of rain slammed into the ground. In seconds, the storm released enough water to fill many hours of those seemingly endless misty drizzles in Alaska. The waterfall stirred up the solid white blanket of fallen hail like so much popcorn in an air popper.

"Yeah, now it's raining."

And, perhaps it's needless to say, but my friends decided it was not a good day for a bike ride. I ventured out about three hours later, hoping to check out the state of the sandy trails around Corner Canyon and perhaps still coax a meet-up. It continued to sprinkle and although the hard-packed trails yielded only the faintest track, I still felt self-conscious about trammeling trail etiquette. So I ventured onto dirt roads and even then hardly got splattered by mud. As I had predicted to my mother, everything was already mostly dry, despite the moisture still falling from the sky, and the rolling thunderstorms seemed to have abated.

I tried to call my friends out again, but it was too late. According to them, riding in the rain, even on pavement (my idea), demanded a "hardcore" disposition, which of course both of them have but neither felt like yielding to a silly thing like a Wednesday afternoon bike ride. I just kept riding for another couple hours in intermittent sprinkles, with both my hair and clothing magically becoming dry mere minutes after the rain stopped, in air that was warm and downright pleasant, grumbling to myself about how "hardcore" just doesn't mean what it used to.

And all the while, I kept a wary eye fixated on the dark clouds in the distance, wondering when the sky was going to open up and unleash all its fury again.

I was disappointed when it didn't.

Sojourn in the desert

It seems there is much I could write about my long weekend in Southern Utah, from frustration with my inability to get over an irrational fear of water to the one-year "anniversary" of my relationship breakup and some of the thoughts I had about that. But sometimes the time to write just isn't there, and it's necessary just to sort through the vacation photos and sigh happily about recent good times.

I headed south late Friday night with my friends Chris and Becky. The plan was to float the rapids in Westwater Canyon with about a half dozen other people. The more I tried to psych myself up to do it, the more I felt low-level panic gurgling up from my gut. And it wasn't the good panic like the kind you get before a big race. It was debilitating panic like the kind that makes you feel dizzy and incapable of simple movements. Basically, I'm afraid of moving water. I have been for most of my adult life. It hasn't improved one bit over the years. I need help, like therapy. But I don't feel that river trips are important enough to warrant therapy, so instead I deal with my fear by forcing myself into one every so often. Last May, I had the Tour Divide coming up and felt like I had to prove something to myself by sitting in a raft as it floated down Westwater Canyon. It was horrible. This year, I didn't have anything to prove. So as we set up camp at the put-in, I expressed my desire to opt out.

While everyone else went on a splashy-fun float trip down the Colorado River, I drove the shuttle and made a short detour to Fruita, Colo., where I rented a mountain bike and spent five hours riding the 18 Road trails. I felt gleeful, probably because I had narrowly escaped a river trip, but my good mood put me in prime singletrack form. Trails like these are pure guilty pleasure - at least compared to the kind of riding I thrive on. The banked curves feel sinful, the smooth trails are too fast-flowing to be real, and it's downright pointless to spend five hours wending around a few acres of land on progressively smaller loops, often returning to my favorite stretch of trail to see just how far I can lean into the turns. But I don't care about all that because I become completely immersed in the "flow," which is pure and primal and knows no fear.

In Fruita, though, there are still plenty of opportunities to venture onto long dirt roads that actually go somewhere, or off the beaten path up a wash, where the riding is chunky and sandy with lots of on/off-bicycle moments - in other words, frustrating but refreshingly real, which is more my style.

Don't get me wrong. I do love well-built bike trails, and would likely be a much better rider if I rode this kind of terrain more often. But I couldn't do it every day. My need to explore would take over, and I'd end up chattering over long miles of cow-trammeled four-wheel-drive roads and spinning along pavement. If I lived in Fruita, I'd probably end up being the crazy girl riding her mountain bike down I-70.

Chris and Becky were understanding about my chickening out of the Westwater trip. Becky is posing with the Fat Tire amber ale I picked up for her in Fruita. Supposedly you can't buy that stuff anywhere in Utah, so I managed to prove my worth on this trip after all.

We spent a couple hours on Saturday night trying to find a campsite near Moab, only to end up on the Kokopelli Trail near Onion Creek. Up at 6,000 feet, the temperature dropped to the 30s and my Thermarest went flat, so at about 4 a.m. I woke up on the cold ground, shivering. I warmed back up by going for a short walk along the route, gazing at an explosion of stars in the sky and remembering last year's journey down the Kokopelli. I wish I had time to do it again.

Sunday was refreshingly lazy. We woke up late and ate big egg and cheese burritos for breakfast, then sauntered up Negro Bill Canyon. We saw some climbers repelling on the arch near the end of the canyon. Then I headed over to the Slickrock Cafe to meet up with my dad.

This is my dad. He loves to hike. Every spring, he makes a trip down to the Needles district of Canyonlands National Park to stretch out his hiking muscles and enjoy the warm air and sun. This year, I was lucky enough to join him on his annual ritual.

My dad also likes to get after it, so we didn't just go out for touristy strolls. We hiked 20 miles on Monday and nearly 11 on Tuesday, over rough and sandy and slickrocky terrain.

On Monday we walked all the way down to the Colorado River, near Brown Betty Rapids in Cataract Canyon. Cataract Canyon is what I consider the catalyst of my fear of water - although I have a few childhood experiences that sparked the phobia, it was Cataract where I was first truly convinced I was going to drown as I was briefly dragged under an overturned raft with a rope caught around my neck. It was interesting to look out over the fast-flowing brown water to the Dollhouse, a place I visited just a few hours before I took my fateful swim in 2001. I was struck with a strange but strong desire to jump into the river and swim across to the other side. I wonder what my future therapist would make of that?

But Canyonlands itself is for the most part dry as a bone. And it's invigorating in its remoteness. We saw only two other people on Monday, both near the end of the hike, and in the canyons above the river, I felt the exciting sensation of truly being "out there," off the grid, the way I sometimes feel in Alaska.

Lots of varied terrain, too.

The view from our campsite in the morning. My dad likes to camp in style, with a springbar tent, a fire and camp chairs. Because there's no bathroom, table, water or $250,000 RV, most people would probably consider this "primitive" camping. But if you have become accustomed to rolling out your bivy sack wherever the urge to pass out strikes you, this kind of camping is pure luxury.

"But do they sleep any better than us?" my dad wondered aloud as we passed an expansive motor home parked down the road from our site. I'd be inclined to say "no." As I get older, I watch my friends acquire more creature comforts and tangible stuff. Sometimes I feel guilty that I have yet to build a real desire for any of that. I'm actually perfectly comfortable plopping down my bivy sack beneath a pinion tree in some nondescript valley deep in the desert. My goal is to keep it simple as long as I can, or until I have no choice, whichever comes first.

This is my home and I can visit it whenever I want, even if it means jumping on a bicycle and riding 2,500 miles south. Come to think of it, there's not much right now to prevent me from doing that. Of course there is something to be said about burdens and the joys they bring you. But for now I am enjoying being a "light-packer" in life.

Day at the Bird

I headed up to Snowbird today with my friend Jen. Jen and I go way back. I met her the same day I met my college boyfriend, Mike. It was the fall of 1998. I decided to join the University of Utah's environmental club, Terra Firma. Jen floated into the meeting wearing a little sun dress. I kinda wrote her off as one of those "out there" hippy chicks. Then Mike walked in, and that was the end of me noticing anything about Jen. Over the course of several tree plantings and loosely-environmentally-related trips to the desert, I began to realize that Jen wasn't a hippy chick at all, but more of a ski bum. I eventually moved into the house on D Street where she lived - a crazy post-college flop house that housed as many as 10 people at the time and was often referred to as the "commune" or the "Terra Firma House." Jen was always coaxing her childhood friends from Syracuse, N.Y., to come out to Utah and visit her, and two of them decided to stay. One of those friends, who she introduced me to, was my long-time-now-ex-boyfriend Geoff. Yeah, there's a lot of history there. Jen and I go way back.

Jen's still a ski bum and currently works at Snowbird. She was nice enough to accompany me around the mountain today, even though my skill level wouldn't even fill her little toe. It was a beautiful spring day. The temperature rose to 64 degrees, according to thermometers around the resort, and the snow, which started out great, began to turn into a thick sludge that seemed to trickle down the mountain as you rode, like molten lava. I felt pretty downtrodden most of the day, which I attributed to a combination of altitude (up to 11,000 feet), caffeine withdrawal and heavy UV ray exposure (that seemed to penetrate my thick applications of SPF 60). It was still a blast, and when we were fried to a crisp with snow-reflected-high-elevation sunlight, we just headed over to Alta and lounged in the pool for 90 minutes.

We also hooked up with a friend of mine, Eric. I refer to Eric as "a high school friend." He was actually my first serious boyfriend, through half of my senior year in high school and first semester in college. We met when I was a grocery bagger and Albertsons and he was the manager of Video Shark, next door. I was 17 and he was 21, which I thought was so, so cool. Nearly every day he would come pick me up from school in his Saab. He was the person who really taught me how to snowboard. Then, one day (a date for some reason we both remembered - March 26, 1997), we went spring snowboarding on a hot day in a lot of slush. He launched a jump in the trees and landed badly on a patch of ice, and broke his wrist. He wouldn't even let me drive him to the emergency room (I was 17, with a fairly poor driving record already, and his car was a Saab.) He drove himself there with a broken wrist, and wore a purple cast for the rest of the spring. It's really fun to go back 13 years later and laugh about things like that. It's even more fun to introduce him to a good friend who goes way back, but not that far back.

It;s been so fun to come back here and reconnect all the pieces, just to see how much things haven't really changed.

Right place, right time

During the three days I spent in Southcentral Alaska last week, the weather was absolutely gorgeous. Temps in the 40s, sunny, no wind. I felt a bit reluctant to leave it all behind for April in Utah - the one (and only) time of year this state is even the slightest bit wet. But when I talked to my roommate in Anchorage today, she informed me that the city had been inundated with a 10-hour blizzard that left 6 inches of snow, with 4 more expected tonight. It was all I could do to bite my lip to keep from saying, "Ha, ha, guess where I am? 70 degrees and sunny! One day after a spring snowstorm that's keeping the mountains quite pretty. I'm going to go ride some singletrack!"

This is Ashlon. He's my Facebook friend who's letting me borrow his bike (his old bike. The new one is completely pimped out.) We had never met face to face before Sunday, but because we share a common passion for cycling, we got along like old friends. He recently moved to Sandy from West Virginia, so even though I'm the visitor, I felt more like the guide, pointing out the places of interest and we traveled through my childhood stomping grounds. That all changed when we reached the trailhead in Alpine. People who know me mainly through my blog tend to have this preconception that I'm an expert cyclist. I may be a passionate cyclist, a dedicated cyclist, even an obsessive cyclist, but I am anything but an expert. I'm flailing and timid, sometimes at the same time, and I can't roll away from even the simplest singletrack ride without a few cuts and bruises. But it doesn't mean I love it any less. It's a lesson I'm going to tell my children (or at least my nephew) someday: You don't have to be great at something to pursue it with all your heart, and even get your name on an ultra-endurance records list somewhere.


We had a great, relaxing late afternoon ride. I complained about the elevation and the alarming shortage of caffeinated beverages, and we both complained about how dry the air is. (Ashlon: "That crap that builds up in your nose, what is that?") Ashlon made fun of my tights and wool socks. (Me: "I rode up to Snowbird yesterday and it was really cold! How was I supposed to know it was so warm today?") I casually listed my weekend plans: Snowboarding in fresh (if now a bit slushy) powder on Thursday, river trip on Saturday, hiking in the desert on Sunday. Gotta love Utah.