Hurray for good news

Date: August 12
Mileage: 15.7
August mileage: 142.3
Temperature upon departure: 51

I dreamt last night that I was back in Utah, pedalling a long-ago sold mountain bike - my old red Trek 6500 - up an impossibly steep slope of slickrock toward the sun. The glare was so complete that all I could see in front of me was a bright blaze of white, and I could almost feel the sweat pouring down my scalp as waves of August heat shimmered off the sandstone. That's about the time I was jarred awake by nearby shouting, only to realize that my pillow had sopped up a large puddle that seeped into the tent beneath my poorly-built tarp shelter. I ran my fingers through my wet hair and looked at my watch - 5:30 a.m. A couple from a few sites down was having a screaming match at 5:30 a.m. Classy. Sometimes I feel irritated about the sketch-mongers around me, but then I remember that I live in a campground and can't exactly be counted above the fringe.

The house hunt is still coming along, and I've received a lot of helpful tips and leads that hopefully will put me in a place before my birthday, which is next week, and which - if I have to spent it with hobos in a campground - will officially go on the record as the most depressing birthday ever. So it was really nice to hear from Geoff today after he raced the Alyeska Hill Climb. He placed second in the up-and-down race, and he told me this secures his first place spot in the Alaska Mountain Runners Grand Prix. Which - at least by those standards - makes him the best overall mountain runner in Alaska for 2006. First place. In 2003, when we made jokes about the crazies who run up nearly vertical scree fields, I would have never guessed it. This is a picture of Geoff after he placed second in the Matanuska Peak Challenge last Saturday, which had one female racer who has children debating which was harder - Matanuska Peak, or childbirth.

That news lifted my spirts, which hit what I hope is rock bottom yesterday. I went on a hike to think about something besides housing for a while and ended up slipping on a wet rock and sliding down a waterfall on my butt, splashing down about 10 feet below into a waist-deep pond. Not that I wasn't already soaked from dripping brush and drizzling rain, but I was pissed about it on principle, angry at myself, and generally angry at the whole of Juneau. But, honestly, I feel much better today. My little private pity session in that puddle helped me realize that I can't just expect good things to come to me. I have to make them happen.

And just as I thought that, good things started to come my way. I actually received a lot of helpful hints and I am feeling much more optimistic. One of my coworkers may even put me up in a temporary place if I can't find a permanent one before the end of the month, so that's good news. So, yeah. I'm really not as pathetic as I sound on my blog. Now, time to go home to my wet pillow.

Half century and still homeless

Date: August 10
Mileage: 55.4
August mileage: 126.6 (inc. 15 miles Aug. 6)

I don't know if anyone out there in blogosphere is a landlord in Juneau, but my name is Jill and I have a cat. She's a very nice cat, very personable, and definitely a lot cleaner than any human child I have ever met - and a alot of adults for that matter. Please take pity on me. I'm cold and wet and have only a thin piece of nylon to call my home. Thank you.

For a city in Alaska, Juneau rentals have a surprisingly universal ban on pets. And they don't need to bend their discriminatory rules at all because places are snatched up the minute they hit the classifieds. I love my cat, but she and I may just have to weatherproof a cardboard box for the quickly approaching winter. Yesterday, so many landlords and real estate agents shut me down on the phone that I finally stopped asking them about their pet policy up front, hoping that by meeting me first and seeing how nice and somewhat normal I was, they would overlook my little furball waiting for me in Homer. I pedalled through the steady drizzle more than 50 miles yesterday to check a handful of places all over the city and valley, and still no dice. The places that will welcome pets with open arms are a little out of my price range. The others looked at me like I was asking to start a fire-twirling cult in their building. Sigh. I just finished unloading all of my worldly possessions into a heated storage unit, and I can't help envy their position - for $40 a month, my stuff has a better home than I do. But it's 1 p.m. now - time to set out for the afternoon and try again.

The first days

I don't have much free time or computer access right now, but it seems prudent to let my friends and family know that Geo and I made in to Juneau. We left Palmer and drove, drove, drove through the night. Around 3 a.m., I stopped at a lookout near the pass at Haines Junction and passed out on a bench for three hours before driving the last 100 miles to Haines to catch my ferry. That Alaska highway is really not built for a loaded-down Geo driving in the ungodly hours of the morning. I made it over the endless potholes and gravel patches OK, but I came precariously close to running out of gas when I drove 150 miles without seeing an open gas station — and, more importantly, I ran out of any access to cold caffinated beverages. Still, I gotta hand it to Geo. He's been through a lot, and he's been a good car.

Right now I'm homeless and logging in long training days at my new job. I'm staying at a National Forest campground on a lake near the Mendenall Glacier. It's fun to wake up every morning to a view of large chunks of ice floating in the deep blue water, but living in Juneau in a tent during the rainy season is not as romantic as it sounds. I have to take showers to dry out.

I've found the time to do exactly one bike ride, and haven't even really spent any time looking for a home yet, so my plan tomorrow is to spend an entire day riding my bike to all of the available places within a 12-mile radius. Only a 70 percent chance of rain tomorrow. Not bad.

Over 700 miles

23.9 gallons of gas: $82
108 ounces of Diet Pepsi: $6.43
Two-pound bag of generic Fruit Loops: $2.99
Meeting a lone wolf in the quiet Yukon dusk: Priceless

In transit

Date: August 2 and 4
Mileage: 14.1 and 33.8
August mileage: 66.2

One way to make a move involving 1,000 road miles, two international border crossings and a scheduled ferry ride even more exciting is to prolong the bulk of it as long as possible and then scrunch the rest into one super Saturday. Another way to make the move exciting is to do it in this rig ---->

And I sure am excited, because after three days of schlepping around a 10-year-old Geo Prism with a metric ton of all of my worldly possessions, I am currently in Palmer, Alaska, about 250 miles north of Homer by generous estimates. But, hey, my slowness hasn't been in vain. I spent a tourist day in Seward on the wildlife cruise and glacier tour, visited friends in Palmer, wrestled a mad zoo movie crowd to see "Over the Hedge" and finally got a chance to ride the rollercoaster bike path along the Parks Highway. And how could I leave southcentral Alaska without at least once standing next to a Halibut that's taller than I am?

Now that it's Saturday, I may even be able to catch a glimpse of the pain Geoff is willingly putting himself through tomorrow before I embark on my own marathon. I feel really nervous for him and the Matanuska Peak Challenge, and it helps overshadow my own realities ... the fact that I'm "between jobs." And homeless. And more than 700 miles from the place that is responsible for my next paycheck. And putting a lot of faith in a loaded-down sedan with 142,000 miles on it.

It's exciting.

And Mom, I'll call you from the road tomorrow. Don't worry. I'll be fine.

For a great diversion, a Soggy Bottom spectator climbed all the way to Devil's Pass to get some great pictures of the leaders and the course. They're posted here. I think they show in stunning detail why people do this race. They don't, however, explain the Matanuska Peak Challenge. Nine thousand feet in 13 miles? (Make that six and a half miles, with six and a half more of knee-busting descent.) No amount of scenery is going to save that race. Wish Geoff luck.

Last ride

Date: August 1
Mileage: 18.3
August mileage: 18.3
Temperature upon departure: 51

Last bicycle ride in Homer.
With a wind chill in August and rain-spattered streets
Pavement I've pedaled down many dozens of times. Maybe 100 times.
Suddenly drenched in a nostalgia I cannot shake, a beauty I never noticed.

I struggle because I want to remember all of it -
The way the trees pinstripe the sunlight,
The tear-soaked plummet to the Bay.

I find it hard to breathe because I'm descending
Something I'll never again climb.

Wavering against the cow parsnip,
I strain to memorize the musty sweet smell in the explosive umbrellas
Unable to forget how each one looks at 10-below
Encapsulated in ice
As if locked inside eternity.

I find comfort in the idea that nothing stays the same.

I may never return.
But I'll never leave, entirely.

When you hear from me again, I'll no longer be a Homer in Homer.
I'll be a Jill in Juneau.

Wintry ride

Date: July 30
Mileage: 39.2
July mileage: 710.3
Temperature upon departure: 47

It's been a little while since I doubled over in the shower to claw at the searing, itchy pain of blood circulation returning to my feet. But that happened to me today.

How quickly my long-term memory fails me. I looked at the thermometer before I left and observed the 47 degrees it was. I stepped outside and felt a light drizzle hitting my skin. But I'm so inclined to routine that my mind said "July" even as February weather descended outside. I thought little of my cotton T-shirt and light rain jacket, the only layers that stood between me and a soggy refrigerator.

I froze. It wouldn't have been all that bad, except for I stopped to wait for Geoff at the fishing hole. And waited. And waited. I was already drenched from a two-hour ride and standing still beneath a narrow balcony for a half hour nearly put me into convulsions. I was shivering profusely by the time I realized the pain I was in for if I didn't get moving. So instead of fishing like I had planned to do, I biked 9 miles home in a state that ranged between shivery annoyance and mild distress. I could have stopped at a number of businesses along the way, but at that point all I could think about was a hot shower. If staving off hypothermia in July isn't bad enough, the worst irony was that hot shower. Wincing through the prickly warming of my numb extremities was by far the most unpleasant experience of the day.

Geoff called me a few minutes later to urge me to come back to town, but it was too late. I was spent. The task of staying warm can be so much more exhausting than riding in the sun. As cold rain continued to pound the roof, I settled in with some hot tea and read an article about the Badwater Ultramarathon. Ah. I love Alaska.