You don't see that in Alaska

Whenever my friend Brian and I go fishing for halibut out of Juneau, we always get so many laughs out of the whale-watching tour boats. They motor in erratic circles around the bay like drunken drivers, chasing distant humpback spouts, and when they finally see a tail or a piece of fin, everyone rushes to one side of the boat and erupts in a loud chorus of oooooooo's.

Yeah, those silly tourists, they sure are funny. So funny that I debated whether or not I was ever going to admit to climbing onto one of those silly tourist-clogged boats to take a whale-watching tour out of Dana Point. But when I walked away with one of my coolest wildlife encounters, well, ever ... I decided it was probably worth taking a little ribbing from my Juneau friends.

We saw a couple of blue whales, estimated to be 60 and 70 feet long, respectively (two of the largest animals that have ever lived!). Blues, as far as I know, don't come anywhere near Juneau, but they don't seem to have any qualms about approaching silly tour boats. This one just lulled atop the water for a long time, spouting occasionally and briefly dipping under the water. It was so close to the boat that I couldn't even capture the full length of it with my camera lens, no zoom required. The tour guide, unable to determine what the whale was doing, finally just announced that it was probably asleep and we were moving on.

But the really surreal experience came later, when we were heading back in, sun-fatigued and half napping on the benches. A little girl walked up to the captain and announced she wanted to see dolphins. The captain just mumbled something about "we'll see what happens," and not five minutes later, the boat floated straight over a pod of 500 or 600 dolphins. They were shooting out of the water on all sides of us like salmon in a waterfall, a kind of rolling dance almost synchronized to the bounce and clap of the boat. A dozen or so locked on to our wake and swam right below the boat, like they were racing us, and we tourists just hung over the railing, gazing into the cerulean water and quietly wishing we could join them.

Now I've seen wolves in the wild, grizzly bears within feet of the trails I was riding and black bears in the Utah desert. I've seen moose and caribou and bighorn sheep and mountain goats way out in the wilderness where few humans venture. I see all kinds of marine mammals on routine bike rides and more eagles than I could ever count. But I have to say, those dolphins really did it for me. I can't help that I was on a commercial tour boat in Southern California.

Huntington Beach

So that's where I'm going on vacation. All week long, friends and co-workers have been asking me, "so where are you going?"

"Somewhere in Southern California ... near L.A. ... (trailing off.)"

You don't know where you're going?"

Um, no ... it's a family vacation. My parents planned it ... (trailing off.)"

"What are you, 7?"

But in a way, that's what this vacation is pretty much about. Being 7 years old again ... for all of the good and the bad of it. Today we set up on the beach and I actually went boogie boarding. I never saw much point to it before, but it is pretty fun. A couple of times I tried to paddle under the crest of the wave, like surfers do on TV, riding out that beautiful curve until it meets its natural conclusion. It didn't quite work that way for me. It was more like an underwater thrashing while the breaking water dragged me over a lot of abrasive sand. Even more fun was fighting the crazy tidal current as it dragged us out to sea.

I put on two different coats of SPF 50 and I still have a couple of burn patches on my back and legs. I think I'm blinding all of these beautiful Californians with my previously unexposed areas of pasty Alaskan skin.

My dad and I found a whole pile of beach cruisers in a garage at this condo we're staying in. Only three were semi-workable, and even then just barely. I don't think I'd ever get much of a workout spinning a clankety single-speed at 9 mph along a crowded bike path, but I suppose it's better than nothing. I didn't find much in the way of bicycle rentals in this area. I'll have to fan out my search area on Monday. I don't really know how far out of town I'm going to be able to get.

If anyone near Huntington Beach has a working bike they wouldn't mind renting to me, for compensation of course, for a week ... maybe you could send me your contact info to jillhomer66@hotmail.com. Anything would be much appreciated!

Sun shock

Date: Aug. 13 and 14
Mileage: 30. 7 and 44.1
August mileage: 328.5

My internet went down at home, but I'll always be a geek so I wanted to post my mileage before I forgot it, so I'm posting from a hotel room somewhere in the sprawl of Los Angeles. I just flew in from Juneau this morning. I heard the sun came out there today. I missed it.

I made two stops today - a beautiful flyover above the fjords surrounding Sitka; and Seattle, where I had a strange conversation with a man in which it took me at least two minutes to explain to him that I lived in Juneau, not L.A., and I was flying to my vacation, not home from it.

Then the plane dropped into the smog and the sprawl. The mountains were just ghosts in the hazy distance, and then it was just flat and buildings as far as I could see. I walked out the door into the warm sun and took off my outermost layer outside for the first time in, I don't know, years. I'm happy to soak it up when I can and I'm thrilled to see my family, but I have to say. Southern California ... I don't get it. Maybe I will in a week.

Until then, I'm on the hunt for a bike rental shop. There are at the very least endless roads here to explore, and I can't stand just leaving them there. I just can't.

Taste of October

Date: Aug. 12
Mileage: 25.3
August mileage: 253.7

I rode into some really driving rain this morning - blowing sideways, it was a 30 mph direct hit to the face with sharp daggers of water. The temperature was about 50 but the windchill drove it down to something that felt almost frigid, and I remembered what it's like here, at least most of the time, during the fall.

The miles are well-earned in Juneau falls and winters. I forget just how much so until I compare a fall-like day such as today with the relative ease of the summer days earlier this week. I head out with a plan to go hard, but usually start focusing so much on how miserable I am that I lapse into survival mode, put my head down, and grind through it. The nice thing about October compared to a day like today is that it actually is cold. After an hour or so my hands and feet go numb, giving me a good excuse to quit, unlike a day like today, wherein I have to admit that I quit early simply because I was miserable.

And in the back of my mind, I'm thinking, "The longer I spend at this, the more I improve my remote chance of actually being prepared for Trans Utah, which would enable a swift retreat to the desert for more than an entire week of that diabolical month everyone else calls October." The problem is ... it's August, and I already have my escape mapped out. I leave Friday for the faraway climes of Southern California, to laze in the sun and drink cold Pepsi and remember what it's like to wear shorts in the summer and probably not touch a bicycle for a full week. Mid-August, yes, well, now that you mention it, that would be a peak time to train for Trans Utah. Plus, the family vacation to California - looking forward to it though I am - puts a serious dent in my remaining vacation leave at work. October time off will come at a price. Compromises will have to be made. Pleas will have to be plead. All to do a ride that I won't be well conditioned for, in a venue that's more than a little out of my league.

But as I look out the window at the hard-driving rain, I wonder how I can afford not to.

Style and grace: Things I don't have

Date: Aug. 10 and 11
Mileage: 27.0 and 30.1
August mileage: 228.4

My new fried Terry is trying to teach me how to pop a wheelie. No big deal, really, just one of the most essential skills in mountain biking. And of course I was terrible. And of course I blamed my platform pedals. And of course I also blamed my natural lack of coordination (Jill: "It's like trying to pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time.")

But he was persistent enough and even talked me into pedaling up the upper Salmon Creek Trail, a path I had jogged up many times but never dreamed people actually rode their bikes through the minefield of mud, downfalls and wet roots. People ride their bikes over lots of stuff, I've discovered. I'm still trying to get past the whole "but walking around that is so much faster and easier" philosophy. Problem with wet roots is they take a pretty good wheelie to climb over without washing out, so the lessons began in earnest. I'm always reluctant to let someone try to teach me mountain biking skills. A former boyfriend tried that in 1999, on the Slickrock Trail in Moab, and my feet didn't touch another bicycle pedal for three years. My current boyfriend tried that in 2003, in St. George, and I spent the next two years believing I hated mountain biking. Yes, mountain biking has been a slow transition for me, and of course, I blame the men. And my natural lack of coordination.

But Terry has been very nice and patient enough. We logged a good ride in the mist on Sunday. ("Terry: Looking out at the fog, I feel like I am at the Olympics!") I am still working on my writing, so I've been taking shorter, harder rides this last week. I think these time-crunched efforts are good for me. I nearly blacked out, twice, chugging up to Eaglecrest this morning, but I think I logged my fastest climb yet, and was out and back in 1:45.

Geoff was stuck underneath an ash cloud in Anchorage last night. Hopefully the airline let him on a plane and he's back in Juneau by now, or else I'm probably going to stay up until 3 a.m. typing again.

Back to normal

Date: Aug. 7, 8 and 9
Mileage: 30.1, 35.7 and 15.2
August mileage: 171.3

Sorry I've been away from my blog for a bit. Not that anyone probably actually noticed - but three days is a long hiatus for me when I'm in town.

I've actually spent most of that time at my computer, typing like a crazy person. It started Thursday afternoon. As expected, the sun went away and the rain came back. I did a hard interval-type ride out to North Douglas (intervals meaning I go as hard as I absolutely can until I think I'm about to burst, and then I recover until I think I can go hard again.) I came home completely spent, actually had to take a nap, and then I woke up and drove Geoff to the airport (He was flying to Anchorage to run the Resurrection Pass 100) I had originally planned to come home and ride again, but that didn't sound appealing at all. And just as I sat down at the computer to kill some time blogging and whatnot, it occurred to me that I actually felt like starting on this writing project I have been thinking about since April, but had done nothing with it beyond free-handing a rough outline on the back of a flyer. "I'll just pound out a few paragraphs and see what happens," I thought.

Lots of paragraphs happened.

I'm actually pretty excited about. The motivation is swirling, and the result has been encouraging. This is the kind of thing I'd want to print out for my grandchildren someday, the kind of thing that says "This is what Grandma was about before she turned 30." And if I never get around to having kids, I'll show it to my grandnieces and nephews. It's been fun, too ... a reminder that I do have the drive within me to be every bit as passionate about writing as I am about cycling, which is good news for when I am grandma-age and will have probably used up the warranty on my knees. I only hope I can finish a good draft before the motivation turns on me again. That's why I have been away from blogging and only going outside for the most minimal rides, because it's raining anyway.

A good sunset did come out tonight though - a few rays of light peaking through the fog. My co-worker and I walked out to the back of the GCI building and just stood on the shoreline, watching the sky as half-rotten chum salmon wrestled and flopped in the shallow water. We were on deadline, which made the escape that much sweeter.

Geoff called from Anchorage to tell me he ran the Res Pass 100 in 17 hours and change - four hours faster than the previous course record. He insists he kept his promised conservative pace and ran it as a "training" run. "That's like 10-minute miles," he said. "If I went any slower I'd be walking."

I wanted to tell him that if I ever had to cover 100 miles on foot in one unbroken stretch, I'd be crawling. (When I did that course, or at least one very similar to it, in 2006, with my mountain bike, it took me 13 hours.) It made me even more hungry to attempt the Soggy Bottom 100 again later this month, but I've been very noncommittal with my cycling as of late. Oh well. Back to Microsoft Word.

More

Date: Aug. 6
Mileage: 8.5
August mileage: 90.3
Temperature: 67

Another beautiful day, another post where I inundate my blog with photos from Juneau's ceiling. Today I headed up Mount Roberts. I woke up earlier but didn't rush out the door the same way I did yesterday, so I ended up with the same amount of time to burn - about four and a half hours. And like yesterday, I pushed my time limit to its very brink.

I made better choices than I did yesterday - Claritin, sunglasses, no shirt (Just kidding. I did have a shirt. It just got so soaked in sweat that I took it off for the solitude walk along the ridge, but I put it back on before I descended back to tourist zone.) Despite my better choices, I felt like I was still in recovery from Tuesday. I hike up mountains because the space makes me feel awake and alive, but the actual activity makes for a tough workout ... two to three hours constantly pushing between 70 and 90 percent of my MHR, followed by two hours of high-impact downhill pounding. My joints hate me now, but they'll thank me later. I'm still convinced that all the hiking I did in summer 2007 strengthened my knees and set me up for an injury-free winter.

But while I'm getting such a great workout, I stop often to observe the geography, visualize a future adventure and, of course, take photos. I'm not sure why I'm so intent on photographing mountains. It seems an injustice to box in all that jaw-dropping space, but I do it just the same. This photo was taken from the top of Gastineau Peak, looking down Gold Ridge toward the Juneau Ridge, where I walked yesterday. To the far left you can see Mount Juneau; the middle right is about the distance I made Tuesday before I had to turn around. Directly behind is Cairn Peak, on Blackerby Ridge - a future goal for a day when I have more than four and a half hours to burn.

I took this photo to show off Juneau's August offerings to my skiing friends. Unfortunately, in my effort to box in all the sweeping space, I cut off one really friendly, fun-looking run a thousand feet down into the bowl. I would ride it myself if I had my snowboard, which I'll likely never carry up to Gold Ridge (I don't see how one four-minute run could possibly be worth it, but, then again, I'm not a rabid snow-rider like some of my skier friends.)

Snow proved to be my undoing about 200 feet shy of Mount Roberts, when I could not find a way around this snow field, and I just wasn't willing to kick up it. The snow was soft enough, but one slip would have sent me on the fast (and deadly) track down to the bowl. So I didn't make that peak today. As it turned out, I was really pushing my schedule as it was. I didn't even have time to stop into the tram terminal for a Pepsi before I had to fast-track down through the rain forest and back to my bike.

All in all, another good day. I only GPS'ed the walking today. I think it shorted me a couple miles of distance (it doesn't seem to register forward movement too well at slow speed on steep pitches). But, anyway, today I have 8.46 miles, a total ascent of 4,019 feet and a maximum elevation of 3,664 feet. I feel cooked! Both by the trail, and by the sun. It's a wonderful feeling.