I'm joining a gym

I'm out in the Valley today checking out housing. I'm at a library right now to dig up old landlords' contact info, hoping for a glowing reference so I don't get rejected again. I stopped at a bike shop because both my road tires are flat, slashed in several places, so I had to go buy some more patches and new tubes. I think I might have run over a mound of shattered glass, and my tires have about 5,000 miles on them - they just aren't what they used to be. I had ambitions today to ride out to the end of the road, but it hasn't stopped raining, quite literally, for four days straight, and today it's raining hard. I got soaked just vacuuming out my car. I thought it was just a dark cloud over my head, but it turns out it's like this in most of the state. Somehow, that makes me feel better. But I just can't face that soggy chill, water cascading off my helmet, down my nose and over my mouth until I can't tell whether I'm drooling or drowning. Not today. So I'm going to take advantage of free gym trials to spend a warm, dull "weekend" afternoon running circles on a hamster wheel. I feel really good about this decision. Sorry I don't have a picture today. I'm hoping to find the motivation to hike up Mount Roberts tomorrow, and I should get some great shots of gray, all-encompassing fog. Stay tuned.

(small) Stroke of luck

Date: August 14 and 15
Mileage: 13.7 and 4.7
August mileage: 174.9
Temperature upon departure: 55

Today I did a short ride but a decidedly long run. I've had a recent deluge of little annoyances that I attribute to bad luck. The latest involved popping a tube on the Douglas highway this morning, only to learn that my portable bike pump has seized up (probably due to rust or an inordinate amount of road grit.) So rather than hitchhike or shamefully limp my bike down the highway, I stashed it in the woods and jogged five miles back to town. It only took me 45 minutes! It was a short five miles, but still, I felt really good after the run. Probably even better than I would have if I completed the ride.

One flat tire does not a bad luck streak make, but there have been other incidences. The other night, I went to a Laundromat and stuck a load in, which failed to drain completely during the rinse cycle. I stuck to whole dripping mass in a dryer for an hour and did some grocery shopping, but my laundry was still nearly as wet when I returned. So I ran the dryer for another hour, left again, and when I came back, some of my clothes had - for lack of a better word - melted. Others were still damp. I'm pretty sure I've seen that Laundromat on a rerun of "The Twilight Zone." Then, as I was leaving, I stuck a pair of shoes on top of my car and accidentally left them there. Those are gone. And let's not even talk about the black cat back in Homer.

But I think my bad luck streak is breaking, at least in part. A benevolent co-worker hooked me up with a longterm motel room today, where I can stay until his mother arrives at the end of August. It's suck an anomaly - Mini fridge! 30' television! Roof! I showed up at work today raving about it like I had just spent the night at the Four Seasons, and my co-worker cut me off to remind me that it's a budget motel. Doesn't matter. My rolled-up tent is still fermenting in rainwater in my trunk. It's all about context.

Liquid sun

Date: August 13
Mileage: 14.2
August mileage: 156.5
Temperature upon departure: 53

One way in which I am woefully unprepared for this move to southeast Alaska - besides, I mean, not having a home - is my complete lack of rain gear. During the winter I acquired good cold weather gear, but a parka and layers of polar fleece do little to keep out the chill when they're dripping from every square inch. The best things I own are neoprene gloves and booties, so - yeah - my hands and feet are semi-warm. I still have to head somewhere indoors after about 40 minutes because I am fr...fr...freezing.

Riding when it's -5 out is one thing, but cutting through the thick, soggy wind of 50 degrees and raining is a whole different kind of chill. While below-zero burns skin and bites ragged lungs, this Juneau August chill seeps into my core, saturating every cell with a deep and heavy cold until it has drowned all hope of ever being warm again. The instant fix for this is a hot shower, but the longterm reality is that I need some better gear. I have yet to check out the retail options in town, but I imagine such gear is not hard to find here.

I have yet to really do a long, hard ride here, but not for lack of time. It's funny, because I have so much to do, but can't really start any of it until I can set up a permanent household. So I spend too much time sleeping, reading, agonizing over the classifieds, and lingering in hot showers. I feel like more biking would lift my spirits and help jump-start my "settling" process, but it's so hard to find the motivation when I have a trunk full of wet bike clothes and an jittery energy reserve fueled by little more than anxiety, a small measure of desperation, and Goldfish. I've been subsisting on comfort food - which, in my case, consists mostly of processed carbohydrates that a 3-year-old would find appealing, make-your-own salad bars and sushi. Since I'm not currently spending any money on rent, why not?

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