Missing Homer

Date: August 23
Mileage: 21.1
August mileage: 301.3
Temperature upon departure: 54

Another day, another ride, another road silt shower.

The air is saturated with rain so light it doesn’t fall, and mist so thick it doesn’t settle. Low-lying clouds roll down the mountainside like ragged curtains, ripped into powder-puff patches by the tree tops. Riding out Douglas Island on a day like today is like looking through a windshield with the defrost turned off - squinting at a ghost world masked in featureless gray. But in that otherworldly way, it’s beautiful.

Water spalshing up from the road hits my face, so I look forward until the mist stings my eyes. I close them for several seconds, open to check for road hazards and close my eyes again. The darkness feels oddly liberating, like diving underwater to suddenly find yourself breathless but weightless. I open my eyes for little gulps of light, but I savor the thrill of riding stretches of this remote road blind.

So it hits me as a little surprise when I round a bend and realize that I’ve emerged from the cloud cover. A slate of gray water stretches beyond the channel. And in the distance, actual distance, I see snow-covered peaks. I feel like I’m looking at the Kenai mountains across Kachemak Bay, the same sight that greeted me every morning for nearly a year. There’s a moment of blind confusion, and then the creeping realization that I am a long, long way from my comfort zone.

That was the first time that homesickness really hit me since I left Homer three weeks ago. That little bend along a waterlogged road was so eerily familiar that it reminded me how unknown everything is, how far I’ve really wandered, and how I'm really not going back. There's a time to embrace new adventure, and there's a time to mourn the world left behind. They're both rewarding in their own way.

Few roads

Date: August 21
Mileage: 33.4
August mileage: 280.2
Temperature upon departure: 57

This morning before work, I rode out near the end of the Douglas Highway. I had to turn around about 11 miles in due to time constraints, and later learned I was only about a mile from the end.

This means that, having lived here only two weeks, and having ridden a total of only about 250 miles, I have now pedaled nearly every stretch of nonresidential road in the area. All I have left is the 8 miles of the main road that I missed when I crashed out Friday, and the one mile at the end of Douglas. As I looked out at the cross-channel view of town today, I began to form a realization of just how boxed in I really am here in Juneau. But at the same time, I feel grateful that what I'm "boxed in" by is thousands of miles of untrammelled wilderness. So, if I can box in some time, and if I can unpack some boxes at a (still crossing my fingers) new apartment, I hope to hit the trails real soon.

27

Date: August 20
Mileage: 15.7
August mileage: 246.8
Temperature upon departure: 59

Today's my birthday
A year of growing older
A day in the sun