Monday, June 18, 2007

Weekend in review

A couple of weeks ago, while browsing through Sing Lee Alley Books, I came across the brand-new edition of Sunset Western Garden Book I also found a little field guide to edible plants in the Southeast, Alaska's Wild Plants: A Guide to Alaska's Edible Harvest. Since these weren't an urgent thing and I didn't want to pay full price or the sales tax, I ordered it from Amazon.

These arrived last Friday, and ever since, Amy has been fascinated by the Sunset encyclopedia of plants. She's been reading through the plant entries, making a list of plants she'd like to grow in the future. We definitely have a sprouting/budding (the pun is quite intentional) botanist among our midst. We may have here a future naturalist or biologist...

This past Sabbath, we had four young adults from the Ukraine in church. They are spending the summer here, working at Trident Seafoods. Their grasp of English is not terribly great, their primary language being Russian. I hope that they were able to understand enough to grasp the basics of what was being discussed.

Yesterday, the sunny and warm weather of the past week reverted to cloudy and wet. Our teenager pushed my tolerance and patience past its breaking point and I simply had to leave the house for a while.

I packed up some survival gear, several water bottles, a bag of Cheerios, and headed out on my bike into the forested mountains. After a couple of miles on the pavement, I turned off onto a dirt and gravel road rounding the east side of the island. (There's a beach property for sale, if anyone is interested...)

The road went up and down. I really dislike loose gravel. As far as mountain biking goes, I much prefer plain old dirt. I suppose for cars though, gravel might be better. Descending on loose gravel is the worst part, because you can't brake too hard for fear of the back wheel slipping out. And when there a downhill corner with gravel, you never know if you might hit it wrong and slide out. Fortunately, I remained upright the whole time.

It's too bad there was so much clouds and fog, because on a clear day, the road I was on should have offered some pretty good views of Frederick Sound and the mountains on the mainland. What I did see were some nice wildflowers in the muskeg. I heard quite a few birds, but didn't see any of them, nor did I encounter any animals. The one thing I was a little wary about encountering was a bear. I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do if one appeared in the road. I didn't get to find out, though.

After about 1-1/2 hours I came to the city limit sign on the east side of the island -- the first time I've ever seen this. I was now in state and federal lands -- and also much less gravel. And a few minutes later I came to a "T" where I could turn to the right and hit the highway 5 miles away, or go to the left and return to the highway after 17 miles.

Since I was still feeling fine, though a tad chilly, I decided to turn left and continue through the forest. (In hindsight, perhaps heading back home to the right might have been the wiser choice.) It was more up and down on dirt roads, through forest, through meadows, and through muskeg.

Upon reaching the Three Lakes area (probably an hour later), the scenery changes somewhat with a small creek running on one side. It's the kind of place where you want to paddle about in a kayak, among the tall grasses and the wildflowers.

When in a car, a person doesn't notice the microclimate changes. On a bicycle, it's quite evident because you can feel it in your face. There are drier portions and wetter portions. And the vegetation shows it.

By this time I was feeling quite fatigued. I had pretty much exhausted my body's energy reserves. I had been stopping every 30 minutes to take in Cheerios, but it was not enough. My right knee was also starting to bother me. Another 30 minutes past Three Lakes, I reached Mitkof Highway, at a point 15 miles out from the city.

I was running strictly on fat reserves (and believe me, I don't have much of that). The rain was starting to come down more steadily, the wind was blowing, and I no longer had enough energy to go fast enough to keep my core warm. (My usual crusing speed on packed dirt and pavement is around 14-16 mph. I was struggling to make 10 mph, and even a slight incline dropped my speed to 5 mph or less.) I was getting colder and colder. And my knee was now quite painful. At least I was on the main highway, so if I had to I could flag a passing vehicle and either hitch a ride, or have them call Elise to come pick me up.

Now I was stopping every 15 minutes to rest, recover, warm up a bit, and get a little bit more food into my stomach. My goal was to reach milepost 8.5 which is where one of our elderly church member couple lives. If I could get there, I could make a call to Elise and have her come pick me up.

I literally limped into their house, shivering from slight hypothermia. I guess it was sort of good that I was in this condition, because it forced me to stop at their home and visit. It's been several weeks since we've seen them in church. We've spoken by phone but it was time to go see them. So as I warmed up, we visited for a while. Elise came and stayed for a little while. And then I loaded the bike onto the pickup and headed home.

I'm disappointed that I didn't get to complete the loop. That means that I'm going to have to try this ride again -- probably on a warmer and drier day -- and with more food.

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