Summery things for summery times

After a two month hiatus from blogging (AKA summer) I'm back.  Summer is full of things to do.

Bike 1.0

School got out at the end of May.  Spent a horribly boring week in Bethel afterwards mapping out high school math curriculum.  Then flew home to Minnesota.  Been living with a buddy and his girlfriend in south Bloomington.  He doesn't have a car.  I don't have a car.  We are very likely have the lowest car to person ratio in the south metro.  Our bike ratio, however is probably one of the higher (it's 2.67:1).  Yeah, there are eight bikes in our garage.


Rode the MS 150 in early June.  Third year for that.  Team Night Bike raised $2695 this year for the MS Society.  Not bad.  The weather was unbelievable.  Thanks to everyone who contributed.

Then Ohio for a few days then Kentucky for one (that state is terrible) where I visited the Creation Museum (easily the dumbest place I've ever been).

It's also been aggravatingly hot this summer.  Today the dew point was 82.  Heat index of 110.  Stupid.

So biking, a little cooking (new obsession - Indian food), happy hours, dinner parties, lakes, grocery stores, biking, oh, I got contacts but can't put them in very well yet, subbing at the Y, swimming, reading, hammocking, and constructing...a chicken coop.  Lots more on the chickens to come.

seriously, what is cuter than this?

This is what summer was made for.

I am loving summer.  This is my first summer since the summer after ninth grade where I haven't had a job.  I mean sure, I've been putting in random hours at the Y, but you can't really call bowling with first graders work.  Ahh the benefits of teaching.  So what have I been doing?

Well I arrived home in Minneapolis in late May.  I spent the next couple weeks on a spending binge - food, drinks, things, groceries.  Not sure what all I bought, but it had been months since the simple pleasure of immediate gratification could be fulfilled in the shopping world.  The instant return on my wants was, well, intoxicating.  Following that bender, I set off on another binge of sorts - biking.

I missed biking.  A lot.  And so I went on some bike rides.  I spent a weekend riding from Duluth to Minneapolis with the fund raising event known as the MS 150 (a charity ride for the muscular sclerosis society).  This was my second year completing the ride and, as before, it was nice.  Our team raised over $2300 (thanks to all who donated by the way) and rode about 100 out of the 150 miles in a light
drizzle.

Using the MS 150 as a warm up, I left a week later on the Amtrak with two friends, Aaron and Adam, headed for Portland.  Our bikes safely boxed were stowed aboard ready to carry us south down the Pacific Coast.  Unbelievable weather (a total of zero days of any form of precipitation and a considerable tailwind) followed our trek to San Francisco, approximately 850 miles up, down, and around the coastal mountains.  Elaborations on this ride will follow in future posts, for at the moment I am letting the experience ferment a while longer before getting into it.  Needless to say, bicycle touring is one of the most incredible ways to travel.  For anyone interested, Aaron, one of my riding partners has a nice little blog where you can read and see some nice bits of media from the ride here:  The Western Expanse.

Now I am down to about three and a half weeks left in Minnesota before I return to Alaska.  I have many things I still want to get done, but am actively looking for more things to add to that list.  If you have any ideas, want to hang out, or whatever, get ahold of me.  I am in.

Twenty-four hours, four planes, and two seasons later

I left Tununak yesterday with Ben and Sara about twenty-four hours ago. The temperature was near freezing, the clouds were about 300 feet off the ground and intermittent fog reduced visibility to under a mile at times. All three airlines were on weather hold. After two hours of stressing out, communications with the airline hinted that a plane would indeed be landing. We loaded up the trailer and instructed Brett to avoid the puddles. He failed. Not that anyone could have done any better. The house-high drifts recently had a path plowed through them resulting in a knee-deep puddle that
stretches from the BIA, through the village, almost all the way to the airport. Pretty great. Our flight was uneventful, and we caught our next flight to Anchorage without problems. After a quick meal at the Anchorage airport I said goodbye to Ben and Sara and rushed off to my gate. Ten minutes to spare - no big deal. Yeah, last to board is pretty awesome. Then Denver, now Minneapolis.


And now summer. Serious summer. The sweatshirt, coat, hat, gloves, and boots I wore out of Tununak were no longer needed. In fact, I'm pretty sure clothes in general are not needed. The thermometer states 100 degrees right now. I can't quite handle it. I am melting.

Took a journey down to the garden (about a mile downhill) on my bicycle. So good. Strawberries are raging. Tomatoes are trying to sort out the seasons, which is nice to see that I'm not the only one. Peppers are loving it. A few rogue bean stalks are erupting from the earth. Tomorrow the work begins. Trellises need to get back in, fence needs to be creature proofed, and obviously, the plants and seeds need to get in the ground. Exciting. Maybe it'll be 70 tomorrow. Probably not. Better get sunscreen.

Left the garden and thought I'd take the long way home. Here I realized some things.  Biking downhill with the wind is way easier than biking uphill into the wind after nine months of not biking. I seem to have misplaced my legs and lungs. Of course the heat didn't help. I have a bit of work to do to get back in bike shape. The five miles I rode today were annoyingly hard. Good thing I have the summer off to get some things done. Teaching is awesome.

Probably the coolest thing anybody on the planet is doing right now.

My two good friends left Minneapolis this morning atop their bicycles.  They are headed out to Portland via Yellowstone.  I plan to meet up with them there and then on to San Francisco via the redwoods.  Here is their blog if you want to keep tabs.

The Western Expanse

I am so jealous right now.

*Note - I stole these pics from their blog