Operation Fitness for Fear: We ran much slower today compared to yesterday’s speedy pace. We ended up completing our normal route in 34 minutes and it felt slow. Overall I am ok with that time. I mean, I know it’s impossible to shave minutes off of your run every day. But, I do think that our chances of breaking more records in the future would improve greatly if Tess didn’t poop so much on these runs. Seriously people. She pooped three times today. I know she’s got to feel lighter after that, but carrying that much sh*t around has the opposite effect on me! I suppose it’s possible that Tess sensed my frustration and tried to help speed it up towards the end. She did, uncharacteristically, opt out of the swim in the fountain today, but she got so caught up in her tug of war/cross training that it was still a wash when it came to saving time. Oh well. It’s not really important how fast we ran. What’s most important is that we hauled ourselves out the door and ran. Period.
My Adventure for the Day: I will be the first to confess that we didn’t have a MAJOR adventure today. I was feeling rather mellow, so instead of trekking through, or fishing in, the woods I just opted to take a drive out onto the Kenai Peninsula. It was quite picturesque. There are countless ridges along the highway and the clouds were barely hovering above them. We’ve had a little moisture lately but it was still warm and sunny out so you could literally see the clouds evaporating. They looked like windswept hair, or an upside down rain shower. The fireweed also added to the scenery on the drive. The pink fireweed flowers start on the side of the road and then they slowly crawl up higher and higher onto the ridges. It creates a beautiful contrast when the pink is mixed into the green grass and brush that blankets the hills. And, it seems like every time that I drive this road the patches of pink have spread another five yards up the hills. It’s like a slow moving map illustrating the passage of time.
On the drive I kept passing cars with dip nets and canoes strapped to the top of them. It is making me *really* want a canoe!
I stopped in at a fly shop near Cooper Landing on my way home. While I was there I chatted with the woman behind the counter about the upcoming salmon run. She was very nice, and more importantly, this interaction counts as another step towards my “Trying not to be a complete hermit” certification.
When I was almost home, traffic suddenly ground to a halt. Because of the fact that most roads in Alaska have only one lane going in each direction, almost any accident or construction zone leads to incredible delays. Today’s accident was no exception. I sat in that line of cars for about 20 minutes at a dead stop, while I waited for my turn to move. But the silver lining of that wait was that over the course of those 20 minutes I got to watch the tide rolling in. I feel like I can’t take enough pictures of that view. There’s something so cool about seeing a mile wide section of mud flats glistening in the sun one second and then completely covered with water 20 minutes later. The hazy ridges on both sides of the mud flats frame the picture just perfectly. Really. It’s a view that is hard to top.
Wildlife/Unique Sightings:
Bald Eagles: 3
My Purple Tacoma: Today’s drive was also awesome because it took me through a wet construction site. What does that mean? It means that my purple truck is now solid grey. So cool! Why is that cool? Well. I have an obnoxiously purple truck. I didn’t pick the color, but the truck was the vehicle of my dreams on all other fronts so I bought it. I say it’s an obnoxious color choice for me, because 1) I don’t love purple (but Heidi does. Hey Heidi!) and 2) Purple is the color of my people (the gays). Don’t get me wrong, I love the gays and I am proud to be one, but really . . . have you seen me lately? I look like a big ol lesbian. I do *not* need a rainbow sticker on my truck, nor do I need a purple truck to make something that is very obvious, even more obvious. That truck screams, “I’m GAY would you like to date me!?!” Again, there’s nothing wrong with that message, I just prefer to let my stylish short hair and Carharts do the talking instead of the truck. Now, the plus side of the color is that it is a fairly deep purple, so when Jo is dirty she looks almost black (yes I call my truck Jo – like Jo from the Facts of Life). So, I typically keep Jo pretty dirty, because black truck = cool lesbian. Purple truck = slightly obnoxious lesbian. An important side note, my Dad (who is the best and such a sweet guy), loves to have very clean cars. I know that it drives him crazy when I pull up to their house in a dirty truck. How do I know this? I know this because as soon as I head off to take a nap or chat with my mom he’s down there washing the truck. And he’s not just washing it, he’s waxing it. Seriously. If I step away for 45 minutes, 95% of the time I will come back to find a truck that is so bright and shiny that the purple can be seen from a mile away. It’s such a sweet gesture, but so not the direction that I want to go with the color. I suppose that I could just bite the bullet and tell my Dad that I like it better when Jo is dirty. But he is right. Cars do run better when they are clean. So, I am sure that I will be scrubbing off the construction grey and waxing that purple paint till Jo gleams before I head back to the lower 48. However until then I am really enjoying my grey truck. It’s so. . . Alaskan!
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