Okay, as promised in an earlier post I will insert portions of an email that Travis(1st cousin) sent out to some friends and family. To recapture.......Travis is our(my) first cousin and is visiting from Alpharetta, Georgia. He is spending some time with us and also touring the Alaska wilderness. He leaves tomorrow(Monday) morning at 4:15am on a flying/bus tour up north. He will spend the night somewhere up north and return Tuesday evening.
Travis is very detailed, as you will see from the inserts. So sit back, take two hours and enjoy his viewpoint of Fairbanks, moose, fish, Denali, etc. Just kidding.............enjoy:
Travis writes:
(I've skipped Wed & Thu, no typing time yet.)
Started Friday(July 4) morning at 8am with a half blueberry bagel and half a honey nut Power Bar, chased down with some cranberry juice. After I donned my "Life is Good" running shirt, ASICS Landreth IIs, ASICS socks, and RRS shorts, (cousin) Michael drove me to the registration spot for the race. I was running (uh.... jogging) in the 24th annual Independence Day 5k in Fairbanks, Alaska. We had scoped out the parking lot the night before, near the Ice Alaska RV campground. For the 10am race, registration was from 8am until 9:30 I think, and he dropped me off around 9am. Having fallen off the running wagon, and not being trained up for a fast 5k, I was prepared to just make this my weekly 3mile (5k) run. However, upon seeing that hardly anyone was there with just an hour to go, I was thinking I would actually have to run fast, because I certainly didn't want to finish last in my age group! Furthermore, at the registration I received bib number 16 (I was the 16th race registrant) -- wow, a 2-digit bib number! Too bad there was no T-shirt to be given away or even available for purchase.
Fortunately, more racers rolled in, and by the end of the day, the organizer told me that 79 had registered. That's probably less than even the Duluth Merchants' Stars & Stripes 5k (Memorial Day) that I ran several years ago. I was surprised to see Michael, Tammy and the kids arrive to help send me off at the starting line. I was thankful that Tammy offered to hold my water bottle too. The "official" start went something like this: one of the Running Club North organizers came up to the blue chalk line on the pavement and said, "Ok everybody, runners get ready and toe the line, or whatever you want to do .... runners on your mark, get set, go." (My omission of an exclamation point after "go" is intentional, and accurately reflects his tone of voice.) :)
As expected, I was immediately passed by several, but unexpectedly, throughout the 3.1 miles I only remember passing about a half dozen runners. The first mile was a clockwise loop along the main road circling the Ice Alaska RV park. I clocked an 8:11 pace, though the race director said the 1st mile mark was approximate, so who knows exactly. After the loop, we duplicated about 100 yards of the first loop before branching off along a paved bike trail, then crossing a bridge that led to the same road that has the baseball field. I ran past Growden Memorial Park where I'd seen two of Michael's games the previous 2 nights. The mile 2 marker was somewhere near, but I never saw it.
At the end of the bridge, I saw a large brown head on an animal swimming in the river, carrying a small log or tree branch in its mouth. Cool -- a beaver!!! But when I rounded the corner for a better look, I noticed a man on the bank loading up one of those plastic tennis ball throwers for his golden retriever on the bank, and it was his other dog in the water at the moment retrieving the large stick. No beaver.
Taking a left turn rejoined the bike trail, which then looped back and retraced our tracks over the bridge again, and past the same water stop, and about 100 yards to the finish. Michael & Tammy were providing simultaneous video and photo coverage using my camera & his. The clear sunny sky made for a warm run, but the lack of humidity was great. I'm sure my counterparts in Atlanta several hours earlier weren't feeling as fresh. What the race lacked in T-shirts, it almost made up for in watermelon, oranges, and homemade cookies & brownies at the finish line. I quickly downed a couple of watermelon wedges, an orange wedge, and picked up a cookie for later. I wanted to grab a brownie too, and a cookie for Kirkland & Kaylee, but I didn't want to horde at the small refreshment table. Michael told me later an older guy was there loading up on multiple items, so I shouldn've taken more than I did. Afterall, didn't my $10 donation count for anything? :)
Back to the apartment (the kids weren't quite excited about Pioneer Park yet), I showered and we all then headed to Pioneer Park for the big Independence Day festivities, chief among them the flyover of the Air Force jets, or so we thought ... (to be contined. it's 1:46am now, and by the way, it's still completely daylight, the sun has only been below the local hills for an hour. In fact, we made a super Wal-Mart grocery run at midnight, in basically broad daylight. 'just weird).
We're planning on a 2-hour drive south to Denali in the morning, Michael has the day off -- no baseball game. 'looking fwd to seeing something outside of Fairbanks (a.k.a. "Squarebanks").
Saturday July 5th, 2008
Up at 8:05am as my watch alarm was on "weekday" mode, so I missed the intended 8am alarm. Tammy had already risen, and so had the cinnamon buns she made, but she, Michael & I quickly got ready before getting K&K up. We hit the road in the minivan for Denali National Park and hoped for a glimpse of Denali, or "Mount McKinley" as it was known before Alaska changed its name back to what the original inhabitants called it. Leaving Fairbanks we followed the lone highway to Denali, taking about 2 hours to get to the park entrance. Spruce (?) trees lined the highway for most of the drive, with various mountains not far off. We glimpsed snow-covered Denali several times for most of the drive.
We hit the visitor center and toured the life-sized models of various wildlife: moose, bear, birds, lynx, owl, rabbit, pika, dall sheep, hawk, ground squirrel, frog, etc. Kirkland found a chart describing what parts of a moose could be eaten, and how the early people used the various body parts. For example, the nose should be boiled and eaten, the brains could be used for tanning skins of other animals, etc. Immediately after this, we ate lunch in the Alaskan Grill. Michael said he thought we were in Disney World, based on the lunch prices. Burgers & panninis were good, but Kaylee had trouble with her somewhat firm bread, since she's still waiting for those two front teeth for Christmas.
We walked off lunch along the Spruce trail and the McKinley Station trail, meandering through the ... Spruce ... trees, and we're not sure what or where is the Mckinley Station. We saw a chicken-sized pheasant (a quail-like bird) in the woods, and enjoyed a bridge and a couple of stops at a small creek and a fast moving river.
After the trek, we returned to the car to drive as far as allowed along the park highway -- 15 miles. Be you tea full scenery, with green large hills (or small mountains) to our left, and ones to the right that had mostly rocks at the top. Kaylee wants to be credited with being the first to see the moose in the small pond next to the road. We saw that a few cars had stopped to make photos, but the moose was out of film. (Sorry.) It was too crowded to stop, so we drove on. The highway ran along the valley between these hills. At the end of the public-accessible road, we crossed the bridge and asked the ranger if we could park on that side, since the existing lot was full. She said we probably wouldn't find a spot, but allowed us anyway. Michael said the truck behind us she turned away, and he thinks she let us in because Michael was wearing his CTU t-shirt. :) (CTU = Counter Terrorism Unit from the "24" TV show). Kirkland said he's worn that shirt 10 days in a row.
It will take too long to decribe the scenery [as I'm typing now in the middle seat of the minivan as we head back to Fairbanks]. We parked along the Savage River (though it didn't seem too savage at that point) and marveled at the steep hills on both sides. No trees, just grassy shrubs and outcroppings of rock. Michael, Kirkland, Kaylee & I headed up the steep climb to the largest outcropping of rock, while Tammy and baby-in-the-oven enjoyed the lower level seats. We carefully walked up the rocks, and only at the top did we use our hands. Nice view, and K&K enjoyed the experience as well. On the way back down, Kirkland & I found evidence -- lots of it -- of the small animals that live in the area, or at least, poop there. 'Looked like rabbit droppings, but not as perfectly round. Maybe ground squirrels, but I'm not sure if they're on the rocks.
After descending, we followed the trail almost a mile down river with the river on our left. Along the way we stumbled upon a mother pheasant similar to the one earlier, but it seemed to have a different pattern. She was leading at least 6 chicks across the path when we met them. The loop path continued down river for almost a mile, then a bridge connected us to the other side. It seemed like the valley continued on forever, but we couldn't. On the return up river Kirkland & I had a ground squirrel (not a chipmunk) jump on the path ahead of us and lead us on a chase for 30 yards or so. It even performed the classic maneuver of standing upright on its hind legs for a moment before ducking off the trail again.
We met up with Tammy again, loaded into the minivan and headed out of the park. We stopped at the Wilderness Access Center, but realized that it was really just the spot for arranging for shuttle bus travel throughout the park's restricted roads. Outside the Denali park, we stopped at a bridge and observation area over another river, possibly the Tanana, 'can't remember. We then made a stop for ice cream and souvenirs (me) at the busy little area not far north of the park's entrance. After another an hour or so on the road, we stopped at a public access pond stocked by the Alaska Fish & Game Department, much to Kirkland's delight. The high wind didn't make for great casts though, and unfortunately the only things he & Kaylee hooked were weeds. As far as we could tell, the only things living at the pond were two ducks and a huge seagull. On the final return leg of the journey though, Kirkland & I managed to finish his second Lego-to-photo project, wherein we had taken photos of his Lego spaceships he made, then digitally added them to a background image of an outer space scene, and added laser fire and explosions.
The tired travelers returned around 9:30pm (still bright daylight of course), and some enjoyed a dinner of chicken nuggets, rice-a-roni, green peas & bread. Unfortunately, some also had to endure some careful "behaviorial instruction", but otherwise it was a fun day for all.
Sunday morning will bring church with the Becks and if all goes well, my car rental for a drive north.
