Alaskan Pack Fodder

One thing about camping is that you end up with a lot of free time on your hands. Some people fill the hours with drinking or playing with their phones or watching TV or any number of activities they could just as easily do at home. Me? I usually look for things to make "better". That's a matter of opinion, I realize, because my "better" may be someone else's "ruined". Usually I try to limit my efforts to sticking to the original intent of whatever I'm working on, lest I pave over the wilderness. Most often it's a little brush clearing, trash removal, drainage improvement, or other minor thing to improve the site. Make it better for the next guy. Plus, it kills some of the time. I'm good for about four hours on the bike, another four poking at/staring into the fire, a couple eating, and then I get restless. When we camp at certain campgrounds with a lake, we drag the kayaks and canoe along. At South Rolly Lake, we try to grab a campsite...

I get the impression Wanky doesn't much like RVs . He's currently doing a bike Tour up and down the Pacific Coast, and has not had the best experiences with them. For most of my life, I would have agreed with him. In some regards, I still do. My idea of camping used to be a sleeping bag and a shower curtain, a camping taco sleeping arrangement that was compact and light. If I wanted to go high-zoot, I'd bring along a small tent. Cooking was done over the fire. I had a bunch of cookstoves and gadgets, but I rarely used them. Mostly, I was bare-bones as fuck. Then I got married and had three small children. It rained every. single. time. we camped. A summer Southcentral Alaska rain usually means it's in the 40s or 50s, and camping kids drag all of the mud and wet into even the cleanest/driest of tents. Somebody gets sick. The wife gets irritable. The body doesn't respond well to sleeping on the ground next to a cold, soggy kid. Pretty soon, camping is something you us...

I haven't been the best blogger as of late, Mostly, I haven't felt like it. I haven't been riding much, and there's only so much you can say about not riding your bike except it's a vicious cycle that drags you down and is difficult to get out of. I did manage a couple rides from Anchor Point. I wasn't going to bring the bike, since it needs serious attention and why bring it if it's just going to sit there? It really doesn't need another coat of bike rack road grime. At the last second, I threw it in the RV with a handful of kit. Know what I didn't pack? One of the approximately ten Garmins floating around the house. Oh well, turns out the pedals don't need a computer to turn. In retrospect, wearing a heartrate monitor was a bit pointless... I did some loops from Anchor Point to Homer, my most favoritest place in the world next to Newark, New Jersey. There are some nice climbs above Homer, although I discovered most of the descents into town are...

I haven't ridden in a while. The day after we got back from Fairbanks, I noticed my fence was falling down. Given that there is a limited window for such work in Alaska, I threw myself into rebuilding it. A few days later I was a broken man, but the job was pretty much finished.  The wife loves Homer, AK for some nonsensical reason. I hate it for a thousand logical reasons. So, of course we packed the RV up and drove down to the Homer Spit to park in a gravel lot, crammed next to hundreds of drunk fishermen. It poured rain the whole time.I was tasked with getting up every morning at about 5:00AM and feeding and walking the dogs. In the rain. My body, abused by the fence project, locked up as I got soaked by the cold rain. I got sick. The bike was with me, but I did not feel like riding. So obviously my opinion of Homer took a complete 180 to the point that I'm looking at real estate in the area. Or not. Once I got home it was tie to clean out the garage, or at least dig a path ...