Quit Beefing

Today I rode 22.5 miles on a tandem bike.  

I met some really nice kids from Pennsylvania who are staying at the Ramada like me.  They graduated college last weekend.  They are environmental science / geography / biology majors.  

They’re three guys, two girls.  In the shuttle, on the way to the hotel, there was a girl next to our van riding a motorcycle in a skirt and thigh-high lace stockings.  The three boys freaked out over her.  They took her picture, waved at her, stared at her, talked about her.  I’m not sure if it’s that a) PA does not have lace, thigh-highs, skirts, or women on motorcycles; or b) Pennsylvania culture is organized in such a way that those four things never intermingle; or c), maybe they all had Traveler’s Brain, which is a condition that makes everything more exciting and interesting when you are away from home than it otherwise would be.  That condition is probably basically the backbone of this blog.

At the hotel, two of the guys helped me with my insanely heavy suitcase.  I gave one of the girls my number and told her to text me the next morning when they made plans.  

Which led to me going on a bike ride with them today.   

Actually first we had reindeer hot dogs.  (They were good.)  Then we watched a 17-min film about Denali National Park, with close-ups of the awe-inspiring nature (berries, moose [I always want to say mooses, then meese, then am sad that it’s really just “moose,” like deer and fish] [AND people, although sometimes you can get away with saying peoples.  Maybe if I talk about different ethnicities of moose and fish it will be okay for me to say mooses and fishes.  Or maybe I will just start saying MEESE and FEESHE and expect people to know what I mean.], flowers, birds).  And a 14-minute film about ANILCA.  And then we rode three tandem bikes 22.5 miles.

I was tricked into it with the phrase "coastal trail."  Doesn't that conjure a flat, boardwalk-like trail where there are people leisurely pedaling beach cruisers?  Anchorage LAUGHS at that image.

When it came time to be instructed at the bike rental place, I confessed to not understanding how bike gears work.  

[Guy who owns place talking rapidly about shifting gears on tandem bikes.]  

Me: I've ridden a bike with gears for like four years...  

Owner of bike rental place: So you know all about how they work!  

Me: No actually, I've never really grasped it.  

I always thought you were supposed to have MORE resistance when going up a hill, and LESS resistance when going downhill.  But apparently it's the opposite.  My legs and I are not yet convinced this totally makes sense.

Also, I put my helmet on backwards (?! I know) and was staring at myself in the mirror, wondering why my helmet looked so much TALLER than everyone else's, when the bike rental owner guy cleared his throat and said quietly, embarrassed, "That's on backwards."  Oh, haha.  No wonder it looked weird!  Haha.  Ug.

Being on the back of a tandem bike means you don’t always have to hold onto the handlebars, and never having to say you're sorry.  The handlebars on the back of a tandem bike are to function as the British monarchy also is to function.  They are largely figureheads. 

Figureheads

Dustin, my tandem partner, who probably thought I was going to be more of a Tony Blair than a Queen Elizabeth

So yeah, the bike ride.  If I had been on a single bike I would never (never never never) have ridden that many miles, so many miles my legs were shaking and I found myself staring at the surrounding beautiful scenery thinking, "This is hell."  So good thing I was on a tandem bike with my new friends!  

Anchorage, more generally:  Here are two questions you can ask any Alaskan: How long have you lived here?  And then: Where are you from, originally?  So far the answer is between 9 and 11 years, for every person I have asked.  Not sure if this is a coincidence or if something happened in the early 2000s that prompted a mob to Alaska.

The guy who rang up my hiking boots at REI today is from Anaheim, has been out here 9 years.  He came out here on a whim, on a spur-of-the-moment road trip in 95, and found himself thinking about Alaska EVERY DAY after he got home.  Finally in 2002 he picked up and moved here.

The only other place I have lived where people are largely not born there and really proud to live there is San Francisco.  And there, I found the whole thing annoying.  “How long have you been pretentious?” I felt like I was asking, when I asked people how long they’d lived in San Francisco.  “How long have you been a badass?” I feel like I am asking, when I ask people how long they have lived in seven-months-of-winter Alaska.

That’s really not fair to San Francisco.  

Oh well.

One of the Pennsylvania boys called me a BAMF today, for coming out here all alone.  I didn’t know what that was at first, and felt apprehensive.  I thought it was something like MILF.  Then it slowly clicked… “Bad ass mofo!” I said.  Yep.  Who wears her helmet BACKWARDS.

What else, about Anchorage?  While I was hobbling sorely to dinner (Bloody Marys and a grilled halibut sandwich and fries over some Barbara Kingsolver and eavesdropping), someone leaned out their car window, looked at me in my skinny black pants from the Gap, and yelled, simply, “Word!" Succinct, Alaskans are.

Also, it is still daylight at 10pm.  

9 p.m.

This sun has heard that most other suns are asleep by 9 p.m. but does not care.

These white nights would mean more to me if I led a more structured life and 3am didn’t sneak up on me regularly back home despite its being very visibly the middle of the night there.

Lastly, here are some pictures I have taken in Anchorage that do not have or need supporting text.  Good night!

I love you babydoll; Went to get smokes be right back