Travel Day

7/22/07
Today is one of those lllooooonnnnnggggg travel days. Ruth's flight
is at 10 PM yet we've got to be in Anchorage at 8 AM to return her
motorcycle. This means we've got lots of downtime.
It rained most of the night and was still doing so as we left. It
stopped just as we entered Anchorage and we made it to AK Rider by
7:45. I removed the seat Don Kime has loaned us and then disconnected
the cables from the battery that ran Ruth's electric jacket. She'd
had two issues with the bike; the stock Kawasaki luggage is HORRIBLE
(the zippers began pulling apart on day #1 and wouldn't hold anything)
and she'd lost a bolt to the left handguard on the Dalton Hwy
somewhere. The bike was great, they treated us well, we were happy
with AK Rider.
After turning the bike in, we went for a late breakfast. We ate at a
50's style diner with the staff in costume. The food was good.
We next went to a downtown marketplace to kill the morning. It was
interesting as there were lots of crafts (both native and people
copying native styles), foods, and entertainment. It rained heavily
during the time we were there and we'd stop in a booth under the tent
and chat with the seller. We met a lady from Austin making her own
beads for bead jewelry (Ruth is into that) and a guy (auroradude) that
photographs auroras. He and I chatted for awhile as I could recognize
constellations in his photos and we'd talk about the colors,
electrons, animals in the photos, etc. He was interesting.
We left because I had an appointment with Barb at Alaska Leather to
get new tires on my bike for the trip home. She made way for me to
pull my bike into a covered space to pull the wheels and we put new
Tourances on it. While we were there, Ruth decided that I needed a
Holstein pattern sheepskin for the wheeStrom. Barb also let us check
email, chatted with Ruth (Barb is a German native so they spoke in
German some too) and was just quite accomodating.
After this, we went back downtown to see an aurora show but because we
were a bit early for it, we had another reindeer sausage and Ruth's
first funnel cake. I think she's now hooked to fried dough!
The aurora show was only ok. It was a slide show that described how
auroras are made for about 5 minutes and then had 30 minutes of aurora
photos with new age music in the background. That, and the dark room,
made staying awake a challenge for both Ruth and I. When this was
over, we went for a coffee and then rode to the airport to wait the
final 3 hours for her to leave. We just sat and chatted and had a
bite to eat and because of the size of the line, she went into the
passenger area about 9 PM.
Ruth teased me lots of being sad she is leaving but she is also sad to
leave Alaska. Its been a wonderful two weeks and we've had a great
taste of what it has to offer. We've decided that we've got to return
in the winter to see the auroras (from AK) firsthand and see what a
day is like with so many hours of darkness and a few hours of
twilight...

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Todd Ryan; Hudson, MA
Westborough HS Science Teacher
MSF RiderCoach