Coastal Trail Bike Ride

On Saturday I took this 25-ish mile roundtrip bike ride. It was less daunting than it sounds because for the most part it was totally flat, only the last 300 yards are up a real hill and still it isn't that rough. It was a really nice ride, right along the water with views that looked back at downtown Anchorage at certain spots. What this ride really introduced me to were the infamous mosquitoes here. I thought that was pretty much a myth until I stopped in the woods to consult my map and was attacked by huge, relentless skeeters. I also saw a bunch of birds, a moose with her two babies and this 17 year old Russian girl from Wasilla eat shit and totally bloody up the whole left side of her body. Here are some pictures and further narration from the ride.

The ride starts right along these mudflats where there are roughly 1 million little birds.
This is downtown Anchorage looking back after about 3 miles.
I like this sign because the animal in it looks more like a beaver or a platypus than a dog. It is Alaska, perhaps there are tons of pet beavers out there walking around on leashes.

Shortly after stopping at that view point and seeing this sign, which there were a lot of and always made me smile, I was heading up a small hill and this girl coming down the other way just went right over the handle bars. I am not the best person to handle these injuries but it was pretty clear right away that she was more shaken up than hurt. She cut her head just over her left eye, ripped up her sweatshirt and cut her elbow, hit her hip pretty bad, bloodied four of the knuckles on her left hand and cut her knee a little. She was crying and it was just me and her for like 3 extremely long minutes. I made sure she was conscious and gave her some water and my jacket so she could hold it on the cut on her head which was still bleeding a little at the time. Then a family came up and also pretended to have vast medical knowledge. Finally after about 5 minutes of me and this family pretending to know what we should do an EMS guy from the near by airport drove by on the road that was only about 15 feet away from the trail at this point. Lucky she crashed where she did because it was pretty much the only point on the trail the EMS dude would have seen her.

Turns out her name was Olga, she is 17 and lives in Wasilla and had just come to Anchorage for the day with what she described as a "big group behind me." The big group eventually showed up and it was like the fucking lost boys brigade meets little rascals. Maybe about 25 Russo-Wasillan youths all on bikes who came flying down the hill at totally unsafe speeds and almost crashed into each other as they all stopped to check on Olga. Eventually the EMS guy told them all to leave because really they were just in the standing in the path causing more danger for bikers who kept coming by. There were no adults in site and only about half of these kids wore helmets. They should all wear helmets. Olga will attest to that. So I got on my way and saw these next two signs which pretty much summed up the tramatic last 20 minutes I had experienced.
Yeah, Olga, a helmet and you woulda been fine. But you are a maverick (to steal a word from a fellow Wasilla resident) and you paid the price. Hope your head is feeling better today.

The rest of my journey was way less eventulful except that I saw a moose! Actually I saw three moose, or is it meese? mooses? mice?

Notice they are right by some sort of power plant and while I was taking pictures about three airplanes flew overhead. These moose could not have cared less they were just munching on some grass and then they retreated back into the boggy woods. Perfect place for Moose and perfect place for skeeters, too.
This is the view from the top of hill at the end of the ride. Pretty anti-clamatic, eh?

Looking back at downtown on the way home.

After the ride I went to a bar to catch the Pens game. Wow what a terrible way to end an otherwise great day. If the Olga-ordeal couldn't ruin the bike ride watching Malkin get leveled by Datsyuk in the opening period surely did. Theme of the day: Russians getting totally lit up and then looking miserable for 20+ minutes although they knew it really wasn't that bad.

What was nice is that Olga didn't totally lose her cool like the Pens in the last two periods. If she had I probably would have got slashed in the legs for making sure she was ok.

Alright, well surprisingly that is my first real sports reference in this blog. After the Laker game tonight I plan on ranting one way or another on the outcome of the game. I will also share my feelings on the NHL and the generally amazing analysis that sports casters give. Brace yourselves.

And congrats to my cousins Megan and Matt!