Rain, rain, go away! There was a really bad rain/ wind storm last night and we woke up to rain, too. But, I would rather have rain today, on our 1 year anniversary than on this day last year. Joey was nice enough to get breakfast started, although that's always my job. On the way out of town, we stopped at a local coffee shop and treated Clay to a cup of coffee. We each got hot cocoa with whipped cream, and it was so good because they had frothed the hot chocolate; it reminded us of the frothed chocolate milk that Neil, our host in IL, made us. A frother is definitely on the list of things to add to the kitchen when we get home! There was free wi-fi at the coffee shop so I was able to use that for a little bit. Just for curiosity sake, I looked on the Finger Lakes Times website since Heather had called us a few days ago while we were in Denali. To my surprise, there we were, the top story on the website! I was so excited that the article was printed/published, TODAY!, on our 1 year anniversary! What an awesome coincidence! Joe called home, just in case his mom hadn't seen that it was published. I was so excited and couldn't wait to read it! It was raining when we got on the road and that continued on for pretty much the entire day. The bike path continued out of town for about 8 miles, but then we were forced to get on the only road, the Glenn Highway, which had by now turned into a double lane really busy road. It was not pleasant in the least bit to ride on. There was an adequate shoulder, but when the cars and trucks flew by, it was a little scary. We crossed a bridge over Knik River and rode for about 15 miles total before there was another road/ bike path that paralleled it. We were all so happy to get off that road. My ears were ringing, especially the left one, from the constant noise of the vehicles passing right next to us; I had the start of the headache, too. I had planned on getting some ear plugs when we start going down the west coast because I know there will be a lot of cars then, but I almost wish I had gotten them sooner, because they would have come in handy today. By the time we had gotten off that road, we were all really hungry and were hoping to find somewhere with an overhang where we would be dry. Sure enough, we stumbled upon a little church that had a covered porch. There was a car in the parking lot and the door was open, so Joey stuck his head in to see if someone was there. Sure enough, Pastor Tim was there and when Joey asked if we could sit under the overhang to make our lunch he gladly said yes. He was so interested in what we were doing and thought it was just amazing (I don't think he quite believed that we rode all the way from NY). Pastor Tim also offered for us to eat downstairs where there were tables and chairs! It was wonderful. We got our mac and cheese cooked out of the rain, and then we got to eat inside where it was warm, which was a real life saver because we were all freezing now that we had stopped riding, everything was wet which didn't help either. It was so great to get to relax inside for a little bit. Joe called home and his Mom read us the article! It is still really exciting to think that we were on the front page! The remaining 30 miles to Anchorage were just as wet as the first 20 we had ridden today. Luckily there was now a bike path so we were so thankful for that. We had a few climbs to do and even rode right by Richardson Army Base. As we made it into Anchorage, the bike path continued, but it was not easy to follow. We knew the general location we had to go to get to where we were staying (Mary Anne's ex-husband, Dave's house), but weren't sure which bike path would take us there. As we were saying our goodbyes to Clay, a cyclist stopped to see if we needed help with directions. He told us where to go and then we were off. After a little while the bike path we were on pretty much turned into a sidewalk and then just stopped. We didn't really know where to go from there, so we stopped at a gas station to look at a map and get a little further away from the traffic so we could think. While we were standing there, a guy who worked making donuts for the gas station was on break and began to talk to us. We learned that he was originally from Syracuse! What a funny thing; its funny that so many people who live in AK are from somewhere else, a lot of which are from NY. He gave us a bike path map of the city which helped a little and while we were standing there figuring out where we had to go, we decided to each get a donut to tide us over. We were so hungry by that time and we knew we had quite a ways to go to get to Dave's house. As we were riding on the paths, they were very confusing and we found that we kept having to stop and look at the map. We felt like we were going in circles, and just not getting anywhere. It was getting late and although the rain had stopped for a little bit, it looked like it was going to start again at any time. Eventually we made it to a park that was somewhat out of the main congestion of the city. At that point, we didn't know if we would make it all the way out to Dave's (we figured we had at least 10 miles left and a good portion of that was up, since he lived 1500 ft. about the main city). We thought about just camping at the park because there was a nice pavilion since it was already after 8. As we were sitting there deciding what to do, we met a couple nice people who invited us to camp in their back yard if we needed a place to stay. When Joey called Dave to let him know where we were and that we probably wouldn't make it there tonight, he said he would come get us. I was really happy because I was dreading riding up that hill, well side of a mountain, all day. It turned out to be a really good thing that he came to get us because it was further than we thought, and we definitely would have gotten lost trying to find their house in the maze of streets on the side of the mountain. When we got to the house, Lise had a wonderful dinner of spaghetti with homemade sauce, salad, and bread all ready! It was amazing, the perfect way to end our anniversary! Lise had even made a chocolate cake too!!! They took a couple pictures of us with our camera so we would have a couple from our anniversary. What a great evening. We had a lot of fun playing with their two dogs, Jack and Daffney, too. By the time we went to bed we were exhausted and so glad that we got to sleep in a bed. Despite the rain and cold, we had a wonderful day. We rode 52.18 miles today.
|
|