R and R in Anchorage

Posted by Fin on 27 July 2009

Warmshowers - luxury option?

Life has been pretty good these last three weeks waiting for Alex to come and join me. My warmshowers.org hosts Ron and Barb in Anchorage have yet again been incredibly hospitable and generous. www.warmshowers.org is a website for touring cyclists around the world whereby members offer a place to stay for traveling cyclists, be it a couch, garden for a tent or comfy bed for a few nights. Ron and Barb put me and Anna and up for a few nights before the start of our trip back in June but they really weren't expecting me to return for the best part of a month! On top of this extended stay, they offered me a comfy bed in my own private apartment with a relaxing jacuzzi outside with views fabulous over Cook inlet. I don't think there is a category on the website for 'luxury' but there should be now. I will struggle to beat this warmshowers experience anywhere in the World. On top of a place to stay Ron has helped me prepare the ground for Alex's arrival, sourcing bikes and bike parts, and also teaching me every detail of his 20 years of cycling mechanical experience. Invaulable stuff to a novice like myself. Its been wonderful to spend time here and they have made me feel so at home that it will be a struggle to leave.

Food, glorious food!

I have tried to give a little back by doing a few odd jobs, painting Ron's float plane dock, digging the garden for Barb and even subjecting them to the odd meal. I tried in vain to locate someone in Anchorage who would make me some haggis for the 'ole Scottish favourite 'butterfly chicken stuffed with haggis wrapped in smokey bacon'... the best the President of the Alaskan Scottish Society could offer me was of the canned variety....'no thanks'. But Ron and Barn seemed pretty satisfied with the salmon and halibut fish pie I made the other night and also chicken stuffed with spinach and mozzarella....well no one was sick with food poisoning so I will take that as a success. In the first week, I ate loads and loads of Barbs' wonderful home cooking and started to put back on the weight I had lost in my first leg. The food here has been out of this world - never again will I be able to eat farmed salmon.....halibut too and loads of moose! My new favourite I think has to be Mooseloaf - absolutely delicious Barb!! Also, one of the cyclists I had met on the George Parks Highway, Bob, who had kindly donated his Park Tool sprocket cleaner to me, took me out for an awesome steak dinner the other night. Bob also gave me detailed instructions on the best routes to take in and out of Vancouver and the San Juan Islands - really important stuff for the future. Thanks Bob!

Cabin for the Weekend

Last week, I spent the weekend at Nancy and Doug's cabin on Horseshoe Lake, about 60 miles north of Anchorage. Doug is an old college friend of Ron's and him and his wife Nancy are also very keen cyclists. Their cabin is lovely, big open spaces and large windows on a tiny spit in the middle of the lake, with water and boreal forest on all sides. We did a long 45 mile bike ride on one of the days which felt great as I need to keep active to keep fit for Prudhoe in a week's time. We had a big BBQ one night with their friends on the other side of the lake - we drank too many margaritas -  I had a good time but my head hurt the next day! Doug flew me back to Anchorage in his small plane  - a flight only meant to be 20 minutes but it took over an hour as he kindly allowed me to try flying - i tried for a few minutes  - great fun but pretty scary so was pleased to give the controls back to Doug! We flew near some huge glaciers and also flew over the tunnel on the highway where deepeei productions filmed me fixing my puncture a few weeks before. It was cool seeing the place again from the air but it brought me back down to earth, reminding me that I would be cycling the same ground again in a few weeks time.A few minutes later we flew into the small plane airport in downtown Anchorage. Doug then treated me to a World Famous Moose Tooth pizza which i was still eating 24 hours later....

Alex arrives on Thursday so now I am busy buying food provisions, fine tuning and cleaning my bike, practicing with the film camera, and doing other jobs that come up. Slowly I am starting to refocus on the challenge ahead. We have only 48 hours once Alex arrives before we head back up to the Arctic Ocean! Ron tells me I should contact Guiness Book of Records because he doubts there are many who have cycled the length of Alaska twice, let along twice in the same summer!

17 comments. Tags: cabin, warmshowers, ron and barb, fin. Location: Anchorage, USA