Several light, funny dreams last night with Terry running some sort of map contest, and Karen B.
being the enforcer and tip-giver to me. I ended up with the easiest research topic on some
South American resort----go figure. The last couple nights, I find myself waking at 11:30 and
early morn, seeing the light outside, and returning to sleep. It's been chillier the last two nights
in this camp by Clearwater Creek. As long as I have my socks on, I am fine, and Mark covered
me with the fleece blanket early morn, too. What a sweetie.
It was a luxury sleeping until 8:30 this morn, and dreaming right up til then. It's fine with me if
early-riser Avakian opens the shades and shuffles around; just asked him not to play rock and
roll that early. He's been waking at about 4 or 5, dozing off and on, but usually has his eyes
open when I roll over to peek. The usual rising time seems to be 7 a.m., unless one of us needs
more sleep, so there is no set expectation. But, that is why naps and/or meditation afternoon
times are wonderful and enable me or us to catch our breaths, if our activities get us back to "M"
in time.
We took our time this a.m., reading, Mark working on pics, chatting, to the point of both yawning
at 11, laughing. That's when we knew we needed a wake-up bike ride, that always does the
trick. What warm, gorgeous weather today, in the 70s, and it is such a joy riding on this Denali
Hwy., because it is infrequent encountering cars, RVs; although there were over a handful, but
nothing like riding on a busy thoroughfare. Whenever a rig would be approaching, with a dust
trail visible, we'd stop to prevent being sprayed by gravel and overwhelmed by too much dirt. A
couple times, we motioned for the drivers to slow down, as they maintained their same speed
passing us lowly bikers. The two tour bus-drivers were very considerate in slowing down when
we were sighted.
Returning to terrain covered yesterday was even more enjoyable, being closer on our bikes. A
lovely multitude of these kettle lakes formed by melted glacial ice, and the Crooked Creek, with
it's graceful winding of waters through green tundra was magical. Tundra or trumpeter swans
dotted the landscape, as well. Have to look up grebes, which may be the black ducks/geese
spotted on one lake, larger than loons and in large flocked groups.
We rode for over two hours, and I finally have the gears in uphill together, with pacing the
pedaling, and was very proud ascending to the flatter tops, not being as wiped-out as in Jasper.
It was very freeing speeding downhill, and I let myself loosen up more than in the past, since I
am cautious about speed, in general. The knees felt pretty good afterwards, with Ibuprofen
taken beforehand. Mark is prepping me for more biking in the park, in addition to hikes, which,
of course, I am up for.
This has been my favorite campsite experience, thus far, because of the two relaxing, no driving
days, and today was languishing in our chairs by the creek, after bicycling, and eating cold tuna
casserole outside, reading, and then dozing later on. Mid-afternoon, I thought Mark was
shaking my chair or the wind blew up, but we realized it was a very mild earthquake, which was
disconcerting. We wondered if it was a strong one somewhere, and hoped no damage was
done. Mark, later on, emailed Christine, to ask her to research this for us, and she replied that it
was north of Willow, at 5.8 magnitude. She wrote she wasn't concerned about earthquakes, but
fires instead. In a couple days, in the park, we will inquire about the current status of latter.
A man and his two school-aged, sparkling eyed daughters walked up this afternoon, and asked
for a stronger jack, due to his truck's flat tire. Mark got one out for him, and they delivered it in a
couple hours, and ended up camping at the eastern campsite. They are from Seward, but did
not know Lael, my god-son, who teaches at the community college and is also a fine furniture
maker.
Our evening ritual is to walk a while, and tonight we fly-fished in the creek, over the bridge
again. I caught another grayling, and learned how to release the baby with Mark's hemostat (?)
clamp, hold it for a bit to let it regain some calm, and then was happy when it swam off. Every
day, since we've been on this road, there is thunder and lightning, mostly in late afternoon. We
decided to fish, even as the storm sounded right as we were getting ready. Luckily, it moved on
quite a distance away, as both of us watched it with each drum-sounding. Glancing towards the
bridge, a long, orange-red fox was moving gracefully over it, and I pointed it out to Mark. He
must have continued down the road, and I was hoping he'd be curious and come down to the
creek for a looksy at us. Yes, I could, most certainly, get use to this kind of evening ritual,
casting on mesmerizing rivers, creeks, being outside, calm.
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