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22
May 14

Around Eagle River

Most of the pictures today, I confess, are of the mountains. Because the mountains have deep, rich colors standing in contrast to the remnants of what was apparently a mild winter. I like mountain pictures. And since I grew up at the edge of the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains (which don’t look like these) and live on the coastal plain, you’re going to get more than your share of them on this trip, I suspect.

But, first, a plane. As far as I know this is the first time I’ve seen a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III. It is 174 feet long with a wingspan of about 170 feet and is powered by four Pratt & Whitney turbofan engines each capable of 40,400 pound force of thrust. Hauling cargo is the Globemaster’s purpose in life. It can support a 69-ton M1 Abrams main battle tank, other armored vehicles, trucks, and trailers and palletized cargo. The cargo compartment is 88 feet long by 18 feet wide and can carry 170,900 pounds. It can also airdrop 102 paratroopers and their equipment. This one has an un-refueled range of about 2,800 nautical miles and can cruise at Mach 0.74.

I also saw my first F-22 in person today, but I didn’t get a picture.

And, now, a series of photos featuring some of the mountains of the Eagle River Valley.

The Yankee, Jessica and I enjoyed the Eagle River Nature Center, where we saw most of this scenery today:

This is our roommate, Zach. He likes to cuddle:

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21
May 14

Travel day

We had breakfast with my father-in-law this morning. He took us to the airport in mid-morning. We sat in the airport holding pen for far too long, which meant enjoying the ever-challenging CNN dayparts. Why airports feel the need to turn it on CNN and break off the knobs we may never understand.

We they must almost always be turned to the highest possible volume first just seems like a crime against humanity.

Anyway, we flew to Salt Lake City, where we had our first experience in one of the secured “travelers clubs.” You pay a bit more and you get snacks, quieter rooms, better chairs and less crowds.

Worth every penny.

It turns out that my step-father was in Salt Lake City at the same time. He was over in one terminal waiting on his turnaround and we were waiting elsewhere for ours. We did not have time to meet, but it was kind of funny.

I got War Eagled on the plane to Salt Lake and then again inside that special club room. There’s just no end to the family reunions.

Here are some photos from the rest of the trip. We headed northwest, over the corner of Canada and landed, finally, in Anchorage.

On the one hand we traveled something like 16 hours on the day, after you figured in the time zones. On the other, we went across the entire country. Aeronautics are amazing, despite the cattle-car-in-the-sky mentality.

When we arrived it was about 11 p.m. local time. And it was still daylight. Our friends Adam and Jessica picked us up and took us to their place, and we enjoyed the mountains in twilight all the way there. Tomorrow we’ll start seeing the sights.

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17
May 14

A race, a game and a cookout :: A fine, full day

This morning we ran the Ft. Benning Reverse Sprint Triathlon. It is a short course, featuring a 5K run, a 20K ride and a 450-meter swim, in that order. Here we are after the finish:

This is the first triathlon we did last year, making this the first time we can compare times to previous efforts on the same course. I have a few things to be pleased with here.

The run is almost perfectly flat, and there are a lot of soldiers in the race, so they dominate the run, of course. You see them at the start and somewhere on the bike course or in the pool, if at all. So I’m not running with those guys, but I pulled away from a few people in the run. In fact, I didn’t get passed at all. My time was still slow, but I shaved a great deal off of last year’s run.

The bike is a super-fast ride with only two real rollers to think about. I was pleased with the ride last year, and I did it in three-and-a-half minutes less time this year. When you look at the average speed I was on the upper-end of average riders and almost break into the fast rider speeds. Only one guy dropped me here, and I’m not sure how. I looked down at my gears on that first roller, looked up and he was gone. I didn’t see him again until I passed him in the last 100 meters of the pool.

The pool was an improvement for me as well, if only because I was barely swimming last year. Remember, I was still dealing with shoulder problems and couldn’t even pretend to freestyle. I was disappointed in my swim today. The lanes were crowded for the first half of the short swim. Meanwhile, it takes me almost that entire distance to get warm anyway. I also had some energy excuses. (I even came up with a phrase for the latter, the red line of regret. I could have redlined the thing. I should have. Then I wouldn’t have regretted what I left in the pool because I was a little tired and winded. I could have been faster, but I didn’t overcome the red line of regret.)

Overall, my time was 17 minutes faster than last year’s race, which was very slow. This year’s was merely slow. But that’s a fair amount of improvement, with plenty of areas in which to continue to grow.

I’m bummed that I won’t get to do that race again for another year now. I want to measure these performances against another effort.

Today was senior day for Auburn baseball. Here the mother of one player and the grandmother of another shared a big hug and a kiss on the cheek of celebration. They’ve been coming to these games for four years. They’re going to miss each other.

They are sweet ladies.

Here’s another one. This is Morgan Jackson, Bo Jackson’s daughter. We’re buds:

This was the last time we’d see the team on the field this season:

My new Aubie gimmick — no one steal it! — is the Aubie selfie:

Another of Aubie, relaxing with the ladies.

Auburn lost the game, 8-1, bringing their season to a close with a 28-28 record (10-20 SEC). But the friendships are the thing: parents of five different players came to say goodbye to us today and then we had a cookout tonight with the nice group of people with whom we sit. That’s not a bad season at all, captured in one sentence.

After the cookout we picked up the traditional post-triathlon celebratory ice cream:

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3
May 14

It started with a banana

And now, scenes from a morning ride. These horses were unimpressed:

The Yankee is wearing purple for Elise, the beautiful, beautiful young daughter of a friend of hers who died early this year. There was a “virtual race” today, a fundraiser to help pay medical costs.

It was a nice ride. My legs felt good and the little hills we chose didn’t seem much of a challenge for a change. I spent most of the time thinking of the pictures and videos of that little girl’s face. When I found myself in a lull I remembered how much that 3-year-old loved to do burpees. That’ll make you laugh, a tow-headed baby doing toddler burpees with enthusiasm and giggles. You can cover a lot of ground quickly that way. Over the last few miles it all slowed down and I found myself thinking of her mother and father and the empty spot in their home.

So we rode 35 km in the midmorning sun and that was delightful. Guests came to visit and that was wonderful. We went to the wedding of one of The Yankee’s former students and that was lovely. Beautiful bride selfie:

It all made for a full and rich day of emotion. It started with a banana and ended with brunch finger foods and, ultimately, will conclude with my being too tired to eat a proper meal. But I spent the full day with my wonderful wife and we managed to cram a lot of a day into the waking hours. It was a good trade, even if the horses weren’t impressed.

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19
Apr 14

A Saturday outside

I so rarely see cyclists on the road. They’re almost always, always going the other direction. And, without fail, I am struggling up some tiny incline when they go by. They’ll just be breezing along happily and I’m obviously struggling to turn over the pedals. It is uncanny.

I think I’ve passed maybe four or five cyclists on the road in a casual day’s ride because they are always going the other way. But I saw this guy, and that was pretty great:

Right through this area, recently, my CatEye said I touched 40.5 miles per hour. I can be a little faster through here, I know:

Around midday, on a cool, overcast, windy, rainy day, a spring day that featured a public football practice, thousands of people were crawling over campus. And this was hours before the actual festivities. Auburn folks are ready for some football:

We went to the baseball doubleheader instead. In the first game we listened to the crowd and the audio from the big screen. We could hear a tailgating band and the marching band each vying for attention. It was a wonderful day to be on campus with friends, a group which keeps growing each time we get together.

This guy’s been in the group for a long while. He was born just after the Georgia game two years ago. (His mom was at the tailgate right at her due date. Where were you?) He’s a cool dude:

A year ago, now, some of us were listening to scanners in Boston again. This is what we heard:

I loved that one call: “America.”