Oh my good googly moogly, it was SO FREAKING HOT outside when I went running at 5:00 yesterday. I made it 4 miles, but I really don’t know how. If I hadn’t had to cover the final 2 miles to get back to my car, I would have been sorely tempted to stop earlier. It was still 87 degrees at 8:00 p.m. according to my thermometer, so I’d guess that it was about 95 when I was out there, with a heat index of who knows what. One of the hottest days of the year so far. Gotta love Houston. I’ll try to look forward to another hot run tonight, but it may be a treadmill day.
In other news, I doubt my blogging this week will be very exciting, since it’s hard for me to think about anything beyond our impending trip to ALASKA. We made the final bit of reservations today (nothing like waiting until the last minute). Over our nine days there, here are some of the things we’ll be doing:
- Attending the wedding for one of Jose’s best college friends
- Sea kayaking in Seward
- Evening cruise around Resurrection Bay
- Riding bikes along the coastal trail in Anchorage
- Going flightseeing over a glacier in a float plane
- Taking the day-long bus tour all the way down the 90-mile park road in Denali National Park
- Whitewater rafting on the Nenana River at Denali
- Hiking to the top of Flattop Mountain, Alaska’s most-climbed peak, outside Anchorage
I am spending a small fortune on this trip, but I don’t even care because I think everything is going to be so awesome. I’m crossing my fingers something fierce for a few days of good weather. Alaska is notorious for gray, overcast days, and a check of one of the Denali National Park webcams showed that the mountain was visible on 4 of the past 13 days. (Or at least it was at 9:00 a.m. when the archived image was captured. It is probably a sign of…something…that most of the webcam sites include a view “on a clear day” for comparison to what you normally see on the webcam!) That seems to fit with the conventional wisdom I’ve read that it’s visible about 1/3 of the time. So if I get to see Mt. McKinley at least once, I’ll be a happy girl. Alaska! Yay!
Sarah – your trip sound amazing. is your kayak trip outside Resurrection bay? I didn’t get to go kayaking – I’m jealous. Anyway, If not, I’d itake a longer cruise that goes outside the bay. My parents and I (on separate occasions) discovered you see a lot more stuff, like whales, on the longer cruises that go outside the bay.
Are you camping at Wonder Lake? How long are you staying in Denali? As you know, there’s no official trails inside the park, but there’s good hiking Eileson Visitor Center – I believe there were some “unofficial” paths that were nice to walk on.
Have fun!