By Summer of 2005 I had quit my Systems Administration 9-5 job so I could work more hours at WCBS and CBS News. Prior to quitting I was leaving home around 2 a.m. heading into NYC to WCBS sleep driving fueled on lots of coffee and 20-something-year-old adrenaline, to arrive by 3 a.m.. I’d work the morning show and then leave by 8 a.m. to get to my Bank (full-time) job by 9 (welcomed by an array of bagels or cake from someone’s birthday. It was always someone’s birthday. Or just a reason to celebrate with cake and cookies.) When CBS Network News asked me to work from 10 p.m. through the night then through the local morning show, I kissed my sleep goodbye and gladly stepped up, but it started to become too much. Many times, I fell asleep, at the wheel, while driving. I’d dose off and wake-up, realizing, I just dozed off. While driving. Very Scary. So I left the bank and it allowed for more time to work AND run! Sleep? Sure, that too. I decided I’d train for a marathon and travel to a great location to make it a memorable experience! I volunteered to run for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Team-In-Training program. The marathon was in Anchorage, Alaska! I was so excited!
The Leukemia and Lymphoma society puts together a group of volunteers as coaches to help runners (and non-runners new to training for the marathon). In return you raise enough money and you’ll get to travel to the marathon with the group. I didn’t have time to run and train with the group when they met-up, because my work hours were nocturnal and completely different from a normal human being. (I wasn’t falling asleep on Rte 3 in Secaucus any more so it was an improvement). I only met with the coach once. I had run marathons before so I knew I was ok training-wise. If you needed help training and wanted a running partner to push you along the way, it was a good program. My Dad was a true outdoorsman and loved the idea of running a marathon in Alaska so he was ready and willing to travel along with me. He and my mom came along to be not only my travel companions but also (always) my cheering section!
Alaska is incredible! We went in mid-June, right around the Summer Solstice, so it was almost always light out! Maybe an hour of some darkness at most. This was in the center of town and look at the clock, it’s just after 10 o’clock… at “night”!
After a sleepless sunny “night” in which my mom was losing her mind because sunlight was creeping into the hotel room at 2 a.m. and began duct taping the curtains together (I’m impressed at my dad actually packing duct tape), my dad began his day around 3 a.m. walking around an empty but sunlit town. Mom and I both started our day at about 6 a.m. and walked around Anchorage, cute little city.
We saw some entertainment in the middle of town.
We really wanted to see the true wilderness and beauty of Alaska so we booked a bear sighting tour!
There was an opportunity to also fish for Salmon but we decided on just the boat tour and the chance to see some bears.
The Redoubt Bay Bear Viewing Day Tour was perfect! We boarded a small seaplane for about an hour flight flying from Anchorage along the Cook Inlet to Lake Clark Wilderness Preserve, landing obviously on the water, on a remote lake surrounded by the Chigmit Mountains!
The area was so beautiful! Stunning really! We arrived to a nice log cabin up the steps where the seaplane landed and docked (is that right? To “dock” a seaplane? Like a boat.).
At the the cabin they cooked, prepared and served us a yummy lunch complete with some really great home-baked chocolate chip cookies!
Afterward we boarded a pontoon boat, taking us out along the lake waters and to Wolverine Creek Cove.
This is where you can see others on their boats fishing for salmon and you can even see the salmon jumping out of the water! In the photo above my camera was a bit slow in 2005, the salmon being faster than my shutter speed, so it just caught the splash.<—blaming the camera and not my photo skills. This is Wolverine Creek while the lake we are on is a part of the Cook Inlet. The creek is freshwater, flowing into saltwater. This is where the salmon swim! Fresh healthy Alaskan Salmon!
We watched as a fisherman on another small boat caught a salmon, another hit it on the head, pulled it over and began cutting, cleaning and COOKING it! It was placed on a small stove, on the boat, and minutes later the fisherman and those aboard had some truly fresh salmon to eat! I was amazed! I don’t know the details of this but I wished we would’ve done it, I bet it’s fantastic! Here’s a link to a tour that does offer catch-and-cook fresh salmon shore lunch! YUM!
So we watched jealously as the people ate the freshest salmon lunch ever and waited for a while but didn’t see any bears. The big hand in the pic above is my mom’s because she swore she could see a bear in the bushes walking, which I think there was, but I couldn’t see him. So our tour guide decided to take us around the lake.
While we were pontooning in our pontoon, soberly that is, Dad said the lake reminded him of a summer he lived in Canada as a teen and there was a lake he’d swim across to see a red-headed girl who lived on the other side. The lake was about a mile across with a rock in the middle where he could stop to rest. The people he was staying with told him to stop swimming across as he could get tired and drown, but he did so anyway. Mom asked “Was she pretty?” Dad’s classic answer was “She wasn’t ugly.” I’d say not if he was swimming a mile to get to her. Dad always had these new stories about his life. I had no idea until this moment that he had lived in Canada as a teen.
Our guide, who happened to graduate from the Ohio State University, Buckeyes are everywhere I swear, stopped at a floating island to let us out so we could feel the wet squishy ground.
Because it was best to take off our shoes, or they’d be drenched since we were basically walking through about an inch or so of water, Dad wasn’t into it. He always wears shoes, always, so his feet are super sensitive! He gave it the ol’ college try but back to the boat he went. Mom and I took advantage of the scenery, took some pics and then back on the pontoon.
Next we stopped by a picturesque waterfall which again was freshwater flowing into saltwater. Photo op!
It was time to turn back to the original creek where the fishermen were to see if our bear viewing luck had changed. July is the best chance to view the bears and it was around June 20th. Then, there they were! We saw a few come out right in front of us! These were Alaska black bears not grizzlies.
Our trip was complete! A Beary good day!
We headed back to the doc to wait for our seaplane, and all the while Dad needed pics of a wheelbarrow he wanted to either buy or make on his own, I’m not sure.
On the way back our pilot seemed pretty young, I’d even call him a kid which I’m told is very normal for Alaska for kids to become pilots before they can drive cars. While in flight, he wanted to show us a bunch of elk he could see from the plane. He started to do tight circles in such a way I looked at dad who promptly looked at me and telepathically told me to tell the pilot to stop immediately. So I spoke up calmly:
Me: “You know when there’s a plane crash and nobody can understand what happened because there didn’t seem to be a reason?”
Kid Pilot: “Yeah”
Me: “I’m going to write down on a piece of paper right now that you wanted to show us a bunch of elk thousands of feet below us that look like tiny ants, so you began doing tight circles.”
Pilot: “hahahhhha. ok ok I’ll stop.”
We made it back safely.
By the time we got back to Anchorage it was about 9 p.m., still sunlit, and we found a restaurant to get some dinner. At dinner, dad… and mom fell asleep beside me. Mom still had her eyes open but she was in no way awake. I had to eat something because the next morning was the marathon. It was still light outside so my body clock was registering that we’d been up for about 20 hours.
The next morning was chilly and damp. It improved slowly but then would drizzle of and on throughout the race. It was good for a runner, bad for a spectator.
The people in purple are in the Team In Training group.
I have a maroon long sleeve shirt on I bought for a $1.00 knowing I was going to take it off later in the race when I would no longer want to wear it. Throw it by a mile marker so someone can easily find it, but I myself won’t worry about trying to find it later. Nice expensive running shirts I’d rather not toss to the side and lose.
About the rain and the drizzle, my mom, BB as we call her now, she’s creative. She always figures out ways to keep herself dry. Trash bags have more uses than we know!
This sweet girl volunteered to take mom and dad with her as she drove along the course since she was there to cheer on her family member as well. Later Dad told me they got lost at one point. I can only imagine the car ride. Being so kind to bring them along, she had no idea what she was getting herself into allowing BB and Big Joe to help navigate through back roads in Alaska.
The race is great! I do recommend. Mayor’s Midnight Sun Marathon, very well organized and the course takes you along bike paths, through gravel roads and remote areas but also a bit into Anchorage. At one point they had to stop runners so a momma Moose and her baby could cross the road! My final time was 3:54:34. I felt good, was going strong throughout much of it, but the final five miles my feet began to hurt which I attribute to the shoes I was wearing. And at the very end, the last miles, there is an intense hill, I just couldn’t go any faster.
Next day we had planned our next Alaskan adventure, to see some glaciers! We took a train to Whittier Alaska then boarded a boat in Prince William Sound to view glaciers up close!
Whittier is a small remote Alaskan town that can only be reached via the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel, the longest highway tunnel in North America. Not only does the train take this tunnel but also vehicles, they share the same route, so access to Whittier is only available at specific times. Our tour with Major Marine included round-trip transportation by train ride, traveling the Alaska Railroad.
The views we had from the train were spectacular! Alaska does not disappoint!
It was a quick trip to Alaska, soooo much more to see and do, but we’re ready to head back home. Before we do, Team-In-Training had their goodbye party the night before.
One of my favorite trips with my Mom and Dad. He looks good here, but I had learned he had just recently been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. On our trips going forward he would be limited on what he could do, but he still was able made trips to Bar Harbor, Nashville, Las Vegas, Tahoe and Yosemite!
