|
MountainBikeReview.com's Forum Archives - - Passion -
|
|
Hey REV BUBBA, this one's for you (9 posts)
|  Hey REV BUBBA, this one's for you | AK Ken
Sep 8, 2002 12:21 AM | | I know you hate your words and pictures getting all mixed together, so I'll make a Going Postal post just for you.
Ahem...okay.
I awoke this morning to unstable weather, with the evidence of recent rain dripping from the eaves. The clouds swirled in and out among the peaks, offering at best a veiled view of the higher ones.
I try to make the 38 mile round trip to the post office by bike twice a week, and so far I'd only been once. Today is Saturday, so it's now or never. The fact that they close at 12:30 makes me skip a leisurely breakfast at the local Calf A, and snarf some PBJOT over the sink instead.
I start south at a brisk pace. I can tell there's very little wind because I can hear traffic approaching from either direction for about the same amount of time before they pass me. Traffic on this road is not the steady stream of cars that you may be accustomed to.
I'm riding south on the biggest scar on the Alaskan landscape, the George Parks Highway. It's a two lane paved road that is 40 feet wide--two 12 foot lanes and two 8 foot shoulders, complete with rumble strip.
Having worked on this road for the past twelve years, I still marvel at how fragile this ribbon of asphalt is. It is a full time job for many men to keep nature at bay here, to keep the brush back far enough to see around the curves, to keep the frost from demolishing the oil and aggregate that form the lifeline between Alaska's two largest cities, to keep the water flowing alongside the road instead of over it.
Autumn is upon us at this latitude, with several 20 degree mornings under our belts. The colors have begun to turn, but still the green of summer is represented as well as the yellow and orange that will soon be dominant. Then, all too soon, brown. Followed by the long dark time. sigh
I'm enjoying the ride, though, enjoying the fact that I have to push a bit to make my goal. The sun pokes in and out of the clouds, and a sprinkle or two wets my glasses. The northbound trucks who know that "crazy D.O.T. guy on the bike" give me a wide berth and a wave to help keep the spray from drowning me and to ensure my good will come winter when they may need my salty, sandy mixture to make it up the hills.
I come to the gap in the Alaska Range cut by the Nenana River, and hit the 30mph downgrade onto the bridge. Here the Nenana turns east, and we meet its tributary, the Jack River, whose flood plain we'll ride the rest of the way.
Ah, the post office lady is still there, the stars and stripes still rippling gently outside, telling me that I've met with success. It's an important task to check off my list. After all, if I didn't come down here and take all those credit card offers, those you-may-have-already-won envelopes, those congressional newsletters, those ads for wart remover, and those pleas from the rain forest people to stop the insanity out of the box and put them into the recycle bin, WHO WOULD??
My main task for today accomplished, I can turn for home knowing the satisfaction of a job...well, DONE!
The pressure is off now, and I can enjoy the downstream ride. Oh sure, there's some up and down, but the water flows toward home, and I will too. Maybe I'll even stop for one of Megan's patented peanut butter bars.
Ken |
| Every bit as colorfull as the visual post... | Battman42
Sep 8, 2002 12:46 AM | | And yes I did have to go out and adjust an automated level control...
They like hands on attention once in awhile...
Tim |
| Bravo Ken...and thanks. | AlloyNipples
Sep 8, 2002 11:53 AM | | As you had done so many times in the past, you've taken me somewhere i've never been... even if it's just to the post office. |
| Nice............... | Mike T.
Sep 8, 2002 3:35 PM | | .....story and nice pics below. Thanks muchly Ken. Keepers, all of them, as usual. |
| Dang you make me wish my PO wasnt just a stones throw away | SteveFromMaine
Sep 8, 2002 3:53 PM | | thanks |
| Shy thank you. Lots of nice words | Rev Bubba
Sep 9, 2002 5:36 AM | | Twenty degrees already? Whew. Guess winter is on the way. I'm taking the skis in to get the bottoms stone gound this week. Pretty soon I'll get to use them.
For the moment, I get to use my imagination to put pictures to your words... |
| Should be "Why" | Rev Bubba
Sep 9, 2002 5:37 AM | | No, I was not drinking on an early Monday morning....... |
| Why, thanks everyone who looked | AK Ken
Sep 9, 2002 7:12 AM | | at the two Postal posts. I'll probably just stick with the pics, though, as the words are harder. REV, you can do the exercise in reverse and look at the photos and make up your own words!
Ken |
| And "make up" says it just about right......nm | Rev Bubba
Sep 9, 2002 7:15 AM | | nm |
| |
|
|
