Yikes, more hikes

The general tidy up continued but we were in the garage today. The one car that normally resides there has been relegated to the bottom of the drive leaving plenty of space on the floor for all the items that are being disposed of. For a number of reasons, the weekend coming up is the only one free for a Big Garage Sale, the local equivalent of a car boot sale. Only here, everyone comes to your garage. Which means of course it has to be publicised ahead of time. There’s a lot of stuff in the garage, but Liesel’s Dad seems to know what and where everything is. The ‘to go’ pile is satisfyingly big, especially now the items from the upstairs cupboards have been added.

So if, for instance, you want a really heavy chain once used by horses to drag logs, you know where to come…

With a view to fully preparing for the Garage Sale at the weekend, we paid a visit to The Home Depot. That place is huuuuge. This must be one of the biggest DIY shops anywhere: it’s like Homebase on steroids. Full of people buying stuff with which to do jobs themselves. It was a good 5-minute walk to the bathroom at the back. Inside which the soap comes out of the dispenser, water comes out of the tap and hand-drying paper is dispensed all with a quick wave. Because DIY folk don’t like working too hard to wash their hands.

On sale were sit-upon lawn mowers and traffic cones amongst other exotic items. We just splashed out and bought a sign to tell people where the garage sale is located.

In the evening I joined Jyoti for a hike down to the beach. Funnily enough, it started right by the football pitch where we’d been yesterday. It was much warmer and much less windy tonight though. It’s gone now but fairly recently a wahle carcass washed up on the beach to be thoroughly enjoyed by the bears.

Sunset is still after 9pm, so we reluctantly decided not to wait for it. The sea was lovely and calm so of course I skimmed a couple of stones.

The beach was sandy where I was expecting mud, so that made a more pleasant jaunt. We passed a few people jogging on the path and along the beach. Or, more precisely, they passed us.

Next day, we both went to the gym. I covered one mile in 11m58s. Then, after a bit more time on thr treadmill, it was over to the stationary bike where I cycled nowhere, or 1.5 miles, depending on how you look at it. Liesel did a yoga session. I don’t know which of us had more fun.

Liesel and I joined Jyoti for a walk on the (in)famous Flat Top Trail and Powerline Trail. The sky was blue, the Sun was out, it really was a beautiful day for a hike. A strenuous hike. I think the path started off at about a 40° slope and I thought, if this lasts much longer, I’m gonna have to crawl up on all fours.

But that was the worst part, and the ensuing four miles or so reavealed some spectacular views of the mountains, near and far, glacial valleys and of Anchorage itself. We were joined by a friend of Jyoti’s, Lisa: everyone knows everyone in this town.

In the evening, we went to the Bear Tooth where you can eat a meal while watching a movie: very civilised. We saw Three Identical Strangers, a documentary about a set of triplets separated soon after birth and each adopted by a different family. As a human interest story, it was indeed very interesting and moving. But there was an undercurrent of unethical psychological research practices.