30 April 2007

my backyard.

the weekend i got back from juneau, jen, rob, justine, aerin and i headed down to delta to float the clearwater river. we were a little early on the bird-front, but it was a wonderful welcome-back to the boreal forest and home after being gone to southeast for over a week.

justine, checking on the bird-situation.

it was kind of like being a small child, sitting in between jen and rob and just basking in the sun...

here's an ice shot. we figured we'd try to get some hardcore picture of us with icebergs, but this is as best as we got. looks intense, huh??

mama and her calf, munching on the aquatic veg. yeah for the end of winter!!!
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** the next weekend (just this past saturday) cory, lauren, morgan, zoe and i headed up and hiked from angel rocks to chena hotsprings. it was a beautiful day, with good views, good people, finishing with a good soak in the springs.



stopping to have some food at the top of the ridge, looking southeast

cory demonstrating something or another that was, apparently, quite funny...


zoe had a great time and was one fast dog along the trail!!

lauren, morgan and zoe hiking up to the ridge

26 April 2007

who knew returning an ipod could be so much fun..



after chris' ipod stopped working i realized that i had become hopelessly addicted after just a few short months. so yes, i caved and on monday went to the tech center to buy a new ipod.
so then i'm all happy and listening to 'this american life' on my run yesterday. after two episodes i still had a few miles to go, and was all excited to listen to the 'run run run' playlist i had made myself (which begins with the first part of the 'hippity hop' hiphop cd megan made me!!)

right.
except that the middle 'select' button had ceased to function. ack! i had to run down sheep creek road, the longest most boring road in my head, without music.


today i decided that the 'select' button was never going to come back on, and so went back to the tech center to return it. this, as i should have figured, took forever.
but in the meantime, justine and i got to play with the apple computer for sale with a built-in camera!

pray that we don't have to return to the tech center soon....who knows what other options may be available with that computer. i can't imagine how much LESS work i would get done if i had one of those camera things. lordy

well, springtime is so very much here and i love it.
a few days ago i busted out my bike, an example of which is pictured above (thanks to the gary fisher website) and rode up chena ridge to play scrabble with em and melissa. i lost horribly (i'm not usually quite that bad....) but melissa and tom have a great new house - though i had definitely forgotten how very steep it is getting up to the top of chena ridge!

the ride home was *amazing* and beautiful, with the alaska range in the distance and the sun setting lower in the sky at 930 and the temps still high enough to not be cold flying down the road.

i forget how much i enjoy biking.



here's nola and i, me with my old bike, last april in denali.
the park road should be opening soon - gotta get back down there again before that happens!!

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in other fitness news, i ran my 16 miles yesterday.
http://www.mapmyrun.com/user_profile?username=rachelerrin
this is a great website (there seems to be quite a few of similar ones out there) to map out run routes and view them on satellite images. the elevation feature doesn't seem to work here, but it's still nice to map some things out from my desk before having to drive it all.

so after the 16 miles i feel pretty good, remarkably! shins are okay. achilles is well, not as good as it was before i ran, but not terrible.
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22 April 2007

maintain & gaurd your idealism...



this is for mark. i am all about idealism, but with just ever so slight a hint of cynicism....

(the shirt is from www.qwantz.com wicked funny dinosaur comics. well, i like them anyways.)