Water warriors

An interesting bit of news about two guys swimming five miles through Knik Arm in Anchorage. That water is really cold and very difficult to navigate. Anchorage Daily News | Water warriors

Things are going fine here. We're finally getting into a system and getting settled, although we still have some boxes to still go through. I think we have maybe 20 boxes (mostly of books) to go! Unfortunately, we found that our stove has only two burners that work -- the others don't ignite, which is a problem, especially because they are both on the same side. I guess we could use the old match trick, but I'd rather get the ignitor fixed somehow. There's a lot of little things like that that need to be fixed in the house -- I guess not a suprising thing when you buy a house that was lived in for four years.

It's interesting getting up so early in the morning. Today was the first day since I got here that I felt like I really was awake at 5am and ready to go, so that is a good sign. I've been keeping tabs on the time the sun comes up...since we have been here, it's gone from light at 5 to almost 6 when the sun comes up. I can verify each morning that we are losing about 6 minutes of sun every day, which is kind of sad.

The weather in AK is really great. It's dry most of the time, so it always feels good to run (not sticky like afternoon runs in Ohio). Here they have very wide trails along the side of the road for bikes and runners -- they even have a little tunnel underneath Lake Otis so that you don't have to cross the street. Conveniently, it is exactly at the 1.5 mile mark from our house, so it's a great place to turn around.

Running is a good way to get used to a place -- I get to see all sorts of plant life that I would not normally see (and if I'm lucky a moose). The fireweed is a pinkish-purple flower that grows all over, and supposedly when it blooms that's the indicator that fall is on its way -- a rule of thumb I guess, hopefully not (It's not that late in the year, is it?????).