Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Sunday, June 09, 2013
Friday, September 14, 2012
Old and new friends
My roommate/co-manager and good friend, Nick, is the guy in the pictures. When we had overlapping free time, the two of us went down to one of his favorite rock collecting beaches and met some wonderful characters. We were only in each others' lives for a matter of hours, but it was a wonderful afternoon and a very enjoyable photo shoot.
The Alice Machesney Triathlon
Alice Machesney was one of Sitka's oldest personalities. She ran a polka show on the community radio station, played the accordion, and lived alone on a nearby island rowing herself to and from Sitka proper to do errands. While in Sitka, she biked everywhere, white hair flowing until her final days. She died in September of 2009.
I didn't know Alice personally, but we definitely crossed paths by bike during my first Sitka summer in 2005. When I heard that there was a triathlon in Alice's name, I had to see it for myself. The first event was playing a polka on the accordion; second event involved kayaking a short distance and the course finished up with a hilarious bike obstacle course. Some participants honor Machesney's spirit by dressing in spectacularly colorful costumes and money raised from the triathlon goes to community bike projects within Sitka.
I rode my bike down to the triathlon eager to see the silliness of Sitka locals, but before I knew it, I was registered, getting a number pinned on my shirt, and a pfd slipped over my head. I was teamed up with a wonderful older man who had worked Search and Rescue for years in Alaska; he wanted someone to join his team for the accordion event. Despite my dad being an expert accordion player, I had never played a single note until that day. I wish that I had a photo to prove my new polka playing status.
The first race was over so quickly, everyone wanted to go again and before I knew it, I was caught up in the activity. This time, another new friend played the accordion for me, I paddled somebody else's kayak with a paddle that didn't fit me; really, I just made a fool of myself in one of the nation's kayaking capitals and boy, I never heard the end of that. I came out of the water last, but in one of sport's greatest comebacks ever, I re-took the lead by bike and ended up winning my first triathlon!
It was one of the most fun times I've ever had. After awards were distributed (I got glow-in-the-dark bicycling gloves), I was formally admitted into the Sitka local community.
I didn't know Alice personally, but we definitely crossed paths by bike during my first Sitka summer in 2005. When I heard that there was a triathlon in Alice's name, I had to see it for myself. The first event was playing a polka on the accordion; second event involved kayaking a short distance and the course finished up with a hilarious bike obstacle course. Some participants honor Machesney's spirit by dressing in spectacularly colorful costumes and money raised from the triathlon goes to community bike projects within Sitka.
I rode my bike down to the triathlon eager to see the silliness of Sitka locals, but before I knew it, I was registered, getting a number pinned on my shirt, and a pfd slipped over my head. I was teamed up with a wonderful older man who had worked Search and Rescue for years in Alaska; he wanted someone to join his team for the accordion event. Despite my dad being an expert accordion player, I had never played a single note until that day. I wish that I had a photo to prove my new polka playing status.
The first race was over so quickly, everyone wanted to go again and before I knew it, I was caught up in the activity. This time, another new friend played the accordion for me, I paddled somebody else's kayak with a paddle that didn't fit me; really, I just made a fool of myself in one of the nation's kayaking capitals and boy, I never heard the end of that. I came out of the water last, but in one of sport's greatest comebacks ever, I re-took the lead by bike and ended up winning my first triathlon!
It was one of the most fun times I've ever had. After awards were distributed (I got glow-in-the-dark bicycling gloves), I was formally admitted into the Sitka local community.
Sunday, November 06, 2011
The Russians have landed
So a Russian tall ship came to town. It was crewed by about 160 young Russian guys along with four Russian ladies....and we thought Alaska had interesting gender ratios. The majority of the crew couldn't speak much English which made for all kinds of fun charades as John and I wandered around the boat. Despite the many "crew only" signs, one of the crew supervisors took us below deck. (I have to admit, it looked virtually identical to the coach class quarters of a cruise ship.)
Although the ship itself was beautiful, I found the smoking and computer/cell phone usage of the young Russkies to be the most interesting part of our adventure. When I saw their outstretched arms holding nondescript laptops out the porthole windows, it felt like old English fiction come to life. Instead of prisoners reaching from below ground for food, they sought out electronic waves of home.
They stood in small blue uniformed huddles smoking one cigarette after another as if in a race. I kept waiting for the director of a Hollywood movie to call her American actors back to the set. Off to the port side, a handful fished with line that looked like it had been confiscated from the ocean. With a cigarette dangling from their lips, they pulled the line up the 50 or so feet along the ship's keel and deposited some of the oddest sea-life I've ever seen into metal buckets.
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