Weird Weather, New Road, Amy Stewart

The weather has held steady for about two weeks now - "lows high 40s-mid 50s and highs to the mid 60s".  We've had interesting clouds.  Then today it was sunny and warm.  When it hit 75˚ F (23˚C) this afternoon I decided I needed a bike ride to the Botanical Garden and back.

And that's when I discovered that Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue is almost ready to open.  At left is where it begins at Elmore Road across the street from the Muni buildings south of Tudor.  Anchorage folks remember a long time back how our city where we're told there is no racism rejected naming any of our streets after MLK.  When logic gets really silly ('changing 9th Avenue to MLK Avenue would disrupt the [alpha-] numerical integrity of our streets' - really they said that!) it means people are covering up their real, less savory reasons ("We're not naming any street after that commie N.")[Thanks Jay, I forgot the alpha]

[Update July 10:  I found this picture from the same spot last August - that brown spot in the middle is a moose.  I don't think they are welcome here any more.  And I guess it looks greener than I suggested

But it seems the more left leaning side of our population has finally got a street named after MLK.  There is a bit of a catch though - it goes through parkland that the libs really wanted to leave parkland.  Clever those road builders.  In any case, the road, which I'd seen previously as this brown swath through the woods south of Tudor and which blocked the bike trail from the Native Hospital to Tudor Municipality Buildings for a couple of summers now, is pretty much ready to be opened.

But this evening it was my private bike trail.

There's a way to Tudor and the various buildings around the ANTHC.

And then it ends at Tudor and Boniface.  That's when I learned the road's name.  



You'd think with this macho road through the woods here to Boniface, where Elmore Road traffic could then go north, that this would alleviate any need to push through the UAA-APU land at Bragaw.  You'd think.  It will still be a fight to keep those people who think in straight lines and get really uncomfortable when two points aren't connected by a road to go after that area that is park now and could be campus as the need for more university land grows.

There's also bike trail connected with this road and it's nice bike trail through the woods, but it isn't particularly good commuter bike trail because it's off on the edge of where people are and not going to work.  Though I imagine the folks going through bear country trails from Service High could then go west on this trail.  But they'd then most likely want to connect to the Chester Creek trail into town. 

Right near the State Troopers headquarters, where the sign said it was 81˚F

I continued on to the Botanical Garden (just up Campbell Airstrip Road from Tudor) where this sign was posted on the gate.  Amy Stewart's website says about her most recent book (the green one on the left in the poster):

Wicked Plants is a New York Times bestseller! National Public Radio says, "Bram Stoker meets Agatha Christie in this sophisticated little brew of botanical bogeymen."

 This workshop is tomorrow (Saturday July 10) and the talk is Sunday July 11. 








I rode back home through Campbell Creek Park where people were enjoying the warm weather next to the creek.











[Update July 10:  I meant to put up this 2008 map from the kidsneedparks]