Breakup Biking and Moose

It's been gloriously sunny, enough to melt snow and ice enough for it to freeze over into sheets at night.  That made for interesting biking yesterday when I went to meet a friend for brunch.  But the bike stayed upright and my helmet was never near the ground.

Coming home after we talked into the afternoon and I stopped by the library to see a few TEDx talks, was a different challenge.  It was another sunny and slightly warmer day and things were wet.

 
There is something primordial to the way snow and ice convert to water and air.  There are cracks and fissures and rivulets taking the warmed ice down gravity's path. That brown ribbon moving to the lower left was an inch or two deep water transfer from the parking lot to the street.

The cross walk had a couple of inches of water in it.

And soon the sidewalk itself was submerged and cars were offering muddy showers to pedestrians and cyclists.  I finally decided to just ride through it and it wasn't as bad as it looked. 

So as soon as I could, I slipped off the main street and onto a side street whose snow pack was still relatively solid.  And as I was biking by, suddenly noticed I was not alone.  A moose had found a comfortable spot in front of someone's house to lie down and chew its cud.  It wasn't much more than 15 feet away from me if that much and not at all disturbed that I was stopped to take a picture.

When I got home my tire had captured some of the street surface. 

For those of you making snide comments about Alaskans now, I would point out it's 8:02pm as I write this and the sun is still comfortably above the horizon and pinking the snow on the mountains.