Summer Time - Urban Conflux

Not sure how I got notified but I got a message from something called Urban Conflux

An Urban Conflux is a one day gathering on May 30th, 2015 to discover Urban Anchorage in unexpected ways. We have organized many events happening simultaneously as a celebration of urban life and 100 years of Anchorage. FIND YOUR EVENT HERE: fivethirtyproject.org.

There were a number of bike ride groups and a tour of Spenard with Steve Heimel sounded interesting.  It was nice to see a bunch of other bikers, and riding with 30 or so others changes the bike car dynamics a lot when trying to cross a street.  But Steve warned us from the beginning that this wasn't going to be into the heart of Spenard as he'd like.  And it wasn't.  We wandered from West High, past the Franz Bakery, to Bosco's, along a back street parallel to Fireweed.  We heard about the history of the windmill at Chilkoot's, through the Saturday market there, and then along Arctic to downtown.  We did stop at Fire Island Bakery on the way for an impromptu concert/singalong.

Bubble Worship

All the various bike groups that Urban Conflux had organized met at town square where there was music and a little food and bubbles and people.  It's nice to have festive stuff going on,  but it wasn't all that engaging for me.  I checked out the weekend market which seemed to have a lot of empty spaces where booths used to be in past years, but maybe it's just because it's only May.

But it was nice to see old friends I haven't talked to for a while.  


And then I took the bike trail home to see where the detour would block me.  At the wooden bridge just east of Seward Highway near the Senior Center.