Tried Out My Bike Today - Conditions Were Better Than Expected And It Felt Great

It was brilliantly sunny, though the temps are back closer to normal.  Warm enough in the afternoon that there was water from melting snow and ice.  I wasn't sure how far the conditions would be ice-free and deep-puddle free, but I thought I go exploring.

Soon I found myself out on Dowling looking at the Chugach.

Then coming back on Elmore, I had a view from the first bridge of the dog mushing trail.

A little further and I was over the southern fork (I think) of Campbell Creek.

The next bridge gave me a view of my second moose since we got back to Anchorage last week.

As I said, for the most part the trail was ice free.  There'd been one spot where a thick chunk was floating over a puddle, but there was a bit of room to go around it.  But then, almost home, I got to this hard packed ice near Providence.

I know, there are people who ride all winter and deal with this sort of thing all the time.  But I was away a lot of the winter and didn't get studs for my tires.  And a couple of years ago around this time I found myself flat on my face, hard, after hitting a small patch of ice I didn't even see.  So I navigate this stuff carefully.

It wasn't a long ride - maybe three miles - and I didn't go fast - I have a back fender but not a front one and didn't want to get too wet.  But it felt great.  And I'm guessing those hilly rides on Bainbridge made a difference.  The much more modest hills today seemed like nothing.

Then it was back to filling out tax information.  Really, I'd vote for a candidate who pushed for a much simplified tax code, one that didn't require people to hire someone to do their taxes for them.  A progressive tax with no deductions - except maybe for folks on the poor end who'd had a catastrophic event.  The tax rate could be modest then because people would actually pay that rate, especially those with much higher incomes.

I have to admit that these pictures make it look like I live in the wilderness.  We have lots of urban wilderness of sorts, but I didn't take pictures of the more urban parts I passed.  Maybe next time.  I even passed a Walgreens and a YMCA.