Anchorage's Refugee Farm Market - Great Fresh Produce And More

 Catholic Social Services has a host of programs to help various communities.  RAIS - Refugee Assistance and Immigration Services - is focused on new refugees coming to Anchorage.  They help them get housing, English lessons, jobs, into school, and other help as needed.  One of the most visible activities is the Grow North Farm, on 

Mt. View between Bragaw and Airport Heights.  

As you can see from the sign, they are open weekday afternoons from 4-7pm.  

The growing season seems to be in its prime now.  These are pictures from Thursday when I went to pick up my CSA box.  CSA is Community Supported Agriculture.  Community members subscribe to get weekly produce boxes.  Details vary from program to program, but the RAIS program pick up is on Thursdays.  But there are lots of vegetables for anyone to buy, even without a CSA subscription.  

                                                                               

The vegetables on sale are picked that day.  

A number of the refugees are from African countries such as Somalia and Congo and Ethiopia and they are growing greens they know from home.  We got sorrel and dodo in a recent box.  Fortunately RAIS also has a cookbook with recipes for some of the produce that are not usually available in Anchorage.  

                  

I was told these were pickled radishes. There are other goodies available from different vendors - spices, sweets, and other surprises.  

Potatoes.

The vendors get the benefit of tents and umbrellas which they have definitely needed in August.  

There's also a food truck and every Thursday there's a dinner offering from a different culture.  This Burmese coconut chicken soup was great.  And last week we go an Arabic rice dish that had a wonderful sauce.  

Getting to meet the folks who grow and sell the food is a big part of attraction of this market.  We've got fascinating neighbors here in Anchorage with lots to teach us.  

This is a summer only market.  It's scheduled go through the end of September.  

Sorting Through All The Crazy

I was going to post some links to different posts I thought worth reading.  But the first one is probably more than enough.  

The real Joe Gerace   - Lex Treinen worked on the article that exposed Bronson's Anchorage Health Department head for adding non-existing  masters degrees to his resume and led to Gerace's resignation.  This link takes you to background on that piece - the work and revelations that led up to it.  It's good, open book, here's-how-I-got-this-information type journalism.  

"A few days later, I was in Fairbanks sitting on a beach. I called a former business associate of Gerace.

'I’m surprised Joe’s in charge of the homeless in Anchorage,” the man said, “I remember we used to drive down 3rd Avenue where the homeless shelters used to be. Joe would talk about taking out his rifle and shooting the people camped there.'”

After lengthy background investigation and some personal interactions earlier, Treinen finally calls Gerace to confront him with the evidence he's found of padded resumes.  While Treinen thought he might be hung up on, the interview lasts over an hour.  It seems like Gerace knows he's cornered and while he starts out putting up some resistance, it's just bravado. before he gives up.   He's almost begging Treinen to not be too harsh on him. 

I asked him about his guard service. He dodged. I pressed again, trying to nail down a detail, or at least an acknowledgement of dishonesty on his resume. He squirmed like a slippery salmon. Sometimes his words were too confusing to understand his answers. Sometimes he made excuses. But sometimes he acknowledged he’d lied, like when I asked him about the 5 combat deployments he listed on one of his resumes.

Me: Were you deployed in combat? 

Gerace: No. 

Me: You wrote on that Visit resume that you have five combat deployments.

Gerace: Did I write that? 

Me: You wrote that. Do you know why you would have written that?

Gerace: Can you show that to me? Does it say that? 

Me: Yes. On the Visit resume that was shared with me. 

Gerace: I don’t think I wrote that Lex. 

Then Treinen moves on to the masters degrees.  Here he just folds completely.  He knows his lies have caught up with him.  Perhaps a load has been taken off him as he confesses.

" I asked him about his MBA, which he said was from Henry Cogswell College. 

Me: We checked with them, and they said they don’t they didn’t offer a Masters of Business in the year that you got. How was it you could have got it?

Gerace: I don’t know. I don’t know. I can’t answer that question.

Me: You don’t know how you got a master’s degree? 

Gerace: Wait, wait, stop. I do. I went to the classes in Everett, Washington.

Me: Do you know why they would say that they don’t have any record of that in the state of Washington doesn’t have any record of that degree? 

Gerace: I don’t know, because I’d have to ask them because there was some when the school closed, there was some heavy confusion about how to even get our stuff.

He refused to say where he would have got his Masters in Physician Assistant Studies as well. I wound down the conversation an hour and a half into it and he promised to send me copies of his degrees before the end of the day. Still, it was surprisingly cordial. Several times he tried to elicit sympathy, talking about protecting his former partners from harm that might be caused by publishing this story, or talking about the decades of service for people he’d claimed. He told me a stroke he had last week had left him partially paralyzed on his left side, and he was having trouble concentrating. Finally, he half-heartedly begged for some sort of mercy. 

'You’re gonna destroy my credibility all over I mean, I get you have to do it. Can you just not say that Joe’s not — fine, Lex, just do whatever you need to do,' he said."

Definitely worth reading for Anchorage folks. 

 My sense is that Bronson got elected because of two issues - the COVID mask requirements and the Golden Lion planned conversion to a drug rehabilitation facility.  The Kriner crowd supported him on the masks and a group of Geneva Woods NIMBY's supported him so he'd shut down the Golden Lion plans.  And that seems to be his basic agenda.  I'm sure there's also some national GOP help since they are so into local government control.  And censoring libraries is a big deal for them, which would explain our library director fiasco. 

Oh, yeah, he wants to buy a giant tent to put the homeless in.  The Assembly blocked that and it looks like Bronson might have pushed the homeless to the Centennial campground so he could argue there's no option left but going back to the tent idea.  So now we have to find the link between Bronson and the tent manufacturer.  I'm sure it's there, but it's just one more thing I haven't had the time to pursue.  

Vicariously Biking Through Turkey

The last two summers I've set a goal - a mental trip - that would keep me biking all summer.  Two years ago it was from Santiago, Chile to Conception, Chile.  Last year it was Chiengmai, Thailand to Bangkok.  This post from last summer tells you how I came up with this scheme and little bit about the previous two years.

The Chilean ride was 650 kilometers (403 miles).  The Thai trip was 750 (466 miles).  

This summer I chose Istanbul, Turkey to the Cappadocia region of Turkey.  Playing with google maps and some city-to-city maps, I calculated that as 750 k again.  Why Turkey?  It's the last travel destination that I'd like to get to.  When I was a student in Germany in the 1960s, as I hitch-hiked through Greece, I decided I'd pass on Istanbul and come back another time.  I made that same kind of promise about the Taj Mahal, but I've since gotten to see that exquisite structure.  

Yesterday I got over 500 kilometers and went to see whereabouts I am on a map of Turkey.  My original estimates were that I had gotten past Ankara.  But the map I pulled up was one I hadn't seen before and it was a terrific map!  It was somebodies bike ride from Istanbul to Cappadocia with the route in red.  And best of all, if you put the mouse anywhere on the route, it gave the distance.  It was set to miles, but I could change it to kilometers.

I've written in Ankara in red (in the middle) and the arrow shows about where I am now.  Of course, I'm doing most of this biking on Anchorage bike trails (though I did a little bit when I was on Bainbridge Island, but that's all hilly and mostly on routes shared with cars.)

You can go to the site - ride with GPS - and see how it shows the distance and other options like elevation and grade interactively along the route.

The difference in distance appears to be based on the route.  I originally did the main road from Istanbul to Ankara and the most direct route the rest of the way.  This cyclist  probably choose roads with less traffic that circles around Ankara and then dips further south before getting into Cappadocia.  I'm not worrying about that.  I'm still aiming for my 750 kilometers before the snow flies.  If I get there with time to spare, I'll keep going.  

The nearest town appears to be Polatli.  Here's a bit of what Wikipedia says:

"Polatlı is one of the most productive agricultural districts in Turkey and is best known for its cereal production, especially barley and wheat. Polatlı is one of Turkey's largest grain stores. Sugar beet, melon and onion are also grown."

Here's the nicest picture I found of the area online from alchetron.com.

And what I'm actually seeing is more like this:

Not bad either.  

Bird to Gird and Winner Creek Sunday

We took advantage of the sunshine Sunday.  I got out of the car with my bike at Bird Point and biked to the Forest Service Office in Girdwood, where J was waiting to pick me up.  A woman was getting ready to ride back as well and we agreed to go together.  But as soon as we started - the first mile or so is uphill at a more than gentle incline - I was going really slowly and it was clear that she could do this much faster with her rented electric bike.  So I told her to just take off and she pushed the button and zoomed up the hill.  

This ride goes along the route of the old road above Turnagain Arm.  It was narrow, steep, and curvy.  There were lots of crashes.  Now it's down to bike path  width, not that curvy, and with great views.  Here's a cliche Alaska photo of blooming fireweed with mountains, water, blue sky and clouds.  Lots of views like this on the path.  

Another view of Turnagain Arm without the foreground fireweed.  The tide seemed to be going out.  

Here we're down back to the new road level - but well separated.  This valley goes into Girdwood.  

And just for fun, I tweaked this with curves Mac Photos, just to remind everyone that if a picture looks too good (or weird) to be true, it probably isn't.  

Then a pick up at the Forest Service Office and a short drive up to the Prince Hotel and the Winner Creek trail behind the ski tram.  

When I first attempted this trail, it was several inches deep in mud.  But even with rubber boots it quickly became impossible to go further.  That was in the early 80's  Alaska Airlines had sold Alyeska to Seibu/Prince Hotels, and if the Prince Hotel had been imagined then, it was only on paper.  This is a beautiful natural spot that over the years has gotten lots of attention.  Perhaps too much.  I'm ok with the various boardwalk sections that have been put in.  But the ski-loop that has been put in nearby has cut an ugly dirt road through the previously lush landscape.  

This is near the beginning of the trail.  No hint of the muddy past.

And there are a few long sections of boardwalk through the woods.  

And here again I played with curves.

I've always admired the calculations it takes to do curves (actual curves, not digital ones) in boardwalks, so here's a focused look at a curve.  

One of several creeks that intersect the trail.  Lots of Devil's Club.  

The trail itself is just a beautiful place to walk in the woods.  And compared to the trails along the Seward highway, which go steeply up, this trail is relatively level.  Some ups and downs, but nothing drastic.  The key destinations on this trail have been the small gorge with water squeezed into a roaring torrent and the hand tram.  

Here's the bridge over the torrent.  

And here's looking from the bridge as the water roars by below.  

The hand tram is a quarter mile beyond this gorge.  It has a metal cage and ropes and pulleys to take you across a much bigger gorge.  But someone working the ropes to get people across fell to his death a couple of years ago and the tram is no longer open to use.  We didn't go the extra way to see exactly what's still there.  

A good day of enjoying Alaska on a beautiful sunny, then cloudy day.     Here's a better view of the water rushing through the gorge.   Or maybe not.  (It's not working in the preview.)  I'll try to fix it later.  Nope, not working.  Tried Blogger's upload video directly from my computer and that doesn't seem to have worked.  Maybe I can figure it out. Or just upload it to YouTube.  It's just a few seconds.  

The Trump Folks Are Lined Up To See Their Messiah In Anchorage Today

I biked over to UAA's Alaska Airlines Center to see how the Trump rally was going.  The doors were scheduled to open at 11am.  I got their about 10:40am and this is what it was like.  This is the south side of the center, where the apparent entrance was.  People were lined up to the road that goes into the parking lot.  Then around the corner to Providence Drive and along Providence to just about ????.  

Below is along Providence Drive.  I don't think this what Alaska Airlines intended when they contributed enough money to get their name on the building.  

I saw about 10-15 Anchorage Police cars, and then there were these ominous all black SUVs with blinking red lights all over them.  

This guy was telling the crowd about Jesus.  

There was a tiny group of protesters.

This guy had loud speakers on his bike and started playing Macho Man on them loudly.  Not sure if that was genuine or ironic.  

Only people who lived in the dorms could park down this road.  

I asked one man who looked vaguely official what his role was.  "Private Security" he said.  I asked how many people he though were there.  "The 5500 seats are going to fill" he replied.  

I'm sure he's right.  5500 people represents .000357% [1.8%] [Thanks CE, I thought this seemed wrong but was in a hurry.  As it says above, a private security guard gave me the 5500 figure.] of the Anchorage population.  The picked a venue they were likely to fill up.  Not sure how much bigger they could have gotten.  Mulcahy Stadium has 5000 seats for baseball, and you could add more seats on the field.  Sullivan Arena can hold almost 6300 for ice hockey and more with seating on the floor level, but Trump wouldn't want to have a rally in a place that just was used as a homeless shelter.