disc golf & whittier

I've rediscovered a hobby that will probably take up a decent amount of my free time this summer - disc golf. Last Friday I ran into a coworker in downtown Anchorage and disc golf was mentioned. He asked if I play - I've played just a few times over the past couple of years - and we then went to play at a course which is practically visible from my apartment. Unfortunately I gave away the discs that I owned in Goshen, but I picked up a couple of new ones on Friday. I also had Saturday off, so I biked down to Kincaid Park here in Anchorage, which in the winter time has miles of nordic skiing trails. They also have a great 18-hole course that covers a lot of ground and a lot of hills. There are some great views of Cook Inlet, as you cansee in the picture to the rights that was taken at the hole 4 teebox. Unfortunately the picture doesn't quite do the view justice; there was a great view of mountains across the water that are kind of hard to see in the picture. On Sunday/Monday I had another run, which was a bit different than normal trips. On Sunday we only went as far as Healy, which is just past Denali village, so our day wasn't as long as normal days. It was nice to be finished early, and also to be up in the mountains, because several coworkers and I spent our evening under a big blue sky and surrounded by mountains tossing a frisbee around.

Monday was also a modified day, what we call a 'ship day,' which means we picked up passengers at Denali Village, and they stayed on the train for about ten hours as we took them straight to Whittier - which is a port where the train dropped them off a couple hundred yards from their cruise ship. A picture of the cruise ship from the train is at left.

The trip to Whittier was great because I got to see a new part of Alaska, an area known as Turnagain Arm, which is between Anchorage and the Kenai Peninsula.

This area offered some beautiful views of Cook Inlet as well as the surrounding mountains. We also got to travel through the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel, a mixed-use train/auto tunnel to Whittier. It is almost 2.5 miles long, and by the time we got to it, I was all finished cleaning up the kitchen, so I was able to go out on one of the open air platforms and experience the tunnel from there.

Tomorrow I head out on a normal run to Fairbanks and then have the weekend off. Until then I'll probably enjoy the beautiful weather today by heading out to the disc golf course.