Squiggly has a new home for July

This evening, my son and I moved the Squiggly cache to its new home for July. Go to one of the many entrances to the Skarland 6 mile trail. If you start from upper campus, turn E-NE on the trail (towards Farmers Loop) until you reach the 1 mile sign for the Equinox Marathon. Go a bit further and you will see a small path on the right. Go down the path about 24 paces in (my son paced it off) turn left and about 10' off of the path at the base of a tree rests a stash of blue Squiggly chips. The jpeg here is an image from Google Earth showing its July location. The MBS complex is in the bottom center of the image.

My son thought I should add - Warning, lots of mosquitoes!

Another WIN walk

Met at noontime at the circle of flags on lower campus for the Thursday WIN for Alaska sponsored walk. Another very small turnout though I heard that there were some very well attended ones last week. We went down and up the stairs to College Road a couple of times since there aren't enough hills in Fairbanks. We stopped at Heather's Squiggly cache and there were a few more cards in the bottle since I stopped last month. During the walk, I looked for a good hiding spot for Squiggly in July. I think I found several good locations and will pick up Squiggly on Saturday evening and put it in its new home on Sunday afternoon. I'm still trying to decide whether to put it near the road or require a fair stroll to get there. Also, near the University or in some other part of town? Any preferences?

On the road again....

Started back towards Istanbul again and if the current trend continues, I may just barely finish before the September deadline. The first time took about 5 1/2 weeks, the second time took about 7 weeks and this time will take about 12 weeks at my current pace. I don't feel any motivation at all to walk. Initially, there was a lot of encouraging activity on the blogs but they sort of died off. I checked the Squiggly cache today and there has only been a couple of visitors. And I'm really looking forward to cooler weather with no bugs.....

Finished!

Yesterday, I finished the Orient Express. It took longer the second time around than the first. I guess I need the opportunity the treadmill gives me to walk instead of just going outside. Walking outside is getting less and less fun due to the bugs and the warm weather.

Point Barrow

Not much to report on. I'm slowly moving toward the finish of the Orient Express for the second time (much more slowly than the first time!) I'm in Barrow again and last night on the longest day of the year, several of us went out to the point on four wheelers to look at antennas. Yes, I know I could've walked but it was discouraged due to polar bear sightings earlier in the day. I didn't see any but did see a large marine mammal of some kind surfacing in one of the openings in the ice. We were guessing it was a walrus.

Thursday - There is discussion about heading out towards "Hollywood" after dinner to look for tower sites. I was told that this is where Disney filmed the pseudo-documentary Nanook of the North. It is about 15 miles west of here somewhere.

Thursday evening - Didn't make it out all the way due to a lot of water running between lakes and the ocean but still managed to get a real workout on with all the loose sand and gravel along the beach. It was cold and foggy so no pictures. On the way, we stopped and looked in on the "Naluqatak," which is a celebration sponsored by the whaling captain and crew that caught the whale. It is a time of thanksgiving when the successful crew shares a portion of the catch with the community.

Wow!

I was looking on the StartWalking pages and there are some astounding reports. Someone has logged 13,756,428 steps on the Orient Express and another has lost 102 lbs since the StartWalking programs began! Pretty amazing accomplishments. Since the program started May 2006, I've logged 8,628,908 steps or about 3800 miles. That's about LA to NY and part of the way back again. Hmmm, a year long trip walking across the US would have been a much more enjoyable trip than walking on a treadmill, riding a stationary bike, x-country skiing and wandering around Fairbanks...

Squiggly (finally) has a new home for June

Overlooking the busy intersection of the Big Whizzy Loop and the Midnight Express Loop, this Squiggly cache is sure to see tons of visitors. I don't have Mona's poetic talent, just a couple of cell phone pictures to guide you and this image from Google Earth. The satellite dish is in the lower left, the Potato Field is at the top. Or just enter in the coordinates and walk right up to it. I tried this and the gps beeped that I "had arrived" when I was two feet away. What will they think of next....

Map of the trails

Finally picked up Squiggly

My Squiggly geocache only had seven visitors this time based on the number of chips taken. The number of names was less than that. Maybe it was too hard to find or Fairbanks walkers aren't into geocaching or possibly the StartWalking coordinator needs some really great prizes (like cruises to the Bahamas, trips to Fiji or iPods.) Actually, I think it needs to be located somewhere more convenient to campus to allow searching during the lunch hour. Maybe during a WIN walk.

Speaking of the noontime WIN walk, I went on one today and there was a pretty poor turnout. Counting myself and the WIN consultant, two people showed up for the walk. It was drizzling a bit at noon but it stopped by a quarter after and was more hot and muggy than anything else. We went 2.56 miles in the allotted time (55 minutes) going around the "T" field along the West Ridge trails. Spotted some good Squiggly hiding spots. Hopefully, I can get it placed before the weekend.

Low step day

Fewest steps logged today in months. Didn't get Squiggly moved today like I had planned.

In Barrow

Well, the grand opening of the BARC (Barrow Arctic Science Center formally known as the Barrow Global Climate Change Research Facility), went off without a hitch. I ended up getting a ton of steps in the last couple of days just running around setting up but couldn't enter any steps into the system until today since I was having a lot of trouble getting connected to the Internet. Maybe, too many people trying to get connected. Over 22k steps for each of the last couple of days with no visits to the treadmill. I'd have to cross a small lake to get to the gym anyway. Breakup is (finally) starting and all the roads are a mess. Mud everywhere and still occasional flakes coming down every night. I'm still trying to figure out a good place to hide Squiggly for the month of June. I'll be nice and not hide it up here in Barrow. Finished the three days in Barrow with 72k steps.