Today I was biking home from work on the bike path next to the Chuck Albrecht fields (near the police station).  I was surprised and disappointed to see another huge swath of trees chopped down in preparation for a new road.  All the trees on the north side of the bike path are gone.

Just as I was looking at the clear-cut and bemoaning the loss of more woodlands, out of the corner of my eye I saw a creature next to the ballfield fence on the south side of the path.   I only caught a glimpse of it before trees blocked my view.  At first I thought it was a dog.  But it was being very still, just sitting there watching me bike by.  And very quiet.  Very un-dog-like.  And there wasn’t any dog owner within sight.  I turned around and went back to get a better look.  Could it be…

Sure enough it was.  A wolf.  And there was another.  And another.   Three wolves sitting there watching my every move.  I suppose I should have been a bit nervous, like seeing a bear up close.  But I wasn’t.  I was thinking about how one second I had been lamenting the loss of more ‘wild lands’ in the city, and the next second I was looking at the animal that symbolizes wild Alaska.  All within several hundred yards of the Police Station, a hospital, and a Quiznos.  

In the time it took me to get out my cell phone camera, the closest wolf had ducked back into the woods.  So I didn’t get him in my picture.  But if you zoom in (click on it) you can see one blurry wolf next to the fence, and the rough outline of another halfway around the far side of the fence in the background.  Damn, I wish I’d had a real camera.

The encounter was a nice little reward for ridding my bike to work in dark 8 degree weather this morning.

I like to bike to work as often as possible.  Today when I woke up, it was raining and the temperature was a cool 46 degrees at our house.  I wanted to bike, but I was not looking forward to having my butt get sprayed with cold, grimy water for an hour or so.  So I decided to rollerski instead.  It was just as wet as biking, but at least I was working harder, so I was warm.

So there I was striding uphill on Arctic Boulevard at 7:30 AM, soaking wet and preparing myself mentally to do battle with the midtown traffic on slick roads.  From the sidewalk next to me I hear a man’s voice.

“Dude, you are out of control.”

I look up just in time to see the guy give me a quick nod and a smile.  I like to think he was saying something along the lines of “You’re crazy to be doing that, on a day like today, in a place like this.  But I like your style.”

It made my day.  I broke out in a huge smile.  The comment was perfect for two reasons:

1) It was in almost the exact same spot where recently I was biking, when a waste-of-flesh teenager in a pickup truck coming the other direction cut me off by taking a left-hand turn in front of me.  As I slammed on my brakes to avoid a collision, he swerved towards me, gave me the finger, and then yelled “get off the fucking road” for good measure as he sped away.  So now maybe I won’t think of that experience every time I pass through that intersection.

2)  These days I feel like I am under control a lot.  Not much craziness happening in my life as a family man.  And I believe that being out of control every now and then is good for me.

So if rollersking through midtown Anchorage on a rainy day brings me back a little bit of craziness, well, I guess I’ll take it.