My last day in the "big city"

I would like to think that my trip to Anchorage was extremely successful.. having used all of the "toys" I took down there. Yesterday, Nikole and I attempted biking on some local trails but found that they were all sheets of ice, so we just rode around Palmer. Palmer is such a funny place because there are massive mountains sitting right there, but farms and cows all around. We finished off the evening by rockin' out on Rock Band. Fun times, man.. fun times.

This morning I met up with a former classmate/friend from PSU. He's stationed down at Ft. Rich and lives in Eagle River with his girlfriend, also a Penn Stater and excited to see PSU memorabilia other than their own! :-) We got breakfast early and then headed down to Anchorage to attempt some xc skiing at my old biking stomping grounds, Kincaid Park. Ian nor I are exactly awesome skiiers, so being that the trails were just an entire sheet of ice, we both had some pretty crazy spills throughout our short time skiing. Ian thought it would be fun to take videos of each other going down the icy hills, but instead of me wiping out on video, he did instead. So, because he is a good sport, here is a replay of his ridiculously ungraceful spill:

We attempted to put the camera on a flat part of the snow.. but it wasn't exactly flat, and I barely got back to be in it (without wiping out!) before the timer went off.Mount Susitna, also known as the "Sleeping Lady" was out on this beautiful day...

Kristen and Ian enjoying the nice day

After stopping at another former coworkers' house and going back to Palmer to grab my stuff and say goodbye to my awesome hosts, I was back on my way home north.

Denali wasn't out again but most of the other mountains were.
A great breath of fresh air but now it's back to work!