The Tony Knowles Coastal Trail, Alaska

The World Famous Coastal Trail

This was my idea, but we both truly loved it. We rented electric bikes from 907 E Bike. We were a little scared at first since neither of us had ridden a bike in a long time and neither of us were to confident in the old saying about how easy it is to remember how to ride. I decided to go without a helmet since we were going to be spending all our time on a bike path, and not around traffic. Onalea chose to wear one because like most of you know she is smarter than me. We talked to the rental place, and he recommend the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail. He gave us some simple directions to find the trail head and sent us on our way.

We set off and got lost, I don’t know if we could not figure out where to find it on the GPS, our overwhelming fear of falling off the bikes, or the guy’s directions did not make sense, but we spent a little bit of time lost. I was better on the bike then Onalea, so I scouted around town a couple blocks and found the entrance to the trail. I then left Onalea at the trails head and went and purchased some drinks for road. I found a nice pedal up convince center about 3 blocks away from the trail’s head and got us both a sports drink and a water and now 45 minutes after leaving we were ready to go.

Once we finally got on going, I truly loved this experience for the first couple miles I kept the assist down to 0 or 1 but I sure did crank it up to the max on the steep climbs. There are a couple places where the trail splits and again I wish that we would have had a map or planned the route ahead of time.

One amazing part of the trail was the Planet Walk “The Anchorage Light Speed Planet Walk is a scale model of our solar system. Taking the walk, you experience the relative size of the planets and their distance from the Sun. The scale was chosen so that a leisurely walking pace mimics the speed of light. On this scale, each step equals the distance light travels in one second (300,000 kilometers or 186,000 miles).”

Since we were on e-bikes it did not take us the normal walking time of 5 ½ hours to reach Pluto, but it still gave you the sense of grandeur and amazement on how big our little spot in the galaxy is. It’s fun imaging traveling faster than the speed of light as you whizzed by planets riding your bike.

If imagining you’re traveling the galaxy faster than the speed of light is not your cup of tea, the views of the ocean are truly breathtaking. The stretches of the trail going through the forest give you a chance to see some of the amazing Alaskan wildlife. We got lucky and where able to find a moose grazing on some leaves not 20 feet off the path. We also stopped at Point Woronzof and took a rest and watched the planes take off and land at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport.

Travel to Omaha, NE

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Omaha, NE, USA

July 2021

The Airbnb

We spent our month in an awesome Airbnb located on Mason St.

We first arrived and carried our items upstairs and got set up. We later found out from the person that cleans and looks over the property that the basement was available. This had more room its own private bath and ran just a little more every night. We quickly upgraded our stay, and it was amazing. We had the entire basement to ourselves with shared living and working area on the main floor.

Michael set up his office on the computer desk in the shared working area. We had amazing WIFI with no interruptions the entire time we were there and amazing speed. Michael was the only one in the house that needed the computer desk, so he was able to leave most of his set up going the entire time we were there and just take his laptop if needed.

Onalea was able to set up in the basement at the dining room table. Normally we work close by eachother so it was an adjustment we had to make in communication.

Most of the time we only had one roommate that worked 6 days a week so we barley saw him. There were two others that moved in but with a house full of 5 adults, we did not see each other except in passing.

Michael’s Favorites

Night Owl

For cocktails I really enjoyed this almost speak easy type of club called Night Owl. They had rotating selection of cocktails 5 to 8 custom cocktails, all with top to mid shelf ingredients mixed with skill and accuracy behind the bar. There are too many bars now days that have lost the art and showman ship to making a great looking and enjoyable cocktail. If I just want booze and mixer poured into a cup, I can stay home for that.

We sat at the bar which had low to the ground stools much to Onaleas delight, but they were still comfortable enough for me to relax in. We ordered a total of 4 cocktails to share between the two of us starting off with one that sounded a little sweet and finishing up with one that had beets in it because it sounded different. We both enjoyed all of them but the one with the beets in it seemed to overpower the drink too much making it our least favorite. We were also able to talk to each other, but people watch with an old Macaulay Culkin movie “The Pagemaster”

Kathmandu Momo Station

We were walking down the street in this awesome area called Blackstone and we went into this little restaurant, Kathmandu Momo Station, attached to a brewery. They specialized in one thing called a Momo.

First, what is a Momo? These dumpling-like treats are the most popular street food in Nepal. Momo’s are a Himalayan dumpling filled with a chicken and a blend of Nepali spices, then drenched dipping sauce ranging from mild (Midwest hot) to Sherpa (OMG melt your face).

This was my first time having a Momo so we started off ordering 6 chicken momos to share for $8.00 to share with the Mild sauce. They let us know our order will take 10 to 15 minutes and let us know we could wait at the attached brewery, Scriptown Brewery .

Michael ordered a flight of beers including one called “goat smack”. We took our flight of beers and sat by the window facing the street, shortly after our momos came out and we enjoyed trying new food and new food while watching people walk by on a perfect summer day.

A place for everyone

Imagine shelf after shelf full of different board games over 2,500 different games. Now imagine you could choose any and just play them this is Spielbound Games.

This is a boardgame store/library where for a small fee you can browse through their selection of board games in their amazing library. They also had a nice drink and coffee selection, perfect to enjoy during a several hour gaming sessions. We spent almost 2 hours trying to figure out how to play Fields of Arle (Amazon plug here) and could not of been happier.

Michael was like a kid in a candy store, we played at least once or twice a week and Michael did attend a couple of their board gaming events, which were limited since they still had not gotten back of the swing of things since covid.

Onalea’s Favorites

The Neighbors

The local watering hole down the street, The Neighbor’s was so much fun. When we walked in the first time we were greeted by a regular and his dog, we felt at home right away! The bartenders were a lot of fun and the locals were so welcoming, they loved talking about their town and suggested so many places to go. One of our pastimes is playing darts, they had a dartboard here they we were able to play on, they also had a couple of pool tables.

Cheeseburgers

If you know me, you know I love cheeseburgers, so a place called Cheeseburgers is the place for me! Take a minute to check out their site and watch the video, you won’t be disappointed! I ordered The Nation, 2 beef patties, American cheese, shredded lettuce, pickles, onions, 1000 island dressing, 3-part bun…yes, a knock off of another place, but let me tell you it was much better! This place had a groovy vibe and was fun to hang out while we ate dinner. We even came back for a lunch meeting.

What is this???

While walking down the street Michael noticed a strange object floating over the sidewalk. This small object would float back and forth over the sidewalk and sometimes spin. We ran into two other couples walking and they agreed, this was weird and had never seen anything like this. The outer body looked like it was a tree seed body

Later research I am guessing that the caterpillar borrowed its way into this think to make a cocoon, but the seed fell off in the middle of this process, so he was dangling by his unwoven cocoon but if anyone else knows please comment or reach out to us with what this crazy thing is.