Prairie Pool and Biking with Helga

When you get up at 4:30 every morning like we do here at Mile 14 you have alot of time for one of my favorite things, exercise. So saturday morning I was all conflicted over coffee on what to do that morning. I could stay on the couch and watch 'Gold Fever', its pretty chuckly stuff or I could go fishing, or bike riding, or even to the gym. But I'm a little tired of the gym so we decide to head for Birch Ridge and 9 holes of golf.

My friend Pat Cowan owns the golf course and through the years he has worked it into beautiful facility. We arrive at 8:30 and with nobody around we walk right in at tee em up. My first drive is straight and long, triggering the feeling every golfer gets, "maybe I better quit right now". The first green had the sprinklers going and timing the putt to miss a soaking was just the new kind of dimension I like. MP got a little wet. One of the course Marshall's came by and I told him about hurrying my putt and he asked if I knew the old 'golf tee trick' and even offered to show me how to stop a sprinkler. Now that's a nice guy but when we golf we don't sweat the small stuff.

This next pic is looking down the 5th fairway. Gorgeous is all I can say. The mountains look like they're 10 miles away. The 5th green plays down hill and theres a house maybe 50 feet behind the out of bounds. Well, being a gym rat I under estimate my own strength and hit my utility club with the ball coming to rest about 2 feet behind a new white Dodge Ram 1500. I decided to leave the ball.

This pic is of my partner putting on # 7. It was a tricky putt and I had a feeling she was mis- reading it. Sure enough she came up short having not figured on some extra ooomph to get over the water hose. I got a legitimate, no lost ball, no mulligan swing birdie on this hole. Honest.

Then this morning it was time for one of my favorites things. Biking through town while the city still sleeps, except for that 1/2 of the town that's going fishing of course. We get bundled up as the temp is just above freezing, I put my hood over my helmet but MP prefers a scarf that for some reason makes me think she looks like Helga, a German maid. So me and Helga are off to ride to Centennial Park and back. Its about 6 miles total is all, I can't be gone to long as it 'Bump Day' at the Indy 500.

MP had not seen the new 'Soldotna's Playground'. Its just completed and was erected over the course of a week with volunteer effort. If you're a kid or sometimes you think like one this place is super cool. It tells you alot about our community and now anchors Soldotna Creek Park. From the playground we access the RiverWalk and that's my favorite bike spot. They don't want bikes on it as in July you might kill a fish fevered red fisherman but seeings as its 7 a.m. I figure its alright. The RiverWalk right now is maybe 1/4 mile but I see it continuing through town and 50 years from now being something all cities would envy.

We ride on across the bridge and down to Centennial Park (which is another wonderful Soldotna feature) where I trade some fishing advice with a young guy for him taking this last picture. On our way back we stop at Ken's Alaska Tackle because I want to see if they have the same plug that Beth caught her fish on. Its nice to know somebody in town doesn't know me because the two girls working there were full of advice. " Are you going boat fishing?" and "we sell alot of these". I had some fun with it and asked the gal not to tell anybody what I was buying...she looked at me kind of puzzled. I couldn't leave without spending some money after that so I bought 2 Qwikfish lures....that are too big for 'shore fishing'. By now I can tell MP is getting a little tired, and tired of me like I sometimes see. So we peddle straight home......oh, I did stop to look at truck for sale and we had a nice breakfast watching Indy. My guy, Paul Tracy didn't make the race.