My first Mountain Race

My first train ride ever!!!!  As a field trip we were able to hop on the Alaska Railroad and head over to Spencer Glacier.

 Marcie, a gift store employee, was posing for me in her rain boots.  They gave us all rain boots to wear since we were going rafting up to the glacier. 

 Christina is a new intern from Texas.  This year the Texans are over populating the center here.  We have 5 Texans that are working at the center. 
I believe we have all 5 big cities covered to represent Texas: Houston, Dallas, Austin, Corpus Christi, and San Antonio.

 Spencer Glacier is behind us in this picture.













This is the lovely group of people that I went on this field trip with.  You can see a huge chunk of ice behind us.  An iceberg like this takes thousands of years to reach the front of the glacier where it then breaks off.  Also, the part that is above the water is only 10% of the actual size of the ice. 

We finished our trip with a 4 mile float down the river.  It was a beautiful sunny.  We even saw a black bear on the train ride! 

Well today, Sunday, I ran my first mountain race ever!  It was intense!  It was called Bird Ridge.  The trail is 3 miles long at a 3,400 ft distance over the course of the 3 miles.  I couldn't have asked for a better day to run this race.  I am going to be feeling pretty soar tomorrow morning.  Which, should be interesting since I am riding 6 miles to work.  I have started working at the Portage Glacier Lodge on Mondays running the register.  I want to try to go to Hawaii this December on my way home to Texas for the holidays. 

Well, the pain is starting to set in and I should get to bed and rest a bit. 

Goodnight Lower 48,
ErIn