Posts tagged #mountainbiking

In The Rearview Mirror 2017 pt. 3

Flashback Friday

July

    By July the garden, well the dill, had almost outgrown me. And the cucumber were growing like crazy. I had a hard time keeping up with the pickling of the beets and cucumbers. Fieldwork season was not over yet and I got to go to both Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone National Park to help out W with fieldwork. I flew into Jackson, Wyoming and then we spent the rest of the time there either in The Tetons or in Yellowstone. We did a lot of hiking for fieldwork, and camping. But we also managed to get a couple of shorter hikes in, well as in about 13 miles. Back in Madison even more cucumber awaited for me, which meant more pickling. 

August

    A lot of things happened in August, more pickling for instance, of beets this time. And then the best thing about this year, my dad arrived. He brought l;sgodis as we call it in Swedish, or pick n mix candy which is the english term. We planned our trip through Yellowstone and then W went to a conference in Portland, Oregon. He was going to meet us up in Bozeman, Montana for our wedding, while dad and I drove from Madison all the way to Bozeman. We had very long days, but still managed to see a lot. The first night we camped in Badlands National Park, about 740 miles from Madison, and the longest day. Next day we drove all the way to Beartooth Pass (about 470 miles), which is out of this world too. What a landscape, and what a ride. We camped at a campground and managed to snag the second to last campsite in the afternoon. The next day we drove through Yellowstone National Park to finally arrive in Bozeman, Montana, about 160 miles later. We had a rest day or two and then we explored Yellowstone with W who finally arrived by plane. Then we had the wedding with friends and family in the mountains of Homestake Pass. After that we went on a short camping trip with friends and finally started the long way back to Madison. This time through the black hills and Mount Rushmore National Park. Once back in Madison we went north to another wedding and finally Chicago for the last day before dad got on a plane back to Sweden. I am pretty sure he had the time of his life, we sure did!

September

    Temperatures were still mild and even hot in September, and garden was still producing, a lot. We had some more short hikes, trail runs and mountainbike rides. All and all, a lot of September was actually kind of a recovery from everything we had done through July and August. We ate good and I baked a lot as usual.

In The Rearview Mirror 2017 pt. 2

Flashback Friday

April

    The first day of April we went skiing into the mountains of Denali National Park. The ability to go skiing into the mountains of Denali is truly out of this world, or to just be able to go skiing in areas like that at all. Definitely something I took for granted while I was living there, now I understand what a different world I actually used to live in. Back in Madison Spring was well on its way. Went on a couple of trail runs and also planted the garden. Then, I signed up for a half marathon, and because I am the way I am, I wanted to run the route before the actual race. That combined with the fact that you actually do need a lot of training before committing to something like that made me hurt my chin, and I ended up not doing the real half-marathon. But, I did finish the half-marathon I ran on my own a week before the actual race, and celebrated with Swedish chocolate in bed. 

May

    By may we had full on summer. We went to Minneapolis and celebrated W's brother for graduating from law school. Garden was going really well, surprisingly well actually. We had some nice after work sessions at a local bar, that also has the most adorable dog. We went up to Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. A forest that appeared to be infested with ticks. We went there for memorial day weekend, and managed to snag the very last spot at the campground at about 5pm in the evening. The days there were rainy, but we did manage to go on this amazing mountainbike trail, 12 miles in mixed weather conditions. We had everything from sun to hard on rainfall (which makes for an interest bike ride on slippery rocks). 

June

    We went on a couple of more mountainbike trails closer to Madison and then I went to Puerto Rico for fieldwork. I spent about a week in the rainforest on private land but also in El Yunque National Forest. Such a beautiful island and made me think of all the people that we met while we were there, later on when the hurricane hit. Especially this old nice lady who lived in a very simple house on top of a mountain. I still wonder what happened to her house and how she is. The rainforest has all sorts of poisonous and thornlike creations. Which is pretty interesting since there aren't any real large herbivores on the island. After having spent more than a week treading though the rainforest I finally got an hour or so at the beach. I never saw San Juan except for the airport. Not your regular type of tourist trip to the island I bet. Back in Madison I celebrated Midsummer by making a nice strawberry cake. I also managed to harvest my first beets, already in June, unbeliavable. 

Camping in Chequamegon National Forest

Memorial Day Weekend

Camping

Adventure Tuesday

Memorial Day

    Memorial Day is a big day here in the states, it is a federal holiday to honor and remember the people who have served in the united states armed forces.  Back in Alaska we always went camping or went out for a small adventure, but I haven't really done that in a while so we decided it was time for another trip! A lot of people go camping or hiking during this weekend, or have large family gatherings and BBQ festivities. We took the opportunity to go on a camping trip in the North Woods. 

North Woods

    We drove almost 5 hours north (about 279 miles, or 450km) until we arrived to the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. Don't ask me to pronounce that name because its literally impossible and it sounds very funny when I try to. Memorial day weekend mean that a lot of people are on the road, driving towards their final destination. There were quite a lot of people on the roads during the first few hours but then the traffic decreased significantly and almost disappeared as we got closer and closer to the North Woods.

Camping

A lot of people on the road also mean that the campsites might all be full. There are quite a few campgrounds in and around Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. You can book some of these campsites at certain campgrounds, but the one I had looked at you had to book several days in advanced, you literally could not book it online 2 days before?!? which is ridiculous...anyway, there were plenty of first come first serve options, but, as the name entails, first come first serve. The final camping option is dispersed camping, which is allowed in National Forests, as long as you aren't close to anyones property, or close to a real campground. However, we realized that finding dispersed camping in Wisconsin might be a lot harder compared to Montana. Either way, we got a late start and figured, worst case scenario we just sleep in the car. 

Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest

    We arrived at one of the campgrounds that I have looked at during the drive, and we decided to take a left and go through one of the loops, and voila, right by the lake was one open spot at 5pm on a Saturday! W went on a short mountain bike ride, and I set up the tent!

Ticks!!!

   The temperature this weekend was so high, but that mixed with frequent rain showers made for a  very humid climate. While I was setting up the tent I discovered an insect I haven't seen for years, because we don't have them in Alaska (well they are extremely rare), I killed it as best as I could and saved it so I could get a confirmation from W. Well, W came back and I showed him and he said yup, totally, a tick! And then we started going through W who had been biking through bushes on the trail and, we found several more ticks on W, and the coming days we found countless of ticks, I seriously think we removed about 50 or so... We did get a wonderful weekend though, filled with good food and mountain biking!

    Have you been camping yet this year?