Consider yourself lucky

It's not easy following your dreams, but you can if you really want to. I have lived in Alaska for 5 years now, and soon, very soon (hopefully) I will be moving to a different state. I am starting a new life over here, across the ocean far away from my original home. It's always hard to decide to move somewhere else, let alone to a different country, but sometimes you have to do what feels best for you. I consider myself very lucky, to be where I am today. The challenges and rough journeys I have taken has only made me stronger, or so I'd like to think. 

I consider myself lucky to live in the largest state in the US, to watch the largest mountain in the US from work, to have seen the northern lights so many times that I can't even keep a count of it, endless summer days in the field, being able to go to Denali national park for the day and lots of other stuff too of course. 

Right now I am happy that spring is on its way....well slowly.

Spring is around the corner?

The weather has been playing tricks with us all winter, and of course this little game has continued. Currently the weather is mediocre, but really warm for this month comparably to previous years (currently 46F at 7 pm). It's always fun to go back and look at old pictures and see when the first snow arrived, when the first sign of spring arrived, when the snow disappeared etc. A lot of people of course define spring differently. Even though spring has an official definition. My definition is bud burst. First you have a bud, and then the bud burst. Life has returned, spring has sprung. 

This normally doesn't happen until May, and believe it or not, but I usually kill my first mosquito before this happens. 

Spring never had such a great impact on me when I lived back home. Mostly because back home the season of spring is kind of long. Here you can miss spring if you are gone a couple of days. I have gone to Denali for hikes previous years and the way down looks kind of dull, coming back you notice a color change, the bud has arrive. Within a day or two bud burst has arrived. 

But, for now I am still waiting, waiting for the first mosquito and spring. Weather forecast says it's gonna snow on Saturday and Sunday, but I stopped believing in them a long time ago.

Bitter cold but oh so sweet

The past few days have been pretty warm compared to last week when we had a really bad coldsnap. But today for some reason the weather gods decided to drop the temperature once again. This morning we were back down at -39C. 

I have been skiing to week as much as I can lately, barring bitter cold temperatures of course. But certain days I really have to get into to work, and my best option is skiing. With my car close to breakdown and a not so winterized bike, that is what I am left with. I don't have to ski that far. It's actually pretty close to get into work, just around 2.4 miles. The worst part is of course to ski in the darkness. This, because I have this great fear of running into a moose. 

I love when you can see all the snow covered trees, and the pink sunsets and sunrises. It always makes me smile and craving more, more nature. I could however live without this bitter cold.