Posts tagged #Life in Alaska

The World is at Your Fingertips

White Mountains, Alaska

 

Adventure Tuesday

Our life is our greatest adventure

    I often stop and think about how lucky I feel. Sure, there are times when I feel sad and lonely, because living in a different country does affect you in some way. But then I think about everything I get to experience over here, everything I get to see. Obviously I have my family on this side of the ocean now too which helps a lot. It's like a balance between your past, present and future. Sacrifice does come into play there too a lot, or is it a sacrifice, or just a way of life, a decision? I have seen so much, so many places that are on a lot of peoples bucketlists, and yet I crave more. I want to see more, I want to be in nature all the time. 

 

Cross-country skiing in Yellowstone National Park

 

Adventure    

    I can't wait to go on another adventure, even though we have been traveling quite a bit lately. Every time we go somewhere and see new and cool places I always fall back on Alaska and Montana. Who knows where we will move in the future, it probably wont be Alaska, but I keep comparing every place to Alaska and Montana. Those two states are the heart of this country to me, that is where I can see myself settle down and adventure on. 

 
 

Colorado    

    Not too long ago we went to Colorado, only for a few days, but we did do some adventuring there too of course.

 
 

Hiking in Colorado

    Even though we had only gotten a few hours sleep, got on a plane and then drove for four hours we still managed to get out for a hike. 

 

Colorado, what a beautiful place.

 

    We definitely want to go back there, and we have a few friends who lives there now so that will most likely happen in the future! Who knows, maybe Colorado will fall into that list of mine too, the possibilities are endless and completely open I suppose.

 
 

    If you could pick a place to settle down, where would that be? Or maybe you already found your dream home?

 
Posted on November 1, 2016 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Adventure Tuesday, Montana, The great wide open, Yellowstone, Alaska and tagged Elsewhere Yellowstone Yellowstone National Park Alaska White Mountains 2016_2 Home Adventuring Dream Home Future Fall Adventures Winter Adventures Adventure Mountains Dreams Summer Adventures Wintertime Life in Alaska 2016.

ad·ven·ture - /adˈven(t)SHər,ədˈven(t)SHər/

 

Adventure Tuesday

"By replacing fear of the unknown with curiosity we open ourselves up to an infinite stream of possibility. We can let fear rule our lives or we can become childlike with curiosity, pushing our boundaries, leaping out of our comfort zones, and accepting what life puts before us" - Alan Watts

 
 

Adventuring

    These days many people are out and about in the world, adventuring, and then afterwards we like to share or experiences. Do you ever read about other peoples adventures and wish you were doing the same? I do all the time. What a lot of people fail to recognize is that most of our life is a big adventure. W always reminds me that "this is our Adventure, right here and right now". If you keep thinking about what you could be doing you are going to miss the biggest adventure of your life, your life! I am pretty sure all of us can think back to a time (or several times) when we did something adventurous. Now, the worst thing you can do is to compare yourself with others. I think this is a problem that is nowadays slowly increasing, because we get fed by Instagram and Facebook, and see pictures of all the awesome places people go to, and think "hey I wanna go there too". 

    Back in the day, before Instagram existed I would go on hikes and live my own little life in my bubble. I wouldn't think about my hiking as an adventure. Maybe because if you keep doing something on a regular basis it is not an adventure anymore, it becomes a habit? I couldn't care less about what other people did out in the world, because I didn't know about it. Am I the only one who look at other peoples Instagram feed or blogs in awe? I guess social media comes with a lot of packages. 

 
 

Adventure in Books  

    When I was browsing the internet world googling about adventuring I came across a few sites that are showing the usage of different words through time. So according to them, are we adventuring more or less nowadays?

 
 

Do we Adventure Less?   

    So, it seems like adventuring has decreased lately, well in the last 200 years? Maybe, maybe not. Question is how we define adventuring. I guess back in the day they wrote about the conquering of giant dragons and sea mammals in the ocean? In my opinion an adventure is what you make it. If you think something is an adventure you are probably right. The whole world can't have the same viewpoint of everything, nothing would be an adventure then. Someone who climbs Mt Everest might not think that going to the local park is an adventure. But Sam who's 5 years old might think the world of that park and call it an adventure. Or Christina who is 43 years old might call a hike in the small forest close to her house an adventure, because it includes things she wouldn't normally do in her day to day life, like jumping on stones to get across a creek.

Plus, a search on the statistics about google searches on adventures shows us:

 

 

Canoeing Adventure

 

I am a hiker/adventurer?

    The development of social apps has opened up the world of adventures for many people, but unfortunately it also opened up the world for criticism. Angeliqa wrote about that not to long ago in her Swedish hiking blog. People get judged for how they look (body appearance) when they go hiking, as if you wouldn't be enough of a hiker just because your body shape isn't representative of all the mindless mannequins in a store. Just because you don't look like you can run a marathon doesn't mean you can't, just because you look like you can run a marathon doesn't mean you are able to go hiking. Peoples perception are most often skewed, and if we fail to recognize that it can hit us hard, really really hard. Not everyone are able to let comments like that go by us without a batting of an eye. 

 

Solo bike adventure <20 minutes from a city

 

Hiking and Preparations    

    There are tons of right and wrongs when you go hiking, things you can do before hand to make it easier, gear you can wear or use to make it easier, but that doesn't mean that you have to have all that gear to be able to go hiking or go on an adventure. Hiking and adventuring is for everyone. The biggest preventer for me to go on an adventure right now is TIME. 

    What is your opinion about hiking and adventuring?

    Here is a positive thing about hiking, 

 
Recent adventure posts
A hike on the East Coast - Franconia Ridge
When we Hiked through Lamar Valley - Summertime in Yellowstone National Park
Dispersed Camping in the Catskills - New York
The Ultimate Roadtrip pt.5
The Ultimate Roadtrip pt.4
Fires and Storms altered the City and what is found there now, is far from what once was there
Conquering Algonquin Peak
Denali Adventures - Spring edition
Death Canyon
Holly Lake - Grand Teton National Park
Posted on October 18, 2016 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Adventure Tuesday, Alaska and tagged Adventurer Alaska Adventure 2016_2 Summer Adventures Life in Alaska 2016.

365 days ago - In Alaska

 

Flashback Friday

    I took a short break from the blog. I do spend a lot of time when I want to write on my blog. Sometimes I can think about a million things I want to talk about but lately I have been so busy. I just got a new job a few weeks ago and I am going to balance that (it's only 50%) with the writing of my dissertation... Anyway, I have been thinking a lot about Alaska lately, and that's one o the reasons why this theme exists.

 
 

Memories

    I have discovered that I am really good at collecting memories, well who isn't? I love taking pictures, and sometimes I actually don't have time to look at them immediately, and then I forget about them. I love going through my photo album on the computer and rediscover old memories. I don't think I would ever be able to rediscover old memories in the same way with only text.

 
 

    I really need the pictures. What about you? Do you keep a diary at all? I know I tried to use one when I was really really young, but it didn't really work that well, and well here I am. I guess you can say that this blog sometimes work as a diary, less private of course, but still a way for me to reflect on my thoughts about different subjects.

 
 

Where were you a year ago?

    In Alaska, as in many other places up north, you start to see Aurora already in late August early September. Last year I remember seeing Aurora almost every night, kind of mellow, was still waiting for that big show to arrive....which kind of didn't happen until I was going in to work early one morning and was completely unprepared for it. Either way, I have seen so many Aurora shows, and back then it was more like a thing you saw on a regular basis, so you didn't really react that much unless it was a great show. Now, well now I really miss it of course. 

 
 

    Last year we also had a pretty bad snowstorm, that took down lots of trees, most of them broke in half literally. We got this really heavy snow that covered the landscape for a few days/weeks before it melted off again. I know people sometimes talk about a fifth season, well I would argue that in Alaska we have six seasons. Spring/Summer and Fall/Winter. It is that in between space that you can or can't call one or the other, it's very interesting to experience. Sometimes we tend to list the seasons based on dates, but that doesn't always work at more northern latitudes. Other times we list them based on what we see, like snow on the ground during wintertime, but what is it if the leaves are still colored and we have snow on the ground, and then a week later the snow is gone?

 
 

    Heavy snow, falling trees and power lines don't mix well. We lost power for about a week (well off and on), others were without power for almost 3 weeks. I am lucky because I have the wood stove, so even without power I could still prepare food on the wood stove. 

 
 

    The snow came and then it went. Typical Alaskan weather. 

 
 

What did you do around this time last year? Was the weather different from today? Obviously here in Madison it's very different from Alaska. Lately we have had colder temperatures of course, they are creeping closer to the freezing point, almost there. 

Happy Friday you guys!!

 
Posted on October 14, 2016 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Flashback Friday, Alaska, Nature, Photography, Cabin Life and tagged Alaska memories Fall Winter Lifestyle snowstorm 2016_2 Aurora Aurora Borealis Norrsken Cabin Life_ Snow Cabin Wintertime Life in Alaska 2016.