Posts tagged #Wisconsin2

In The Rearview Mirror pt.3

 

Flashback Friday

    Summers in Madison are hot, I mean hot for being a northern girl. A girl who spent the last six summers in the field in Alaska. There was a reason for us to buy that air conditioner to put in the bedroom as soon as I arrived in Madison. Before I moved to Madison I looked up different diseases and alike that cats could acquire in Madison during the summertime. Bot fly came up, and surely I told W about this, but he insisted that this was something that would not ever happen. Well, it did. Tycho got really sick and he eventually threw up a bot fly larvae, and that is when I called the vet. She said he was lucky to be alive. Poor Tycho, my little kitty cat. Other than that the summer was pretty calm, once W got back from Yellowstone we started to venture out on both long and short hikes around Madison. The best thing that happened was probably that I got a job!

July

    W went to Yellowstone so I tried to explore most of my immediate surroundings by myself. I realized pretty early that I had no clothes suitable for hot summer weather, but after a trip to the local thrift store I had updated my closet to a more "summery" closet. In some way July was the worst month for me, I was trying to find a job, W was gone and it was hot. And then by the end of the month Tycho got the bot fly larvae. But everything turned out great anyway. Both W and I have July birthdays but we haven't celebrated them together the last couple of years, which is kind of sad. Maybe next year? Oh wait, probably not. I did a lot of gardening and also went to the local farmers market to get cucumbers so I could make Swedish pickles. 

 
 

August

    More hot summer days, and ice cream. Did you know that Alaska has in the past been the no.1 consumer of ice cream per capita in the US? I don't think this is true anymore, but either way, I love ice cream. I can't say that I eat more ice cream here compared to Alaska, but I definitely had some days by the ice cream shop. W's mom and aunt also came to visit, we did what I like to call the tour of the midwest, well a light version. We went to Minneapolis to meet up with them, also because W's brother studies there. We went by the Swedish institute and Ikea of course, gotta love Ikea, well, gotta love Ikea bed sets, cause I at least haven't found that quality for that price anywhere else. After that all of us went to Madison for a few days. There are no mountains here, so I do the best of the situation, practicing macro shots and finding new avenues in my photography. 

 
 

September

    September came, with more hiking, and helping W out with his experiment. We did quite a bit of exploring outside Madison, and found several nice places to hike. We also went to La Crosse, for a biking and camping trip. W met up with his brother to go road biking and I went on my own little tour. It was still hot of course, but you could start to see signs of fall. We went on a beautiful hike at a place that I like to call the fairytale forest, because it really did look like a fairytale forest. We camped that night and of course ate s'mores. Have you ever added a slice of banana to your s'more? Well, just do it! After that we went on another trail which is an old railroad, and goes through several sets of tunnels.  Even though my garden wasn't that successful in 2016 we did harvest quite a bit from it during the course of the summer. In september the harvesting kind of trickled down but the garden was still producing! At the end of the month we traveled to Colorado, colorful Colorado as they say, for a wedding. We of course encountered our first snow for the season there. 

 
 

    Did you do anything interesting late summer early fall? 

Posted on January 20, 2017 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Flashback Friday, Rearview Mirror and tagged Madison city life City Farmers Market Hiking Wanderlust exploring rearviewmirror2016 Wisconsin2 rearviewmirror.

A Very Dark Fall?

 

Fall   

    This fall has been very very different for me. This year I moved from the woods in Alaska to Madison, Wisconsin. It took a while for me to find a job, but I did, I found a job after a few months which was probably the best thing that happened to me this year, well except receiving the green card this spring. Then fall happened, I got hit by a car while biking, I survived obviously, but my bike got a pretty bad hit and I am still waiting to get the bike back form the bike shop. Then Trump won, which was such a sad evening, W got so upset and sad that he cried and wondered what we were going to do. And then, mom died. 

 
 

Sadness  

    When I am sad I always listen to this Swedish singer songwriter, Lars Winnerbäck. He puts words on your feelings, when you can't. I have been listening to music a lot these past days, wanting to find some music for moms funeral. It still feels so unreal, I think the problem here is that I am here in the US, and I haven't had mom living right next to me, right here, the past 7 years, so I feel a bit detached to the whole situation. I haven't seen my mom in real life since September 2014, which is very very sad under these circumstances. I am just so happy I got a chance to show her my Alaska not only once, but twice!

 
 

Sweden and Alaska   

    If I had all the money and time in the world I would have gone home to Sweden several times a year, but back when I lived in Alaska it was so hard to find cheap tickets to go that far, and with W's family being in MT it was easy to get there instead. It was impossible to go home in the summertime, because of my fieldwork and research. This summer I was alone for more than a month while W was doing research in Yellowstone, I talked to mom almost every day, and now I wish I had gone home to Sweden, but I didn't have the money to do that. And now, we thought about going to Sweden for Christmas, not that it would have helped anyway, but still. 

 
 

Winter

    The winter has not arrived in Madison, WI yet, we had about 70 degrees F (21C) the other day, today however it's right around freezing. Maybe we will get some snow soon. Fairbanks already has cold temperatures and snow of course, so does Sweden to a certain extent, well, at least they had snow, because my mom was so excited about the snow that she sent me pics. I guess we will see how much snow Sweden has in less than 2 weeks. 

 
 

Real Winter

    I really miss snow, aurora, and skiing right now, but I am very very happy I was not alone in my dry cabin when I got the news about my mom. I do hope we will receive some snow here pretty soon though, I love wearing warm sweaters, dresses and tights during cold weather. There is a reason why most of my clothes consist of synthetic down and fleece material or merino or SmartWool. 

 
 

    Do you like wintertime? Or do you just like every single season the same?

 
Posted on November 21, 2016 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Alaska, Madison Life, Montana, The great wide open, Wisconsin and tagged 2016_2 Madison Alaska Winter Fall Snow Wisconsin2.

Why you should look for Adventures in your "Backyard"

 

Adventure Tuesday

Mountains?

    Living in Alaska definitely changes your perspective about mountains (coming from Stockholm, Sweden) and distances to places. It's amazing to have the Alaska Range as your own view every day you come to work. It's not weird to drive 544 miles (875km), through the Alaska Range, to attend a festival during 2 days and then drive back that same distance after the weekend is over.

 
 

Nothing is Impossible

    People do this all the time. Another thing that I really liked about the community in Fairbanks was that no one would ever question you and your adventure plans. If you said you were going to run or ski a marathon people got excited, no one would ever question your decision to do that. As far as I know, in Alaska nothing is impossible, and anyone can do anything if you put your mind to it. The world is yours to have if you want it so go and take it!

Madison Adventures Anyone?    

    When I moved to Madison, WI from spectacular Fairbanks, Alaska my expectations were to find absolutely nothing that could fill my longing for the outdoors. Most of Wisconsin is flat as a pancake, ok maybe not that flat but there aren't any mountains and the highest point in Wisconsin is a hill called Timms Hill at a whopping 1951 feet (595m).  The highest point in Fairbanks that I easily could get to within 10 minutes would be Ester Dome, at 2171 feet (661m), a great "hill" to run up and down.  Now of course in Alaska the highest peak you could possibly climb would be Denali at 20310 feet (6190m). 

 
 

Deep Forests and Dry Cabins

    I do miss the mountains, the deep forest, the log cabin I used to live in...even though it came without running water and the propane stove stopped running if the temperature was around 35-40 below for too long. It's something really real about living in a cabin in the woods. Ok, my cabin was maybe not that far away from the "city" of fairbanks, but still, you could have thought it was. So coming to Madison, WI, and now living in an apartment/house, really changes your perspective of things.

 
 

    Instead of the forest I now have neighbors and houses surrounding ours. I guess it's ok, but it's definitely not the same. I had to explore Madison and get to know a new perspective of adventures in my new neighborhood.

 
 

Citylife?

    Moving to Madison has definitely tested my ability to satisfy my need for adventures. What is even an adventure? I don't think the adventure should be about the highest peak you climb or the longest ski you do, I think it should be about your feeling about what you are doing. If it makes you happy and you do something you might not do on a regular basis it can also be an awesome adventure. There aren't any peaks to climb here but there are a lot more urban wildlife for instance, or different plants, tons of small parks tucked into the city. The first weeks I lived here I would go for long walks around the neighborhood, and I would find all these small parks I talked about. I found a park with a lot of old trees and at least five wood peckers in that small park, that consisted of like 10 trees tucked together. We have a lot of insects I have never seen before, many many beautiful butterflies of course and a few months ago i discovered a Possum in the yard.

 
 

Adventuring

    If you can't go on a big adventure, go on a small adventure, at least that is how I am surviving, at the same time as I am looking forward to future adventures of course. But it's not the end of the world to live in a city after living surrounded by the mountains, there are many many more things to discover in this world. Every weekend we have tried to go on a day hike, most of the places are pretty close (1-2 hrs from Madison) and although they do fill some satisfaction to me, I still want more. But I think the best thing is to learn to be satisfied with less sometimes, otherwise we will never be happy in this world, day and age.

 
 

    Where do you go for small adventures? Do you like visiting cities or would you rather sit in a tent in the middle of nowhere? 

 
Posted on November 8, 2016 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Adventure Tuesday, Alaska, Madison Life, Wisconsin, Cabin Life and tagged Alaska 2016_2 Madison Deep Forest City city life Cabin Life_ Mountains Wisconsin2 2016.