Posts tagged #Wisconsin2

A Blast from the Past

IMG_9986-September 05, 2011.jpg

Flashback Friday

Dreams about Alaska

All the photos I have ever taken in my life lay scattered on two different external hard drives. Both are backed up to an online backup site, because although I said all I have lost too many photos I loved. The rate at which I take photos exceed the rate I share them. Before I went to Toolik in the summer of 2010 I bought a dslr camera, the cheapest one, a Canon Rebel XS. It is still my partner in crime, even though I dream about getting a new camera. Someday. Every now and then I open Lightroom and browse through photos dating back to 2010 and the first summer I spent in Alaska, completely untouched photos, as if I had forgotten about them, and I had. That summer was one of the best ones in my life, and I got to go on many different adventures. That summer I went on my very first helicopter ride, I walked on my very first glacier, I went into the mountains of Alaska for the first time, I fell in love with the mountains, I saw the aftermath of a forest fire, I started rock climbing and ice climbing once the temperatures slowly droppen, and I became friends with so many other people who just like me were also just so star struck by Alaska. The summer after that I fell in love with Denali, I fell in love with W, and then it just snowballed. More Ice climbing, cross country skiing, canoeing, kayaking and the list goes on.

Memories

In Lightroom you can create collections of your favorite photos. I have about 3500 of them, and that number keeps increasing for every time I open Lightroom. Yesterday I browsed through that favorite collection and was pretty amazed about all the things I have done, we have done. We have been to places I could only dream about when I was younger, and not even then did I. It’s not only photos from Alaska of course, but other states as well. Traveling is one of the greatest things on earth, and going on a roadtrip is definitely something I love. Below are a few of my favorite photos from Alaska, but also other places I have been.

Posted on March 1, 2019 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Flashback Friday, The great wide open, Nature and tagged 2019 Memories Alaska Bears Mountains Montana Wyoming elsewhere Glacier Deep Forest Spruce Ocean Wildlife Wisconsin2 Canada Canadaland Wildfire Yellowstone mississippi river.

In The Rearview Mirror 2017 pt. 1

Flashback Friday

First quarter of 2017

    I can not believe that 2017 passed so fast. My first whole year in Madison, Wisconsin. As always a lot of things happened during the year. In January we celebrated the second day of the new year by going downhill skiing, and in February we all of a sudden had 61 degrees F. Finally came March with a trip to my favorite place in the world, Alaska. 

January

    We spent the second day of the new year at Maverick Mountain, which is an old ski resort that just recently got reopened again. We drove there on January 1, braving bad road conditions and snowstorms. When we finally arrived we went to the hot springs, well they were hot springs but not really that hot unfortunately, but still fun (could also be because the temperature was between -20 to -30F). The next day we braved the cold (-20F) and were the first people on the ski lift. We skied in our down jackets, and I got tired after only a few runs. Before we traveled back to Madison we went to the Madison river outside Bozeman for a short hike and saw some cool wolf tracks. It was still cold in Madison once we got back, of course, but we did some curling indoors. 

February

    February brought some weird weather. It was cold, but then all of a sudden we got 60 degree weather. We went to Devils Lake state park on a very icy hike. We made some sausages with our new attachment to the Kitchen aid that we got for christmas. We went up to the Northwoods, no skiing but pretty hikes and lights. I finally got my sign up for my office, and felt like an official research specialist, finally. And then before you knew it, the ice on the lakes had melted. 

March

    February might have thawed the ice on the lakes and made the trees disoriented, but we still got snow events in March. I made the Swedish baked good Semla, but the mini version, for the second time this year. We also went to Guillermo del Toros exhibition at the art museum in Minneapolis. I love that director. Going through the exhibit was a mixture of wow and oh and eek. We also finally went back to Alaska for about a week. We went skiing to Castner Glacier, east of Fairbanks, on a sketchy ski trip that could have ended up in one of those pools of water by the trail. We also timed our visit to Denali and were lucky to be able to borrow our dear friends dry cabin there. What a trip.

Posted on January 5, 2018 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Flashback Friday, Rearview Mirror and tagged rearviewmirror2017 Alaska Denali Denali National Park Madison Madison life Montana Skiing Ski Mountains Hiking Northwoods northern Wisconsin Wisconsin2 2018 rearviewmirror Spring Winter.

My Summer Bucket List and my Summer Plans

Backpacking in Yellowstone National Park

Summer plans

    A couple of other bloggers, Swedish bloggers (Livet från den ljusa sidan, Fantasiresor, Äntligen Vilse, and probably a few others), have written about their summer plans this summer, and I figured that I could share some of my plans too. At the end of this list of my summer plans you will also find my summer bucket list, because there are a few things that I really should try to do, or do more of this summer! 

Where are you going to spend your summer?

    This summer is turning out to be pretty eventful, even though I did not have high hopes about this a few weeks ago. It turns out that I will travel to Puerto Rico on Thursday, I booked the ticket not long ago which feels a bit crazy. It's not going to be a vacation though, so not really running around on the beach, not that that is my style anyways, but it will be about eight days full of fieldwork, collecting soil samples all over the island, and also measuring tree diameter and looking at other ecological parameters.

    In July, I am going to go to Yellowstone, yay, because I love that area. We are also going to go to the Tetons. Again, this is not a vacation trip. I am volunteering for W and his field crew, so we will do fieldwork during the 10 days that I will spend there. We are going to measure the amount of downed wood in burned areas, but convert it to amount of carbon, and also count the amount of seedlings. I will fly in to Jackson, Wyoming and then fly out from Bozeman, Montana (MT), and hopefully get one or two days with my mother in law and her sister if those stars align. 

    In August my dad will finally get to come and visit me in Madison, Wisconsin (WI). But I am super sad that my mom is now dead, and that she will not be with us on this trip we planned for a while :(  We are going to drive from Madison, WI to Bozeman, MT, because W and I are going to have our wedding celebration around there. We will travel to Yellowstone again, I know but I love Yellowstone, do some hikes around Bozeman and then have our wedding celebrations somewhere in the mountains :) After that we are driving back to Madison, and we are going to attend another wedding in the woods of Wisconsin, sort of like a summer camp wedding. After that, we will travel to Chicago, and then my dad will fly home to Sweden again. 

    In between all these trips I am going to be here in Madison, WI, because I just started working full time instead of 50%, and I extended my contract so I will now work here for another year, yay! Although, with this comes the disciplin of actually also finishing up my dissertation...

How long will your vacation be?

    Well, my vacation will be around a month! Which feels terrifying, somehow, but I will of course not be completely on vacation, because remember that dissertation that should be done?

Would you like to travel somewhere else, other than what you have planned so far?

    YES, I would! Of course, to no ones surprise I would love to go to Alaska too....but yeah we just went there, so that would be a little too much and I would honestly not have enough vacation (or money) to be able to do that.

Alaska

What will your Midsummer be like?

    Oh, I don't know, I am really bad at celebrating midsummer. We did celebrate a few times in Alaska though.

Midsummer in the mountains

    One of my favorite memories of midsummer, or the actual longest day, was a few years ago when I went hiking in the mountains, in Alaska, and it was so beautiful and magical, but it wasn't really a real Swedish midsummer.

    I have bought matjessill though, and I have snaps in the freezer. I will maybe try to make some pickled herring too! There is a Scandinavian group here in Madison that has a yearly midsummer party, we went there last year and I think we will try to go there again, unless we go camping somewhere :)

 

What does your best summer days look like?

    Oh my best summer days, would probably be hiking somewhere where I can get a view, sitting around a bonfire with friends who play music, and talk through the night under the midnight sun. 

How do you approach a rainy day?

    Well, I grab my rain jacket and my rain pants too if I have to. And that is about it. There are no bad weathers just bad clothing, right? No, not always, of course here in Madison we can get really really bad downpours, and lightning, you better stay inside then, there is no use going somewhere if you are going to get that wet. In Alaska if it was a fieldwork day, it was a fieldwork day, and no weather could change that, and that will  most likely be the case when we are doing fieldwork this summer too... 

How will this summer be different from last summer?

    This summer will be a lot different! Last year I moved away from the cabin in the woods, and we drove all the way here, all the 4200 miles or so...and then W left for fieldwork and I tried to get a job, it felt like forever, but I did. Before I actually managed to get a job I was pretty sad and lonely, because I had left one of the most beautiful places on earth. But I survived and here I am today! I had a lot of free time on my hands so I walked/biked around a lot in Madison. This summer I will not be so lonely, and it seems like it will be pretty busy.

Who are you planning on spending your vacation with?

    Family! My dad is coming, how awesome is that, and W's family, and also all of our friends that are coming from far away places to MT in August. We are stoked!

Do you have any trip planned after the summer?

    Hmm....well, maybe Alaska, we will see how that goes...time will tell.

Summer Bucket List

    I do have some things I would like to do this summer, but I am not sure I will have time, but here it is, my summer bucket list for 2017

  • I want to learn how to sail, or at least get on on the water with a sailboat...

  • I want to learn to fly fish, and then I want to go fly fishing here in WI, and maybe also in MT when we are there.

  • I want to go camping and hiking, well backpacking a lot, I am not sure we will have time for that though, not any long trips.

  • I want to get into road biking, which would require me getting a road bike somehow

  • I want to get into mountain biking, which I have already started so I guess I am half way there!

  • I want to start running long distances, and more trail running again....which might be a bit tricky because it is so hot here!

    I think that is all I have on my bucket list for now, maybe I'll add more to it later on :) What are your plans this summer, and do you have a summer bucket list?

Posted on June 5, 2017 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Alaska, Madison Life, The great wide open, Yellowstone and tagged Summer Summer Adventures summer days Summer days Yellowstone Yellowstone National Park Tetons The Tetons Boreal Forest Spruce Black Spruce Cat Cats Madison Wisconsin2 Alaska 2017 Rain Summer Plans Sommar midsommar Midnight Sun Midsummer Midsummer Eve midsommar firande.