Posts tagged #winterbiking

In The Rearview Mirror pt.1

 

Flashback Friday

First Quarter of 2016

    2016 went by so fast, but oh so slow. It is hard to find the balance between work, free time and also research time, at least for me. This year we decided that I should move from Alaska to Wisconsin, which meant I had a ton of things I needed to finish, ASAP. But I did and I moved. The first half of this year I spent in Alaska, the second half in Wisconsin, well, I guess technically 5 vs 7 months, but who counts?

January

    I went back from christmas celebration in Bozeman already in December and celebrated the new year with Tycho in my little cabin in the woods. On new years day Tycho got sick, and I still don't know what happened but he's alright now! January had lots of Aurora of course, as always. I skied some and also tried out fatbiking for the very first time. Other than skiing, biking and hanging out in the cabin by the wood stove I of course worked on my own research to wrap things up.

 
 

February

    More winterbiking, more aurora and more of hanging out at the cabin. Winters in Alaska can be rough but they are absolutely stunningly beautiful, and cold. I also went and saw the start of the Yukon Quest again, had more fika, and even a beer or two!

 
 

March

    Finally March arrived and our Green Card Interview! W came to Alaska and we went down to Anchorage for the interview, with a pitstop in Talkeetna for a skirace and also to Homer for a short weekend adventure. These interviews are somewhat ridiculous but absolutely serious. Like when the guard to get into the building asks W if he has a hand-grenade or anything alike on him. Situations like that just makes me want to make a joke and say "ooh gee, I do have one in my back pocket", since you aren't allowed to bring any bags or almost anything into the meeting. On the way back we got a text saying that they started the production of the card! 

 

"Unseasonable" Warm Weather

sunrise

As half of October passed everyone are wondering where the snow is. Snow usually appear around the middle of October, at the latest! We did have some snow back in September but that snow disappeared as fast as it came. The meteorologist are calling it "unseasonable" warm weather. We are just now starting to have temperatures below freezing again, and with last years long winter it makes me wonder what this winter will be like.

This past year we had 200 days of winter (counting days with temperatures below 50F, October 4th 2012-May 9th 2013). The past season we had one of the coldest winters in history with temperatures dropping down to -50F, yes -50F, do you know what it feels like to be outside when it is -50F? We had several consecutive weeks with -40, I even biked to school in -40F/C.

-40FDay

This summer we had one of the warmest summers ever, up to 92F, after a winter with down to -50F. It makes me a little worried about this winter, will we see temperatures down to -40F/C as a normality this winter too? We had tons of snow last season, how much snow will we get this season since we haven't got any at all so far?

Either way I am craving winter dorkiness/adventures sooner rather than later. Time will tell.

Playing in the Snow

Until then: