Guess what? I ski now!

One of the many perks of living in Bellingham, Washington is having Mt. Baker an hour and a half away. In the summer and fall it means epic hiking on mostly dog-friendly trails (just have to avoid the national park). In the winter and spring it has meant not much, until this year! Asa grow up skiing and I knew it was only a matter of time that I would learn. After much research and many conversations, I acquired a mostly-used ski set up and was ready to hit the slopes.

I’ve only gone up twice at this point (two weeks in Hawaii over winter break took away a bit of prime ski time), but can’t wait to make it up for my third attempt. Following the advice of EVERYONE, I took a class and easily mastered the tow rope. I’ve moved on to chair 2, the beginner chair, which I must say has quite the downhill run just to get to. Asa has been super patient with me and has stood by as I slam into snow banks on purpose to stop myself, miss routes we planned on taking, and ever so slowly inch my way down that hill to chair 2 to master my control and turns.

New house, new garden!

We moved into our house in May of 2019 and while I do love the inside, I really the love large backyard with plenty of room in grow things! The house came with a disintegrating raised bed which I pulled apart and reset into two smaller raised beds. Then I got started sheet mulching 6 new in ground beds as a “phase one” project. Asa has declared that he wants some of the lawn to play games on so we’ll see what the final compromise looks like!

What isn’t pictured is another section of our backyard that came with 4 apple trees, a blueberry bush, grapes, and a border of blackberries (Himalayan, but I’m cool with them being a natural edge to the space.) . There were remnants of raised beds as well, but they are so overgrown with invasive weeds and in a shadier spot than I’d prefer, so we’ll see what happens to them. It may be where we put our chicken coop!

Bike Touring Lisbon-Bilbao

Asa and I have had many an epic summer, but this summer may have topped them all when we biked from Lisbon, Portugal to Bilbao, Spain. I think this may be my all time favorite way to travel. I love biking all day and eating tons of yummy food, without getting that antsy feeling I get when I am not able to exercise (which I find often happens in other forms of traveling).

We planned the trip so we knew our mileage and destination for each day and ran into relatively few hiccups. Well, the airlines did lose both our bikes (and we were on different flights), and I did get some knee pain (maybe don’t do 50 mile days in your first week) but all in all it was a smooth trip

Highlights of this trip included:

• Biking in Galicia: felt like a mix of Big Sur and the Pacific Northwest.

• Sintra, Portugal: That palace! We got there late in the day, took the audio tour (highly recommend!), and dilly dallied until we were some of the only people left. We walked back to the hostel through the palace gardens. They sure love their duck houses!

• Catching two reggae shows! How lucky to be in the right place, right time for a reggae show in Porto, Portugal and also Santander, Spain.

• Picos de Europa: Yup, we biked our butts into the mountains for some epic hiking. Some of our best days.