The "Happy" Jar of 2015

Inspired. That's right, I kept it up! In 2014 I started a "happy" jar, where I wrote down the things that made me happy on little colored sticky notes and put them into a clear glass jar for an entire year. This year, I did the exact same thing. I knew this year was going to be amazing before it even really got started, mostly because on New Year's Eve last year I decided I would be moving to Texas to be with Jared and (at the risk of sounding cliche) to start a new chapter in my life. Well, it worked. I've never been happier, and my happy jar this year reflects that; it contains significantly more little slips of paper than last year's jar!

While going through all of my happiest moments, something stood out to me, practically shouting for my attention: the majority of my notes were either about my travels, or about Jared. You don't have to be a psychology major to deduce that the two greatest sources of my happiness are adventuring and my boyfriend, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Adventuring is what I do, as I've written about several times and filled my Facebook and Instagram profiles full of pictures and stories about my travels. It's become who I am, and I'm always looking for my next trip (my to-do list of adventures is extensive). Now, I wouldn't be living the life I love so much without Jared. I'm not going to get all sappy, but I can't imagine being without Jared. He's the reason I come home from every single one of my adventures. While adventuring and Jared make up the majority of my jar, they're not my only sources of happiness. My job, friends and family featured prominently, and animals showed up a lot as well. Below I've higlighted several of my favorite memories, but remember, this is just a very small sample of the happiness in my life. 2016, you have a lot to live up to.

It doesn't get much better than arriving at your new house in your new state, seeing your boyfriend for the first time in months, and knowing that you're home.

Jared got me a hedgehog for my birthday! I've loved hedgies ever since elementary school, and I've always wanted one. Jared's present was a "happy birthday/welcome home" gift to me!

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Jared is the reason I come home after I'm done adventuring. My pets are just as important to me as well. It doesn't matter if I'm gone for a day or for a week, I love coming home to my family. 

I love travelling, I really love travelling solo, but I love travelling even more when Jared is with me. We got to take a weekend to ourselves, which we spent relaxing, seeing animals, and enjoying each other's company in the big city.

I was so excited about seeing a sow and cub in the wild that I nearly cried. I was certainly shaking, and it took me a long time to calm down. I'm going to have a hard time topping that experience...

Again with the whole travelling-with-Jared thing, but this time we were able to watch my little brother graduate from basic training, as well as spend a weekend with my brother, mom, dad and aunt. Proud big sister right here.

In October Jared and I took a baby squirrel to rehab her. She was incredibly tiny and covered in scabs, so we weren't sure she would survive. I was out of town on the day she opened her right eye, but Jared called me and I heard the excitement in his voice. She waited until I got home to open her left eye!

Not all wineries ship to all 50 states, but in a moment of weakness when I was missing my favorite wines from Nebraska, Colorado, California and other parts of Texas, I discovered they all ship to my place of residence!!! Hello, full wine rack. And fridge. And counters. 

For the third time this year I broke my hiking distance record. Three times in one year. If that's how 2016 is going to go, BRING IT!

And on the note of hiking, I got the backpack I've been coveting for over a year. I had been using a day pack, and I will still use it (frequently), but now I can take overnight backpacking trips as well. A whole new world of hiking/camping-related activities just opened up at my feet. Or rather, on my back. Speaking of which, I'm setting off on a brand new adventure on the first of the year, and I'm either going to rock it, or fail miserably. Ten days in the high desert. In the middle of winter. Tent camping and hiking. Alone. Eeek!

2015 Wrap-Up: A Peek Into My Crazy

Blown Away. How is it the end of the year?? This has just been a year of incredible changes. I sat down to try and get my head around everything that has happened, all the places I've traveled to and people I've visited, and frankly I'm a little overwhelmed. I'll start at the beginning, and hope I don't miss anything!

Over my birthday weekend in January one of my best friends and I took a trip to Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado and snowshoed to our heart's content. Megan and I hiked several miles worth of snow-coverd trails and frozen lake surfaces, and I developed a taste for snowsports.

Once I'd finally developed that taste for snow, I moved south. The end of February found me packing up everything I own, leaving my job at the vet clinic, and setting off on the biggest adventure of my life: moving to Texas. It's turned out to be the best thing I've ever done.

For the majority of March I was trying to settle in to a new home, new community and new culture. Oh, and a new job. Jared and I were figuring out how to live together, mesh our insane number of pets, and make new friends. I still managed to get out and explore my chosen home a little bit, even though it rained for the first six weeks after I moved to Texas.

In April, I picked up my travels again by taking a short trip north to McGee Creek State Park in southern Oklahoma. It was just me and many miles of poorly marked trail. That was the first time this year that I broke my hiking distance record.

I also took a trip south to visit friends in San Antonio. We managed to pack a cave tour, the River Walk and wine tasting into under two full days. I still don't know how we managed it!

May found me settled in and adjusting to life in Texas. And then I spent the last week of the month back home in Nebraska for my little brother's graduation, a 90 mile bike ride, and several days driving around in the Sandhills on the hunt for historical markers with my dad and sister. Because why not?

In June, things started getting crazy(er). I first took a weekend to meet up with Julia at Chickasaw National Recreation Area, which we spent camping and hiking. And drinking really cold spring water right from the source.

I also drove myself to Buena Vista, Colorado to white water raft with Megan, as well as visit a ghost town, the coolest waterfall I've ever seen, and Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. Oh, and I stopped at a volcano. I also got the worst sunburn of my life and couldn't stand to be touched for days.

In July I went back to Utah! I met my whole family for a sort of throw-back family vacation in one of our favorite places. We hiked Arches National Park, bounced around on jeep trails near Canyonlands National Park, camped, floated the Colorado River and otherwise spent time together. When we parted, Alisha came with me and we explored Hovenweep National Monument and Mesa Verde National Park. When she went home, I headed south and hit several more national parks and monuments (here, here and here) before I returned home as well.

The last weekend of July interns from work and I spent a day at Caddo Lake State Park, the only natural lake in Texas. Did I mention it's full of alligators? And that I went canoeing for the first time? And that I didn't panic even though I wanted to? We also drove through Caddo Lake National Wildlife Refuge and into Louisiana and Arkansas, just because.

I retraced some steps from last year and cheered on Torrey at Pike's Peak, Colorado as I watched her run her first ascent half marathon in August. I also finally accomplished the Manitou Incline, one of my top three most difficult physical activities to date.

I also camped out at Caddo Lake in late August with some interns from work, where we hit the bayou in canoes to look for alligators with no luck.

And for the last weekend in August Jared and I took a trip just for ourselves! We spent the weekend in Dallas, relaxing, visiting the Dallas World Aquarium, the Dallas Zoo, and drinking and swimming at our hotel. Also, room service.

The for first full week of September I received some major alone-time at Great Smoky Mountains National Park, where I spent the week camping, hiking (breaking my distance record again), driving, and looking for bears. I found 'em, too! Can I just say: Take me back!

With October came a trip to Lawton, Oklahoma with Jared to watch my baby brother graduate from BCT, visit with my mom, dad and aunt, and explore nearby Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge.

The following weekend I went back to Nebraska for the wedding of my sister's best friend. It was a short and sweet trip, but all the more fun for it!

Over the week of Thanksgiving Jared and I and some of our pets headed north to Nebraska to spend time with our families. We ate, drank, visited with family and friends, and tried to cram as many leftovers as possible into the car to take home with us. Did I mention the ice? The week was far too short.

For the first time ever, I went camping in December. Seeing that it was in Texas at my local state park, it really felt more like an autumn camping trip than a camping trip in winter, but whatever. Temps around freezing, a nice fire, warm food, and a nighttime visitor made it memorable!

I managed to squeeze in one last adventure before the new year when I visited Big Thicket National Preserve in southeast Texas. I drove 2.5 hours south, broke my hiking distance record (AGAIN) with a 19.65 mile hike, and drove 2.5 hours back home, all in thirteen and a half hours. It was a gorgeous day, a brisk morning with temperatures around freezing, warming up to a wonderful day with highs in the 60s. It was bright, sunny, the trail was mostly flat (but a little muddy), and I saw a grand total of five other people. I could not have asked for a more perfect December day to smash my hiking record!

As you can see, I've been busy. My 2014 happy jar didn't even come close to being as full as this year's jar, but I'll write about that when the year is over. With all of the changes in my life recently, traveling is my way of injecting some sanity into my whirlwind, but also lets me live. There are many nights where I go to bed content, and I can count every night I've spent in a tent among them. I love my home, I love the life I've built here around my boyfriend and my pets (kids), my new and old friends, and my job, but I wouldn't be me if I didn't travel. I can't wait to see what new trips I get to go on in 2016, and am already in the planning stages of two, possibly three grand adventures!

Below I've listed out my stats from this year's travels. I'm probably the only one who finds this interesting, but whatever.

Total Number of Adventures: 18
Total Time Spent Traveling: about 45.5 days
Number of Nights Camping: 25
Number of Nights In Someone's House: 16
Number of Nights In a Hotel: 15
Number of Nights Driving: 1
Total Cost: $6,452.22
Number of States Visited: 15
Total Distance I've Driven: 17,928 miles
Total Distance I've Been Driven: 3,740 miles
Total Distance in a Car: 21,668 miles
Total Distance Hiked: 144.21 miles
Total Distance Biked: 90.22 miles
Total Distance Canoed: 7.42 miles
Total Distance Rafted: roughly 30 river miles
Number of National Parks/Monuments/Rec Areas/Refuges: 17
Number of State Parks: 7
Number of Human Companions: 33
Number of Furry Companions: 13

I hope your 2015 was as fulfilling as mine... Now bring on 2016!

What I'm listening to: Christmas at Hogwarts by John Williams

A Snapshot and The Scoop: Many Moods

I got fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time on a visit to Cade's Cove in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I love capturing naturally bright foregrounds with dark backgrounds, and the sun came out just long enough to illuminate the white gravel road I was parked in the middle of while keeping the mountains encircling the cove in clouded shadows. In my experience, every place can manifest several different moods, and if you're lucky enough, you can be there to witness them.

Leave me a comment or a picture below and show me the places you've been that have different moods.

Searching for Bears in Cataloochee

Hopeful. I was determined to see another bear. I hit the road out of my campsite at Great Smoky Mountains National Park early, eager to get out and explore the park more but also really needing to rest my feet and legs. I was recovering from hiking the past several days, and decided to explore the park from the comfort of my car. I too a winding back road, not in any particular hurry, keeping a very close eye out for bears.

I ended up in the Cataloochee section of the Smokies, a small and kind of out-of-the-way area not accessible via the main road through the park. Due to that, and probably because it was a Thursday, there weren't very many people to fight over parking spaces with, and I leisurely wove between thick stands of trees and wide open coves. The short pathways around the cove were inviting, and I didn't even mind the log bridges over the gentle streams.

I kept a close eye on the boundaries between the fields and the forests, expecting at any moment to see a dark shape ambling along the border in search of food. I saw plenty of movement, but not of the bear-variety. Turkeys flocked in every opening, scratching through the grasses and raising their tails in displays of dominance and maturity.

There were butterflies EVERYWHERE. All different species seemed to congregate along the road, so that every time I pulled over I inched over to the side carefully, giving the butterflies enough time to take flight and resettle somewhere out of danger. They were unafriad of me once I did get out, and I snapped photo after photo of their gorgeous colors.

Aside from turkeys and butterflies, the only other wildlife I was treated to was a box turtle that tried to cross the path in front of my car. After I got out and moved him safely to the side of the road in the direction he was headed, he allowed me to marvel at his bright yellow markings and astonishingly red eyes. I was disappointed that I didn't get to see a bear, but the peaceful drive and other wildlife sightings made the day well worth it.

What I'm listening to: Dragon Racing by John Powell

A Snapshot and The Scoop: Tracing the Ancients

At the end of our summer trip to Utah and Colorado my sister and I took off on our own and visited as many ancient Puebloan ruin sites as we could. We stopped at Hovenweep National Monument for a few hours on our way from Moab, UT to Mesa Verde, CO and did a little exploring. We walked their loop trail, encircling a small canyon on the rim of which perched dozens of ruins, houses, graineries, towers and artifacts left behind. We stared off into the distance in either direction and picked out even more buildings dotting the horizon. It was amazing, walking the paths the ancients most likely walked, peering into their houses and imagining their lives, scraping a living in the high desert.

Leave me a comment below and tell me if you think you could have made it, living like these ancients. I don't think I could have!

Fog + Bear Shit = One Nervous Hiker

Uneasy. It's not often that I have to admit that I'm uncomfortable while on a hiking trail; I can think of three total times since I started traveling. This particular hike, deep into the forests of Great Smoky Mountains National Park on my way to summit a mountain, makes that list. I had an ambitious day planned for myself, starting well before dawn, meaning I arrived at the trailhead earlier than expected and actually sat in my car to wait for the forest to lighten a bit before I headed out. I'm normally all for early morning hikes that start just before or with sunrise, but it night clung to the ground under the thick canopy of trees, even though the forest was beginning to wake up. I just really didn't want to run in to any surprises around a corner on the trail, especially because I was alone. Even with how long I waited, I still had my headlamp at full power when I finally set out, scanning the gloom for telltale eyeshines that indicated something was watching me.

I made my first destination, Rainbow Falls, in good time, occasionally splattered with drops and drips from above. It is always raining in those forests. Either it's actually raining from the sky, or the trees shower you with droplets left over from the last rain with the slightest breath of wind. The constant moisture wasn't cold, though, and actually brought forth an abundance of life that astounded me. Tiny, dark little salamanders scampered through the leaf litter, trying to stay out of sight. Mushrooms of every color pushed through fallen trees and clung to crevices in crumbling rock. There was green everywhere, and the plants around me seemed to breathe out more moisture wherever I looked. Rainbow falls was a thin stream of water braiding itself down an alcove tucked back a bit from the trail. I rested there, eating and drinking, but didn't remain long; the droplets from above started to increase, indicating it was raining above the canopy.

The trail from Rainbow Falls to the summit of Mount Le Conte easily lands itself on my list of Top 10 Most Beautiful Hiking Trails. I felt like I was walking through Mirkwood or Fangorn, a feeling that was accentuated by the lack of other human beings. Thick old-growth trees towered above the trail, casting everything below in shadows even when the sun was shining. Roots and rocks twisted the trail, necessitating caution with every step. The normal forest sounds surrounding me were muffled, though whether that was a result of the excessive vegetation or of my imagination I'm not sure. Even the rain was muted, though the melody of dripping water was by far the loudest aside from the crunch of leaves and twigs under my boots.

I climbed upward constantly, losing count of how many switchbacks and corners I rounded. A mile or so from the top I took a side trail detour, coming out in the middle of a thickly overgrown ridge on the side of the mountain. I was surrounded by shoulder-high shrubbs and young trees, obscurring the trail at my feet. I was also enveloped in a thick layer of fog. Everywhere I looked puffy white water vapor pressed in around me, and I knew my trip to the summit of the Mount Le Conte was going to mainly consist of looking at the inside of a cloud. At least it wasn't raining. I pushed on anyway, slipping and stumbling through the gloom on wet rocks and little rivulets racing down the mountain trail. I reached the Le Conte Lodge panting and puffing, and wandered around to the Cliff Tops to rest my feet. There is a lodge located at at the top of Mt Le Conte, like actual buildings and a kitchen, that you can make reservations and backpack in to. I had no idea, but some day I will go back and stay there! The lodge wasn't full when I poked around, but I didn't stay long; it had started raining again and I wanted to get back to my dry car.

It was on my descent that I became uncomfortable. The rain increased so that I felt more like I was swimming than hiking. My rain jacket kept my head and torso dry, and my pack's rain cover did it's job, but it didn't take long for my pants to soak through, and I was essentially wearing boats on my feet. Mositure, friction and heat: a combination of any two of those on skin and you can develop blisters. Want to guess how my feet felt? I didn't care much, even though I should have; I was concentrating too much on what was going on around me. Fog had descended and settled over my trail, swirling in the dark tunnels created by overhanging trees, blurring the forest and making benign objects transform into threats. And then I started seeing piles of bear shit. Great big heaping piles, right on the trail. I knew none of them were fresh, but they also hadn't been washed away by the previous rain. I knew there were bears in the area, the warning signs were everywhere. I'd seen a bear myself on my first day in the park. Great Smoky Mountains National Park has one of the highest concentrations of bears in the eastern United States. But to see the evidence of that statistic right in front of me while on a trail in the middle of a dark and rainy forest a very long way from civilization, or any other human, was disconcerting. The icing on the dreary cake? It started thundering.

I only caught one or two flashes of lightning while crossing a relatively open stretch of trail, but that did nothing to calm me. If there's thunder, there's lightning, and I was hearing plenty of evidence. I did not want to be stuck in a forest of very tall trees in the middle of a thunderstorm. I picked up my pace, half-running down hill, tripping over tree roots and rocks raised above the surface, hyper-aware of the can of bear spray at my right hip. I made as much noise as physically possible, frightened of turning a corner at high speed and colliding with a surprised bear. I didn't care about the condition of my feet, or that I was sweating and therefore making myself colder and wetter, or that I could hardly see any of the trail I had come to hike. I stopped enjoying my hike after seeing the third pile of bear poop and hearing thunder. I just wanted off the damn mountain. About four miles from the trail head I whipped around a corner, unsure if the water running down my face was rain or tears, and stumbled into a dry overhang with a stone placed in the center, clearly a bench for weary hikers. I collapsed onto it, upset with the situation and myself. I knew better than to rush down a mountain side without any regard to the condition of my gear and body. I weighed my options: stay in the small dry alcove and wait for the rain to possibly stop, or continuing on through the rain and get to my warm, dry car as quickly as possible. With the first option there was a possibility of the rain not stopping, meaning I'd be looking at spending a night in the forest because I refuse to hike at night in bear country. With the second option, I was guaranteed to get more wet and miserable than I was sitting on that dry bench. Knowing full well that my family would lose their shit if I didn't check in on time that night, I resolved to continue through the rain and get dry sooner rather than later.

I set out with more confidence, reassured that the trail head and the safety of my car wasn't too far ahead of me. For many reasons, mostly to cheer myself up and with the goal of making as much noise as I could without crashing through the undergrowth like I had been doing, I started singing at the top of my voice. Poorly, out of tune, and out of breath, I sang every single song that came to mind. Frozen and The Lion King had their entire soundtracks abused by my cracked voice, as did the ABC's (in English and in French, twice), Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Mary Had A Little Lamb, Frosty the Snowman, and many more. It wasn't long before I was wiping tears of laughter out of my eyes, confident that any animal within hearing distance had taken cover and plugged it's ears. Imagining a bear curling up in a tree somewhere, covering it's ears with it's paws set me off laughing so hard I doubled over. I'm pretty sure that if another hiker had seen me they would have been worried about my sanity. Shit, I was worried about my sanity. I had been alone all day, I had been cold and wet and miserable, and now I was singing to myself and laughing my ass off about it.

I finally reached my car nearly ten hours after I had set out, still giggling to myself and in much better spirits than I had been for a majority of the hike. It was still raining, still foggy, still gloomy, but I made myself feel better about it all, and that's what made the difference. I knew I would have to deal with the blisters on my feet when I got back to camp, and drying my clothes and bag out was going to be impossible with the humidity, but it didn't matter. I had turned what could have been a disaster of a hiking trip into one that I still giggle about when I tell the story, just like I'm doing now.

What I'm listening to: The Downed Dragon by John Powell