Firsts of 2016

New Year's Eve.  Time to celebrate all the good stuff from the past year, wish for this coming year to be just as good, and make promises to ourselves that we may or may not keep.


For me, 2016 has been an amazing year.  Here are most of my "firsts" from this year:

• Ice Climbing/Mountaineering, outdoor climbing, time in North Conway - January 23rd

• Laser Tag game - February 14th

• IMAX movie - March 1st

• Trying fried pickles - March 21st

• Shooting a gun - March 23rd 

• Time purchasing train tickets - March 26th

• Watching an official climbing competition - April 2nd

• Taking a trip without a family member - April 9th

• Going to the MFA Boston, and the Cheesecake Factory - April 10th

• Trad climbing - April 14th

• Staying somewhere by myself - April 15-21

• Onset for a film/video shoot - May 1st

• Promotion! - May

• Flying by myself, out of the USA, having a meal on an airplane, watching a movie in Italian, visit to the Asian continent, stay in a five star hotel, visit to a different continent- June 30/July 1st

• In the world's tallest building- July 4th

• Hand feeding rays - July 5th

• Having a Krispy Kreme donut - July 6th

• On European continent, in Italy (just the airport)- July 8th

• Backpacking trip - August 27th 

• Metal show - October 15th 

• Outdoor bouldering - November 12th

  As you can see it was quite the exciting year, and this isn't even everything! In addition to every on this list I started dating my amazing boyfriend, who was the reason I was able to do most of the things on the above list, including the four different countries (not including my brief stop in Italy), and three different continents I've been to in the last six months.  
  I've made a lot of friends, some I lost contact with fairly quickly, others I've kept and talk to regularly.  I saw my favorite species of shark in person for the first time, got my second and third tattoos, hiked 32 miles with a 50+lbs backpack on, climbed outside for the first times, and much more.

Here's to hoping 2017 is just even better!

My First International Travel

27. Travel in a Foreign county with a friend.

I spent a week at the beginning of this month my first time abroad, in Dubai.  I would have posted more while we were there, but I decided it was a vacation from everything, including blogging.

My boyfriend (Who I will refer to as "IT" at his request) is working out of the country right now, and has been for the last couple of months, so we decided to take a vacation in Dubai.  After a hassle trying to get my passport, and a long first flight by myself, I arrived.  Then proceeded to sit in the airport for three hours until IT got there and we found each other.

June 30th
My first time flying alone, and I go across the ocean.  I don't sleep on planes, sleeping while in transit makes me motion sick, and one a plane ride of 12+ hours would be extra miserable if sick.  Instead I watched the following movies:
Sinister 2 - Which I'd seen most of before, and this version was "edited for content".  There was only one major scene that I noticed was missing, but a few other things in the movie made more sense with it in.
The Boy - I enjoyed the twist ending!
The Otherside of the Door - most of it.  The dog died and I turned it off.
Everest - I joked afterwards that the scariest movie I watched on that flight was Everest, being a aspiring climber of the mountain, and a rock climber, I know a bit about it.  I knew about the event, too, but couldn't remember who survived, which made the movie that much more stressful.

Also during the flight we were told that we were hitting some turbulence, my first thought was of the second Sharknado movie...

July 1st-3rd 

Because we were both pretty tired, and hadn't seen each other in over three months, the first few days we spend mostly sleeping, watching animal planet, and just wandering around the stores and water near our hotel.  

My first impression was that everyone was very friendly, there were a lot of people who would talk to me, and ask me questions - mostly things like “where are you coming from?!”  Others would just smile and/or wave.  I mean, I did stand out quite a bit, plus I was wearing jeans, a flannel and a beanie.

The whole city was fairly relaxed and welcoming, as long as you were respectful.  It was Ramadan for the first five days of the trip, which meant during the day everywhere selling food was either closed, or at least had curtains closed so you couldn't see inside, and here were signs in the grocery stores asking people to refrain from eating in public places.

A lot of people were really nervous about me going because it's a Middle Eastern country.  I can tell you I felt just as safe there as I do in my home town.  One of the biggest questions I was asked was "will you have to cover yourself and everything? and "are you sure it's safe there?".  While they are a muslim country Dubai is also tourist-centric city, so they rely on tourism heavily, which means they would never get away with having a dress code that strict.  Even the dress code I'd read about online - and was very nervous about breaking - wasn't really enforced, and there were a lot of people in clothes I'd read would be deemed inappropriate.  And again, I felt just as safe there as I do at home, because they are a tourist city and if it was as dangerous as people I've talked to seem to think it is then no one would visit! So if that's a concern of yours, and a reason you don't want to visit you have nothing to worry about.

July 4th

We visited the Dubai Mall, one of the largest malls in the world.  It was really cool, we didn't actually buy anything, or go into many stores, but just walking around was exciting.  They had some cool art around, a lot of people from all over the world, weird but awesome stuff like a full dinosaur skeleton, and my personal favorite, the Dubai Aquarium. 

The food court situation was actually pretty interesting.  They didn't shut down the food court during Ramadan, but so as not to be disrespectful towards those that were fasting they had it blocked off.  I'd never thought about that as a possibility, I honestly expected anywhere that served food to be closed completely during the day.

The bigger thing we did was go to the observation of the Burj Khalifa, AKA the world's tallest building.  Looking down at the city, and watching the sunset from 1,821' up in the air was pretty incredible. Unfortunately, I forgot my nice camera this day, and was left with only my iPhone to take pictures with.  

We did laugh at the plush version of the Burj that they gave each of us.

July 5th

This was the day of our aquarium visit, so obviously I made sure I had my nice camera on this day so I could take tons of pictures of fish, and other aquatic creatures.

We signed up for one of their special experiences, so after wandering through and looking at all the animals for well over an hour and a half, we got to hand feed rays! I was really excited, and I'm actually half tempted to cross number 76 (Swim with stingrays) off my list, because we were actually standing in the water with them, even if we didn't technically swim.  Much to my parents' dismay, no pictures were taken of us feeding the rays.  There was a pretty decent sized Nurse Shark swam up to us trying to get us to feed it, but our "guide" scared him away.  The big leopard whipray wanted some treats really badly, too, however he also wasn't allowed to have any.

Some quick Dubai Aquarium fun facts:

• In 2010 there was actually had a huge leak that caused an evacuation in the mall.  
• It is the second largest aquarium in the world, 
• It houses the over 1,650lbs "King Croc" and his mate "Queen Croc", they are Australian Saltwater Crocodiles.  He was originally captured because he was causing problems in a small town!

July 6th

We got to explore a little more, and walked from our hotel to the beach.  Despite the heat it was a nice walk.


Because it was so hot during the day we opted to go back to the hotel, and then visited the beach after dark.  It was really cool at night, there were a lot more people there, and the water was so nice and warm.  The water was significantly nicer temperature, in my opinion, than my home near the beach in Maine is.

July 7th

For our last day of vacation we spent a lot of time in the pool in our hotel, and playing the new most popular mobile game - Pokemon Go.

I wouldn't have started playing the game while on vacation abroad, except IT and I wanted to play it together.  So we did join the trend and went on a walk just to catch new Pokemon.

July 8th

Unfortunately every vacation has to come to an end, and IT's plane was over three hours before mine.  So I got to wander around my terminal in Dubai for a couple hours.  I try to collect postcards, and snow globes because they're usually fairly inexpensive, and easy to find.

After doing a few laps around the airport out of boredom I bought a donut and sat to wait for my plane.

The plane ride back would have been much longer, there's only so many movie franchises I can watch in a row, but we got to stop in Milan for about an hour.  Italy is somewhere I've wanted to visit for a while, I'm even learning and teaching Cheyenne commands in Italian, so it was pretty cool that I got to stop there of all places on my way home.

The rest of the trip was very uneventful, other than my confusion about going through customs in the USA (it was ridiculously easy) because it was different than when we landed in Dubai, and a three hour layover in JFK where I played a lot of Geometry Dash and Piano Tiles while trying really hard not to fall asleep.

Firsts:

Other than being the first time I've left the USA there were quite a few other "firsts" for me on this trip.

• June 30th: Flying by myself - it was pretty terrifying, let me tell you.
• June 30th: Having a meal on a plane - it really wasn't that exciting, but it was a first.
• July 1st: Visit to the Asian continent - while this is implied with it being the first time I've left the US, I decided to include it anyway, then someday I'll have the dates of the first time I visited each continent!
• July 1st: Stay in a 5-star hotel - we didn't even realize it was a 5-star hotel until we'd been there a few days and googled it.
• July 6th: Having a Krispy Kreme donut - life changing ;)
• July 8th: Visit to the European continent - not a very exciting first time in Europe.  I stayed in the airport the entire time.  I still technically have been, though.

My April 2016 Boston Trip (told mostly in pictures)

View from the train.

 This past weekend was spent with a couple friends in Boston, Massachusetts.  We took a train down on Saturday morning, and back on Sunday night.

One thing we did not think about was hockey.  Unfortunately our train down was completely full, and North Station was crazy packed because the Bruins were playing.  The station was the only place where we actually had any issues with the amount of people, so it worked out pretty well.

North station!!

Our first stop in Boston was to the New England Aquarium, of course.  I did want to be a Marine Biologist, and I kept fish for a long time so the aquarium was the first place I thought of to go.  We decided to walk

Boston still had the tiniest bit of snow.

Penguins, looking adorable, of course.

At the aquarium, after visiting the Shark and Ray touch tank, I took my camera out and started taking pictures of as many think as possible.  I definitely think I got some good ones! The penguins were surprisingly difficult to get good pictures of.  If they weren't moving the lighting was bad, or they'd be standing near their sprinkler things, which made the pictures look weird.  I got a couple, and did some editing.  This one is my favorite.

The whale skeleton backlit by the big center tank is in the running for my favorite picture I took at the aquarium.  I wasn't sure it was going to turn out, but the lighting works really well for it!

A gorgeous Freshwater Spotted Ray!

 The entire aquarium was my favorite part of the aquarium basically, but the freshwater tanks were actually inspiring.  While I don't have any fish right now I plan to set up my tanks again in the future.  They had some really cool freshwater tropical fish there, so now I'm psyched more than ever to get my tanks back up and running.







This turtle was swimming along the glass a lot, so it was pretty easy for me to get a bunch of pictures of it! This one was probably my favorite.

 One thing that happened that pretty much sucked was that I lost all my stuff that I bought at the aquarium.  I collect postcards, and Snow Globes, so I bought those, and some stuff for my family at the gift store of the aquarium.  I set it down while my friends and I were getting food, and accidentally left it and walked away.  When I realized it was missing a couple minutes later I went back and it was all gone.  That was a very disappointing part of the trip.

Two of the people I as hanging out with on Saturday I know through the theater, so they really wanted to check out a theater there in Boston.  We only went into the lobby area, but it was a really beautiful place!

 On Sunday we went to the Museum of Fine Arts in the morning, I didn't really take any good pictures in there.  Afterwards we visited the Cheesecake Factory for lunch.  Cheesecake being one of my favorite foods, I was very excited.

 Amy and I wandered around Boston for a while after that.  Neither of us are religious, but we definitely considered going into this church to look at the inside, because of how beautiful the outside of it is.  The bells were ringing, too.  We walked by as a church service was beginning, which is the only reason we didn't go in, we didn't want to disrupt the service, or leave halfway through or anything.




Even the doors on it were gorgeous!













We found the bridge with locks on it, it looks really cool.  Amy pointed out that it's right over a road, so if it does end up getting too heavy it could be really dangerous.  I don't think that'll stop anyone, though.

We walked through the Boston Common and met quite a few friendly animals.  I always try to slowly sneak up on animals to take their pictures, birds mostly, but occasionally others, so when I saw the ducks, goose, and squirrels in the park I started trying to sneak up close enough to get some good pictures.  Little did I know, I wouldn't really have to.

The ducks all stayed in the water, but let me get within a few feet of them to take some pictures.  The one I wasn't expecting to let me get anywhere near it was the goose.  I went especially slow up to it, for a couple of reasons.  Obviously if I'm trying to get a picture I don't want to scare it away, but I also didn't want it to attack me.  Geese are known for being vicious after all.  This Canadian Goose was somewhat friendly though.  It let me get close enough that I probably could have touched it, I didn't tempt fate by trying.  It did swim alongside me and Amy for a while when we walked away, until it was distracted by a pug.

Quite possibly my favorite part of the trip (stop judging me, this was amazing) was feeding the squirrels right out of my hand.

There were so many squirrels, so obviously I was trying to sneak up on them to get some pictures.  When a squirrel ran towards me I was really confused at first, but them quickly squatted down to try and get a picture, it then ran away.  However, I found a bunch more friendly squirrels, and started trying to get them to come up to me.  A couple did, and sniffed my hand, but ran away when they realized that I didn't have any food.  After a few minutes some people came by, and fed some popcorn to one squirrel before dropping a handful and then walking away.  I went over to it, and started hand feeding one squirrel to get some amazing close up pictures.  I have a ridiculous amount of pictures of friendly squirrels now, but it was definitely worth it!




So that's pretty much it! After the squirrels we explored Boston for a bit, then went to the train station and rode home.  I'm looking forward to more travels in the future, I've got a few more planned for this year.

If you want to see all my pictures from the trip to Boston check out my Flickr!

Laser Tag, Trips, and Electronics

Finally I post about my trip to play laser tag, one of the things on my list that I finally got to cross off!

On Valentine's day this year my boyfriend decided to take me to play laser tag.  He read my list and saw it, so that's what we did! We visited Hilltop Arcade in Somersworth, played some arcade games, and then played laser tag.  I had a lot of fun, and I will definitely play laser tag again.  It was the perfect Valentine's date.  

As the title says I have a couple of trips planned that are coming up pretty fast.  First, my friend Amy, and I are going to be taking a train down to Boston for a weekend in April.  I won't post too much about it not, but some of the trip highlights will be visiting the aquarium, getting piercings, my first visit to the cheesecake factory, and much more! It's going to be a let's do as much as we can in Boston in a weekend as possible type trip.  I'll post a detail plan soon.

And the last subject of this post, electronics.  My boyfriend bought a new laptop and gave me his old Macbook, and today I ordered a Canon Rebel T5 off Amazon.  The camera should be here before our Boston trip, and hopefully I'll have a couple days to play around with it and figure it out beforehand.  Definitely look forward to those pictures, and keep an eye on my Instagram, and Flickr to see them all.  I've got three lenses, and a couple filter sets coming with it, so I'll be able to do some cool stuff.

My First Mountaineering Trip

Willey's Slide

Yesterday I went mountaineering for the first time with a class through Salt Pump.  It was a lot of fun, I definitely learned a lot of new stuff, and when I got to the top of where we were climbing and looked down I wasn't even a little nervous either.

I packed for the trip on Friday night, knowing myself enough to know that I wasn't going to be able to wake up enough to make sure I wasn't missing anything the next morning.

After a quick meeting at Salt Pump me and my climbing partners headed out to North Conway in New Hampshire, to meet our guide, Jimmy, and borrow gear from Cathedral Mountain Guides.  Quickly we were back on the road, on our way to Willey's Slide.

Our view of surrounding mountains!

First part of the day we learned the basic stuff, like how to use crampons, how to use the mountaineering axe, self-arrest, ice tools, etc.  We had beautifully calm weather, with next to no wind, and cloud cover, it was perfect for a first time mountaineering.  Considering all the snow the rest of the east coast has gotten in the last few days we were very lucky.

We did get to do some low-angle ice climbing, as well as learn a bit about running belays (AKA Simul Climbing), and eventually went almost all the way up what you saw on the left side, in the first picture.  It was an all around amazing experience.  With proper layering I wasn't cold most of the climb, except my fingers because I was wearing the fingerless gloves convertible mittens for my gloves.  Let me tell you, swinging an ice tool with numb, tingly fingers is extremely difficult, I do recommend better gloves.  I think I will probably leave my down jacket on while climbing next time, and maybe lose a top base layer instead.  In just my base layers, fleece, and shell I was a bit chilly, even when climbing.

Me, super psyched to be outside climbing for the first time!

We went up, and then hiked down a trail through the woods instead of going down on the mixed ice and snow, it was the easier way to get down.  Walking through the deep snow made me appreciate being so active normally, because though it was a bit tiring on the legs I ended up being the only one, other than our, guide who wasn't sore afterwards.

It was a fantastic trip, and now I'm just really psyched to get back onto the ice.  I'm planning on going Thursday morning back to Willey's Slide to tackle the middle section of just low-angle ice with my co-worker, Zack.


No matter what I know I'm going to be getting outside more this winter.  Usually I avoid the snow and cold like the plague, this year I think I will be able to enjoy it more.  Today I even went on a short winter hike to a waterfall near my house.  As amazing as it is to go out and find big adventures there are also small ones close to home, that is something I need to remember when the "wanderlust" sets in.

Thru-hike Update, October 2015

I have ordered my sleeping bag, and received my sleeping pad, and Cheyenne's dog bed!

Also, I am considering waiting a year.  I didn't get to do any camping, or difficult hikes over the summer.  My puppy is still young, I can't start backpack training her until she's a year old, and I don't know how big she is going to be, so I can't purchase the correct size backpack.

I'm going to set dates for camping, hiking, and backpacking trips to do next year.  Instead of starting the whole trail maybe I'll do the 100 Mile Wilderness on my departure date.

My biggest fear with putting it off a year is if I put it off one year what is stopping me from putting it off another year?  Then another?  This is my biggest concern with waiting.  My biggest concern with not waiting is that I won't finish it.

This decision is not 100% final, but it is most likely.  I will, of course, continue blogging and preparing for other adventures!

Thru-hike update, September 2015

I have been getting my gear ready for my AT thru-hike!

Yesterday I received my backpack in the mail.  A Deuter act lite 70 + 10 pack.  I may have gotten a slightly larger pack than necessary, but I'd rather it be too big than too small.  I jokingly said I'll just put Cheyenne in it, then she won't need her own pack! I'll be getting hers when she gets a little bigger so I'll be able to size it properly.


The other piece of gear I just got is my tent! I purchased the tarptent rainbow instead of the double rainbow, because I was afraid the double rainbow would be too big.  I set up my tent as soon as it came this morning, and I'm really glad I went with the smaller of the two.  There will be plenty of room for me, and Cheyenne, and all of our gear.


Now I have my dog, my backpack, and my tent.  Just a couple more big items to go and I'm all set with that part of getting ready!

Backpacking

Of course, I've been reading a lot about the AT lately.  Well, for a few months I have been.  Today I stumbled upon a couple of Zach Davis' older blog posts.  For those of you who don't know, Zach Davis wrote the book "The Appalachian Trials", which is also the name of my favorite AT hiking blog that he created.

Yesterday, at Salt Pump, I met his intern, so that was cool

This is a really neat article that he wrote last year about reasons why he loves backpacking.  Most of these are the same reasons I've been loving rock climbing, or even just taking my puppy for walks.  If these things sound good to you then I highly suggest you start hiking.  I haven't even started officially "backpacking" yet, and all the things he mentioned are my favorite parts of hiking and climbing.

Appalachian Thru-hike Update 8/21

I figured I'd update you all on my AT Thru-hike details.

First of all, I've chosen a tent, the Tarptent Double Rainbow.  I actually have had this tent in mind for a while.  It's lightweight, fast to pitch, and not too expensive, as far as good tents go.  Plus, there's plenty of room for me and my dog! Outdoorgearlab's price for the tent is off by a couple dollars according to the tarptent website, but it's still not a bad deal.

Next things on the list are sleeping bags, sleeping pads, a backpack (I know, that maybe should have been first?), and doggy backpack.

For sleeping pads I'm thinking the Therm-a-Rest RidgeRest SOlite.  One regular sized one for me, and possibly a small one for my dog

Sleeping bags I've been looking at are the Enlightened Equipment Revelation Bags, the short(5'6")/Slim option for me, and The 2-in-1 NobleCamper for my dog. If I go with the NobleCamper I won't have to get a sleeping pad for my dog either, because it's a bed and sleeping bag in one!

The backpack I'm looking at for myself currently is the Deuter ACT Lite 70 + 10 pack

A great article about hiking with dogs, which is certainly a good thing to be reading up on.  I should be getting my dog very soon, so be watching for a post about that! It will be knocking something off my list, too!
80. Adopt a Dog from the Animal Shelter.

As soon as I get my dog I will start purchasing things for it, such as

• A dog pack
• Food/Water dishes
• A coat
• Booties
• Leash/Collar/Harness
• Flea/Tick collars or medication
• First aid supplies!

Doggy supplies is a whole other post!

Sense of Adventure

Ever since I was little I've had a strong sense of adventure.  There are a couple of things I remember wanting to do as a career, such as:

• Storm Chaser/Meteorologist
• First person to walk on Mars
• Oceanographer/Marine Biologist
• Employee of the Australian Zoo (Steve Irwin was my hero, RIP)
• Archeologist

I can remember making lists of all the careers I'd wanted to have, the most I remember was 18, I had them in order of what I wanted to do first, also! 

Now, of course, my goals are a bit different, but I seem to have kept, or rediscovered, the adventurous spirit I've had through most of my life.  It drives me to achieve new goals everyday.  It's the reason I work at a high ropes course, and a climbing gym, the reason I wouldn't settle for just whatever job I could find.  The reason I'm not going to college, and instead I'm working to save money to hike the AT.  The reason I'm writing this blog in the first place.

I went to an Oceanography summer camp a few summers ago, because when I was 15 or 16 I had decided to become a Marine Biologist, my favorite animals were sharks, and I had to pick a career at some point, so why not just work with sharks?  It was thanks to this camp that I rediscovered how much adventure meant to me.

I earned four college credits for the camp, I enjoyed the course work, and it seemed like I would be content following that line of work for the rest of my life.  Then, we went snorkeling, and hiking, and dock jumping (which I'd never done, and didn't really end well, but I'm glad I did it), and after those two short weeks everything had started to click.  Within a year I'd started making my list, and shortly after that this blog was born.

Hard work went into that camp, I saved over $600 for it in under six months by teaching dance and babysitting, and I wrote an essay about why I wanted to be a Marine Biologist for a $500 scholarship.  "Just imagining  all the weird, creepy, beautiful, or just amazing creatures that may be lurking in the depths of unexplored caves, or sea floors, or reefs fill me with a kind of excitement that is easily compared to 'a kid in a candy store'" - A quote from my original, unedited essay.

A lot of my friends have a strong sense of adventure also, and I guess that was the inspiration for this post.  Many people lose their sense of adventure or passion for a certain subject because of things like job security, or just general wage differences.  I know people who are going into certain fields just because they'll make a lot of money, and not necessarily because they enjoy that work.  I also know people who will talk passionately about the field they are entering that will not earn them much money, just because it's what they enjoy doing.  The latter are my favorite kind of people.

I hope you all still have an adventurous spirit, even if your adventures aren't things like climbing the tallest mountains in the world, even if they just involve writing fantasy novels, or driving school buses for a living.