It’s been a while since I’ve checked in so I figured I would catch y’all up on our last year since New Zealand before we begin our next cycling adventure through Oman in just a few weeks!
After New Zealand Kevin and I moved to La Grande, a small town in Eastern Oregon, where Kevin restarted his job as a seasonal wildland rapeller (firefighter who rapels from helicopters into small remote wildland fires) and I restarted my job in wilderness therapy five hours away based out of Bend (as I work eight days with six days off the commute is managable). I ended up going on quite a few adventures throughout the summer including an 120 mile solo backpacking (and trail running) trip through the Sawtooths (Idaho), as well as a road trip through Yellowstone, the Tetons, and part of Utah. Blog posts about those places and what it’s like to be a wilderness therapy instructor are to come.
A photo Kevin took of his friend as they watched the total eclipse this summer!
Some photos from snowshoeing around Crater Lake last spring. Talk about the snow making everything more beautiful!!
A few photos from cycling around La Grande.
And of course some trail running photos from eastern Oregon as well.
Once Kevin finished up his job in October we moved in with his dad in Astoria for a few months so that Kevin could work with his brother installing heating and cooling units while I continued (after a four week break to spend some time with Kevin) working in Bend, commuting nearly the same amount as I had been during the summer just in the opposite direction. We have spent the winter with family, especially with some of Kevin’s siblings and their awesome adventure loving kids.
On our way back from our one week winter elkless hunting trip (more like relaxing road trip in Eastern Oregon) Kevin and I went from talking about our planned five week road trip in the southwestern US this winter to buying flights to Oman. After reflecting on what we had heard from a fellow cyclist who told us, years ago, about Oman’s friendly culture, beautiful mountains with steep dirt roads, and free wild camping everywhere it just seemed too perfect: we have five weeks of time off which fits in perfectly with the thirty day visa, and when we found flights for under 1,000$ we decided it made more sense to do Oman this year and save a (longer) road trip for another winter when we will make more time for it.
Since we both needed new passports we quickly got together what we needed to send our old ones in, bought flights and thin long sleeve shirts for cycling, and started the (short) countdown to our flight! Though we haven’t ridden our bikes much since last year in New Zealand we know that the physical aspect of cycle touring will return to us once we are truly on the road. We are also purposely doing virtually no research (except we did find out the capital is called Muscat) so we get to be surprised once we arrive.
Since this is such a short trip we won’t be bringing our tablet with us and will therefore write about the trip once we return to the States in late March. Until then, I’ve written a few posts about the Sawtooths, about some wonderful backpacking here in Oregon, and a post about being a wilderness therapy instructor which will be appearing in the weeks to come.
Until then, may be the winds be ever in your favor!
