Currently living/working: We wrapped up so many jobs this month! Justin’s grand total was 90 hikes & 25 presentations, while I did 47 hikes and 41 presentations! We’re mostly here this fall, so we’re keeping the yurt open for rentals as long as the weather doesn’t drop below 0. Going into the winter, Justin will keep up his part-time tourism job & I will keep subbing at the library.
Currently living/working: Most of our jobs are slowing down their pace, which is fortunate since Justin leaves for his Kili climb in Africa 9/4! We’ll have airbnb rentals/cleanings through October, but my guided hikes & presentations will stop by mid-Sept. I am very much looking forward to Sept. 16 when my calendar shows nada for the first time!!!
Currently living/working: Justin & I have made a habit of doing daily check-ins with each other because of all the directions we’ve been going in this summer. Who’s cleaning the yurt? Who’s cleaning the red house? Who’s leading the New Wave hike? Are you working at AK Geo today? Are you doing Discover Denali work…
This might be a tiny bit boring to y’all, but I like to record our annual home improvement projects for posterity, and the blog is a good place for that to live. And I realized I never recapped summer 2023 projects, so better late than never as we are halfway through summer 2024! As a…
Currently living/working: Writing while hibernating, as per the season. But we’ve also been regularly giving weekly virtual presentations (Life in the Last Frontier: Alaska) for libraries! Current mood: I did not rush into any substantial writing projects after the seismic seasonal shift to winter, knowing I needed a minute to recover from the frenetic…
We have a limit on the number of visitors we can host during our work-heavy summers, so people need to “claim their spot,” ideally by November. Justin’s other sister was next in the line of family visitors, and we loved introducing them to our home–especially our 9- and 10-year-old nephews. They stayed in the yurt…
Currently living/working: Neither Justin nor I had any deadlines in April, nor any virtual presentations, nor much cleaning, nor any hours working at the library, so it felt like we didn’t work since we didn’t get paid! But, we were pitching and prepping for future projects, which is a very important piece of the freelance…
This blog post is selfish. It is more of a document for us to remind ourselves of all the cabin & yurt improvement projects we squeezed in during the summer of 2022! The yurt certainly took priority this year in terms of where we focused our attention, between putting in the outhouse at the 11th…
HAPPY NEW YEAR! Currently living/working: We’ve spent nearly the whole month in Alaska, and it’s been so incredible to settle into winter routines at home after so much fall travel. I’ll be honest, this month has been less about paying work and more of a mix of life tasks, relaxation and play during this holiday…
Currently living/working: Our season came to an abrupt end on Sept. 5, when Justin ended up in the hospital! Life went from warp speed to a snail’s pace. But in general, we had a very fulfilling summer and y’all know how I love stats, so here they are! Justin led 61 trips for Traverse Alaska…
Currently living/working: We are still in the go-go-go stage of the typical boom and bust arc of Alaska life. For me, it’s a juggling act of managing our yurt, cleaning other people’s airbnbs, guiding and writing. For Justin, it’s mostly just guiding (like 6 days a week) and writing. Figuring out when Justin & I…
Currently living/working: We’ve started the summer chapter, where Justin & I will likely work for the next 130 days straight. You know Green Day’s song, “Wake Me Up When September Ends?” That’s when we can take a breath. More specifically and beyond any ongoing writing projects we juggle, Justin is guiding for Traverse Alaska, essentially…
Last August, when we bought our yurt, we thought about all the time we could spend in the fall and winter getting it set up and ready to go. We had plenty of time before the first snowstorm, right? Then it snowed September 15. And basically didn’t stop snowing until May 12. While we were…
Currently living/working: April was another doozy of a month. It included a pet/housesitting gig in Healy, a funeral, and three trips to Fairbanks. Work-wise, we’ve been busier than all winter (yeah for income!). Our joint gear project is underway for Outside Business Journal and wrapping up mid-May. Justin is rocking quite a few new gear…
You read that correctly: we now own a yurt! Even though we no longer live on the road, we will always be a bit feral. All this to say, our version of “settling down” fits a life less ordinary, which is why we now own a cabin AND a yurt in Healy, Alaska! We purchased…