Isle Royale

Hiking along the Minong Ridge.
At Todd Harbor. One of my favorite parts of the island.
Happy to be in the woods!
One of many beautiful places to stop for a break.
Isle Royale has 535 moose on the Island. At times, the numbers have soared up to 2,000. Isle Royale might be most famous for the wolf/moose study.

I have decided that I'm not very good a blogging, but I'm willing to give it another try. I'm also giving up on a theme. I only have seven more weeks of graduate school, teaching, and life in Marquette, so I'm hoping to make the most of it. My goal is to do one things everyday that makes me happy, and I plan on posting my happy day activity here on my blog. I guess there will be a bit of a theme, at least for the next seven weeks. One of today's good things: A walk with my good friend Kyle Bladow! Kyle is one my best friends in Marquette. He is not only the best vegan baker I know, (thanks for the banana walnut muffin, Kyle) but he is incredibly thoughtful and has big heart. In the two years I have know Kyle, we have traveled to NCY, Traverse City, and, most recently, Madeline Island. Although I plan on keeping these posts to just one happy moment a day, it would be unfair to not recognize my good friend Elizabeth who I visited at Snowbound Books today in Marquette. As always, talking with Elizabeth made me happy--she is honest and interesting and true to herself--and she also sold me a book about Isle Royale, which put me in a good mood. Check out Elizabeth's blog here: http://ringsofgrain.blogspot.com/ Kyle and Elizabeth, thanks for being my best friends in Marquette.

Photo of me, Kyle, and Alan in NYC this winter.

OK, SOME ADVENTURES

This is a shot from the Noquemanon trail. This trail system has 60K of trails, and this was somewhere around the 20K mark (I think) and also on the advanced loop, accessible at the Forestville Road trailhead. Lake Superior is in the background, but I don't think you can see it in the photo.
This is a shot from Alan's birthday ski. We were bushwacking through the forest looking for "The Top of the World" near Harlow Lake. We didn't find it, but had fun anyway.

A few more sweater shots

So I decided on the theme UP adventures for the blog, but I will allow myself few more random posts before I begin the new theme. School starts tomorrow, and I am trying to reflect on productive and good things that I did during the break. I am happy to not only have started and finished Alan's sweater, but I am proud that I finally finished the sweater I started for myself last February. I stopped working on it because I couldn't figure out how to knit the hood; luckily, my good friend Katy was able to help me with this over Christmas. This was my second attempt at making a sweater for myself. The first one was too short in the torso, and then I accidentally felted and shrunk it. This one was also too short in the torso, but I was able to block it. (The blocking messed up the hood a bit, but made the sweater a bit longer.) For any knitters out there, I recently joined the online community ravelry.com, and I would encourage you all to do the same. It is a very useful site.

Engagement Sweater for Alan

I know I haven't posted for some time, and I didn't make keeping up with my blog a New Year's resolution, but I do hope to start blogging more often soon. I would like to blog on a theme, but I am just going to stick to posting random bits of my life until I can think of something good. I decided to make Alan this sweater after we became engaged. The wool is from a company in Michigan, which is kind of cool, and the pattern was super easy to follow. I knit the whole sweater in one piece, and the only part I had to sew was the pits. I'd be happy to pass on the pattern to anyone who wants it.