Hello world! Now that I’m back on the road – this time in the Northern Hemisphere, which is far less exciting… seriously, where’s the fun in driving on the right side of the road? – I thought I should update what the heck is going on in my life.

In late April I got back from about 10 months in New Zealand, 3 weeks in Australia, and 8 hours in China. I had a fantastic time surprising everyone in Fairbanks – especially Teri! Only one friend knew when I was returning, so the others just gradually were shocked to see a long-lost ginger walk into a store, office, or across campus. Surprise returns are so much better than announced plans; the reactions are just more entertaining!

I spent the summer working on the Riverboat Discovery in Fairbanks, which gave me my first summer in town. I expected hot, smoky days, but we ended up with a cooler, wetter summer. Life would have been more pleasant with fewer dumb tourists (sorry, but it’s true), but fellow crew members made work entertaining, and the summer flew by! I went on a day hike up in the Chena Rec Area, drove down to Denali for lunch and blueberry picking once, and biked the last 20 miles to Chena Hot Springs late in the summer, but pretty much the rest of my summer was devoted to work or biking around town. Friends and I definitely had some memorable late nights, Clue parties, Hot Licks trips, and other Fairbanks cabin shenanigans! I squeezed some dogsitting in on the side for my buddies Yuri and Laya, whom I love dearly for being sweet and living in a cute little house in Ester.

So the plan had been to live in my old cabin (“The Palace”) when I got back, but plans don’t always work out. That’s why I ended up living on Scott and Frankie’s futon for 1.5 months! They loved that I always did dishes or cleaned, and I enjoyed living with friends and running water. Since I thought I’d be staying in Fairbanks for awhile, I was on the lookout for a new cabin. While I was still abroad, I found a girl on craigslist who was looking for someone to share a cabin with, so we met up, discovered we’d get along, and spent a fair deal of time searching craigslist for cute, affordable cabins to share with her dog Pepper. Eventually the pieces fell in place, and we got our hands on the beyond-awesome cabin in which I used to dogsit!

Come August I finally got Teri back in a cabin with me… meaning we had a lot of fun. The laughter often came when I would decide I absolutely had to vacuum right as I was getting into bed, Teri laughed at the mumbling sounds I apparently make when I sleep, or I asked Teri what happened to the banana bread she had made just a few days before… and she had already finished it. 🙂 Ahh, good times.

All of this brings about the question, what is Steph doing right now? Well obviously since I had such a horrible summer, I chose to leave it all for the hopes of a job in Canada or Washington. Isn’t that what everyone chooses to do when living the dream?

Right now I’m roughly 8 hours inside a 15 hour layover in SeaTac, and I’m going to try for some sleep before expanding on this whole nutty story. Maybe a stranger will wake me up and tell me I’m murmuring sadly in my sleep…

But for now, here’s some food for thought from a musical group Rose (from NZ travels) introduced me to:

“Decide what to be and go be it.” – The Avett Brothers