adventuring!

Maybe you came to the blog to see if I've written lately?

I'm in Indonesia!

To follow our adventures for the extent of the expedition, please visit:

http://rebuildingbandaaceh.tumblr.com

Love to you all from the other side of the planet.

mountain houses.

My life is full of these moments. I hope I can convey them accurately to you in some artistic fashion. In the past couple days I have:

- learned how to use an ascender to jumar up a rope to get above a climber to take photos looking down.

- bruised my thighs from said ascender+harness.

- got to see a new area, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful part of the mountain.

- drank huge cups of coffee with hot chocolate mixed in.

- went on a hike with one of my best friends

- made PBR macaroni and cheese because we didn't have milk.

- got to spend a night in the mountain house in the company of this soul sister of mine, Jade. She takes magical photographs and she helps me understand the world better.

- we hiked to a medicine wheel on top of a mountain and sat in the middle to take in the world around us.

- I came to terms with letting some people go. If they aren't good for your brain, don't keep them around.

- I woke up to my dog barking at a moose outside of the cabin window at 5 in the morning. During this confusing time, we also saw the sun rise.

- I took photographs upon photographs

- Jumped in a cold pool of collected water from rain in a natural outdoor pool.

- I thought many times again and again how lucky I am to live this life I'm living.

The countdown: 5 days until departure to Indonesia.

the land of w's.

This place always makes me missing. I took a little trip up to the mountain house my family has outside of Lander. It's right in the middle of fields of wildflowers, limestone cliffs, aspen groves and a baby river.

Grief is a process. Cliche- yes, I know. But there isn't a time limit on how/when time will feel like it's different but it's okay. If nothing else, my short time here in this place has assured me that the wind is at my back, I have a crowd on the sidelines, and I'm headed in the right direction. So that great overwhelming sense of missing I feel? It's okay. I let it come and sit it down, know that it's valid and honest, and then let it go. The mountain house is so, so special to me for a lot of reasons. And honestly, it's a place I crave when I am in the deep midst of grieving and missing. So I was so excited to share it with two ladies- Paige and Kara. These two keep me laughing so hard my stomach hurts. We ate good food, played music, did a puzzle, explored, took photos, laughed, watched the constellation move through the night and had a really, really good time relaxing.

I think next time I go up to the mountain house will be a solo trip. I want to listen to some good jazz music, dance with my puppy, run as fast as I can through the wildflower fields and feel the roots of the aspens underneath my back. Life is so, so fast. I want to take all the pictures I can to capture how beautiful I think it is.

it comes and goes in waves.

Someone asked me tonight where I was from: someone sitting next to me leaned over and said, "she's transient."

I like belonging to nowhere, to no one. Maybe one day I will, but for right now, I realize that I have missed being a part of something inconsistent and wild.

finally

So I got in my car and left Laramie. Finally.

I've only been waiting for this moment for days and weeks. I packed my car full of good things like a climbing rope, a tent, guitar, two backpacks full of clothing for any type of weather I choose to encounter and let the pup sit in the front seat. The day before I left, we had some incredible and talented couchsurfers stay with us (www.couchsurfing.com) that sang jazz like it was straight from New Orleans. I went on a goodbye bike ride with one of my favorite ladies, and we rode through deep water with our bikes through the flooded Laramie river. We were winding around the typical bike loop when we saw two foxes. Foxes are good luck signs, so we were thrilled since both of us were about ready to do things that are extremely important to our places in the world.

I went up to one of my favorite places in the entire world yesterday. I walked through fields of wildflowers at 10,000 ft with the mountains close behind me. I had to take a couple moments a few times to catch my breath and hold my tears back. The amount of peace in this place is a little overwhelming. There are days that my trip to Indonesia feels way bigger than anything I can handle, and while I was there, I felt on top of it. I felt under control, I felt like I knew what I was doing and no matter what anyone told me, I could sort it out. All this expedition planning made me miss my uncle. And being in this place, doing what I love, searching for problems to solve, chasing sun, shooting photos, being able to witness wholehearted love, all of it settles that missing. The overwhelming sense of belonging in this exact place at this exact moment, was way more comforting and relieving than I ever thought possible. So I am keeping it with me and holding on to it.

So here I am, traveling as I have wanted to do for ages. I've been sleeping by myself in a tent, on couches, on floors, in parks and in yards. Is it as glamorous as I thought?

abso-freaking-lutely.

I needed a transient lifestyle to put things back in perspective..to save money, to live minimally, to feel like this is enough for my mind. I wanted to eat apples and Clif Bars for lunch, to live out of two backpacks and only have 6 choices of shirts for weeks. To me, this makes the most sense out of anything. So I have come to this conclusion:

What I am doing right now, the way I am living, might be selfish, yes. It might be crazy to some people, yes. But the absolute fulfillment and happiness that it breeds makes me able to contribute to society fully and in a wholesome way. And when you are doing things that make you come alive, its beautiful.