I am an outdoor adventure junkie

Hi, my name is Loopy, and I'm an outdoor adventure junkie.

If there was a support group for this, I would definitely be in it, and this would always be my opening line.  I love outdoor adventures.  LOVE.  Ever since I was a kid, about age 11, I have loved all things outdoors- camping, paddling, hiking, swimming in rivers, walking through creeks, rapelling, caving... these are things I love to do.  It all started with a church trip that let kids ages 11-13 do all of these things in East Tennessee/Western North Carolina.  I fell in love with all these things immediately, and the affair has been going strong ever since.

Unfortunately, being the southern female that I am, my opportunities to do these things and try cold-season outdoor activities was limited.  As I got older, I did get to do some other things- in high school I got to do a multi-day hiking trip in Colorado

Freshman year of high school... so fall 1998.  My parents and the Ralph's took ALL these kids (checked us out of school for two days), plus a few college kids that met us there, to the Ocoee for the weekend.  I have the best parents EVER.

My first trip to Colorado, summer 1999.  Fell in love, haven't stopped since.  Still trying to make a life there, but my road just hasn't ended there yet.

 (my first trip out there, and the beginning of another love affair, and a story for a different post), some kayaking in high school and more in college, and then I started playing competitive ultimate frisbee in college, and all my time spent outside was on a frisbee field.  My love for all things outdoors continued though, and I've had the super awkward tan lines over the years to prove it.  I was lucky enough to have parents that would check me, my brother, and our friends out of school so we could go camping and rafting at the Ocoee during high school, and friends that would take me to do things with the patience to deal with me as I tried new things.  Moving to Wyoming opened up an entire other world of outdoor activities- Rocky Mountain hiking, some snow shoeing, winter hiking, and cross country skiing a few times (something I am NOT very good at but enjoy nonetheless).  All these experiences did was feed my junkie habit for outdoor adventure.

My second attempt at cross country skiing... this is me standing in the hole I made because I didn't know how to stop.  Or slow down.  Or turn.

And then I discovered Banff.  Banff is an outdoor adventure film festival held in none other than Banff, Canada.  I got my first opportunity to see these amazing films when I worked at National Geographic as an intern- I think I volunteered to work four of the five nights it was playing.  It was AMAZING, even though some were super odd, some were a little too artsy, and some made me think "Y'all are just STUPID."  But then there were the ones that I fell in love with, like this one, called Eastern Rising.

Or this one, called "A Life Ascending.

These are great, and were just fun to watch.  Since then, I haven't gotten a chance to see any Banff films due to life, until this year in Austin.  It was awesome.  These movies again, can be odd and a little overly artsy, but they're SO good, and really give an idea of what is possible if you have a love for the outdoors and are willing to try new things.  I personally will probably never be able to do most of the things these films show, but it feeds my need to try new things, push my personal boundaries, and the need and drive to keep traveling and see more of what the world has to offer- not just cities, but the natural beauty specifically.

So, whatever drives your need for travel and adventure, embrace it.  Watch films, get outside, and be happy about it.  It's great, and sometimes, there's free smartwool socks involved.

Austin Banff program and FREE SOCKS.  There's very few things that are better than new socks.  Except when they're free and Smartwools.

Happy vagabond-ing :)

Here I go again

I sometimes think I'm a writer.  I know I can write for academics- I can churn and BS my way through a 15 page paper like no other- and then I remember that I'm not writing an academic paper.  This is supposed to be fun writing, something that I'm proud of and wouldn't care if other people saw.
I started blogging back in my early 20s, when many of my friends started to become scattered around the South (and the US).  It was a way for me to keep up with them and for them to keep up with me.  I was traveling a lot, playing too much ultimate, and living life.  Then after college happened, and life started to take on a monotony that I didn't think others would find that interesting, so I started blogging less and less, until eventually I would go months or a year between postings.  I would find some inspiration when exciting things happend-like moving to Wyoming- and then I'd think "I'm writing about the same things" or "I don't think people are really that interested."  So I'd stop again, and now it's been nearly a year and a half since my last blogging session.  Then the other day I realized something.
I want to write.  I don't necessarily care if others find me interesting.  I think my life and my stories are interesting.  I want to have an outlet for my adventures and ideas, musings, and random thoughts.  So here I go again.

The other day, after posting to facebook that I was in Tampa, a very good friend of mine commented "Do you ever stay in one part of the country[?]"  My answer was simple.  Never.  I don't like to stay in one place too terribly long, whether it be traveling for fun, for ultimate, to visit friends, or because life dictates that I pack up all my worldly belongings and start over again somewhere else.  The world is too big and there are too many things to see to stay in one place too long.  The last place I lived for more than two years was Atlanta, and I left there in the summer of 2010.  Since then:
Laramie (Address 1): August 2010- mid-January 2011
DC: mid-January 2011- end of April 2011
back to Atlanta (but different address than before): May 2011- mid-August 2011
Laramie (Address 1): mid-August 2011- early-January 2012
Laramie (Address 2): January 2012-July 2012
Laramie (Address 3): August 2012- mid-December 2012
Dyersburg, TN: mid-December 2012- mid-July 2013
San Marcos, TX: mid-July 2013-May 2014

Now I'm preparing to sign a 15 month lease to head back to DC as part of my PhD program, and I am so excited.  I get to live in DC, actually live there, for an entire year, making enough money to live on (poorly, but live on), for everything it has to offer all year long.  There experiences and opportunities I'll get are beyond thinking about.  And with that comes more traveling- outside of my normal random things.  I've lived there before, working at the same place, but this time is different.  So here I go again.

On a parting note, I told my friend Annie that she didn't have to envite me to Atlanta events anymore, since it had been so long since I lived there.  Her response was "I never know when you're going to pop up".  Good.  Let's keep it that way- always guessing where I'm going to be next.

Happy vagabond-ing :)

#vagabondlife

So, I'm one of those people that is still learning the art of hashtagging, but I felt that this was a good way to get started, with blogging (again) and with keeping up with what I'm doing in my life.  This blog will be where I keep track of my travels, adventures, thoughts, and life in general.  Check back periodically for updates, new stories, rambling thoughts, pictures of my #vagabondlife, and whatever else strikes my fancy.

Happy vagabond-ing :)