i did something scary yesterday🚣👀
notes from real life in the northwoods
This week, I went for my first run in over a year this week. I went whitewater kayaking for the first time ever too. I published a story I really loved working on— so go the wins from life lately.
Still, I can feel that thick anxiety settle in with the early dark and bare trees. More often than not I find my heart beating in my throat. November and December are often the hardest time of the year for me. This year it hasn’t been so bad, but the creeping anxiety is still there.
notes from life in the northwoods lately:
I live at the far Northern edge of the Wisconsin Northwoods before they bled into Lake Superior and I love it here. It’s just a forty or so minute drive to where we put in to paddle the islands and surf. Soon, we’ll be able to spend evenings Nordic skiing. It’s about an hour to Ironwood, Michigan and the cascades throughout the forest there. The town we live in has a movie theater and cute coffee shops and is super walkable. It’s the first time we’ve lived in a house and not an apartment and there’s just so much space. It’s finally starting to feel like home.
I’ve started to work on my Christmas gifts for everyone! One of my favorite things in the world is giving gifts and wrapping presents. In case you missed it, check out my holiday gift guide for midwest adventure lovers here.
I went whitewater kayaking for the first time! I come from six or so years of objectively extensive experience in a sea kayak but I was still really nervous about going. Turns out, I didn’t need to be. It was way more fun and less scary than I expected and a lot of the skills were super transferable and I actually felt pretty confident the whole time and felt like I had pretty good control over the boat which was super validating. It was a super light whitewater experience with small rapids but it was still a really great place to start and I would try it again. (I did, along the way sprain my thumb doing something stupid so I do feel a little ridiculous in that department but win some lose some).
We also checked out some new-to-us spots in the UP. The beautiful thing about where we live is we’re both an hour from Duluth, MN and the North Shore and from Ironwood, Michigan, and the Upper Peninsula. Last weekend we explored Black River Falls Scenic Area and it was super cool. My favorite waterfall here was Sandstone Falls. I’m really partial to waterfalls you can stand below and look up at, falls that feel a little more… interactive, I guess, even if they are smaller.
On that note, I’m working on expanding my resources on adventures in the UP :) I’ve got super extensive outdoor resources for midwest adventurers on my blog. Summer 2024, my goal was to expand in resources for Southern Wisconsin and the Southern Midwest. In 2025, I’m hoping to flesh out more in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
I went two full days without leaving the house this week. I get a lot that my life looks perfect, and it must be wonderful to have adventures all the time. And don’t get me wrong, I am truly so happy with my life right now and have been so lucky in my access to the outdoors. But my life is also very normal in a lot of ways. Both of the adventures above were on Saturdays. I work a remote job (which I am so grateful for and do love) 40 hours a week, and by the time I’m done it’s dark out. I get out and try and do one big adventure every Saturday, and mostly spend Sundays doing housekeeping tasks (and this. I’m writing this from my couch, sink full of dishes, floor dirty from hauling in paddling gear last night, knowing that I’ll get to all that later because ultimately writing is more important to me than a perfectly clean house).
I’ll be travelling for a little while starting next week! This will be my one big trip before I settle into the winter for the foreseeable future. I’ve got kind of a love-hate relationship with travel. On one hand, I love going new places and seeing new things. On the other, it can be really exhausting and I love being home for a long enough stretch of time to feel settled, which we really haven’t had yet in our new place. It feels like home, sure, but I still don’t feel fully settled into a routine here.
I am so sore from paddling yesterday. Sprained thumb aside (okay so I was indeed portaging a rapid and got my thumb stuck in the cockpit combing which is a silly, silly spot for a figure to be and I went to put the boat down and slipped and dropped the boat and it bent my thumb back toward me and can i just say ow. still hurts to type but we’re pushing through), I am so out of shape. It’s wild how quickly that happens— end of September I could pretty easily tackle 20+ mile days in a kayak and 12-15 miles backpacking, two months of deeply decreased activity later and I am wrecked from one measly portage.
I hope you have, are having, a great Sunday! I’ll be spending the rest of the day coaxing myself off the couch to do some chores and maybe making a bakery run at some point. Wishing you a great rest of your weekend, a relaxing sunday, and a good monday,
Maddy
I smiled reading this today. As a long time sea kayaker doing some small amount of whitewater is really interesting and different. We did a crossover with our kayak club where us sea types took the whitewater crowd out to the Washington coast and shared our playground with them, then they took us on a class 3-4 river to show us their world.
It was such an interesting juxtaposition from one discipline to the other. The sea kayak types found the river invigorating but frightening in ways due to the current never relenting. And the WW types found the continually changing ocean conditions a little baffling.
Thanks for sharing!
I hope it was a good run too!