Lake Superior Day Trip☀️
on routine as someone who travels for work + a quick island adventure
Coming home feels like a crash landing.
I’d left the house messy, the disarray our lives slip into as the summer wears on splayed across the dining room. A sleeping pad hangs on the drying rack. Andy is repairing gear on the dining room table. There’s a duffle of my paddling gear outside the laundry room, unmoved from where I left it two weeks ago.
I shouldn’t have been surprised to return to it messy still. My bags are still only half unpacked even now, half ready for the next trip — what’s the point in unpacking and cleaning if I’m going straight back out into the woods? I’ve since cleaned, I’ve done my best to catch up on work.
I have 276 unread texts. I don’t know how that happens. I have about 30 unread Instagram messages, and 15 emails that need replies and a handful of Substack messages now too. I have half a postcard for my little sister written on my desk.
I will not speak of the laundry situation, but rest assured it’s bad.
In all of this, I’ve spent the last few days trying to pull my life at home back in order after a two-week trip through Canada, concluding with six days of challenging backpacking in Killarney Provincial Park and I’m tired and feel like I’m falling behind.
Backpacking was wonderful and challenging and just plain hard in a way that felt really good but also left me exhausted. Now that I’m home and struggling to catch up on the less glamorous parts of my work as an outdoor creator and writer before my next commitment. I work for myself; my boss has terrible boundaries.
La Cloche Silhouette Trail (in case you missed it :)
In case you missed it, I just got back from a challenging six day backpacking trip through the Ontario Wilderness. It involved technical scrambles, great swimming, and gorgeous campsites. You can read all about it here or watch a quick recap below:
Day Trips from home
It is unspeakably wonderful that I live in a place where I can spend an afternoon in the Apostle Islands and be home in bed by the evening.
I’m trying to make time to do things just for fun this summer, get outside and enjoy in a way that isn’t work related. Yesterday, a friend and I went for an afternoon paddle out to York Island on Lake Superior for an afternoon swim.
The water is clear, still and still pretty cold, but it felt pretty good to be on an island beach on Lake Superior on a Wednesday. Can’t complain too much at all.
Someone once called this scene, Lake Superior on Prozac