The Epic Journey

Last winter we went dog sledding... It was a two hour, eighteen kilometre trip.

We loved it.

Hearing about our adventures... My mother-in-law mentioned how it had been a lifelong dream of hers... So again, when they found themselves on our coast for a visit, we took them up to Whistler for our second experience.

They loved it.

We found though that the second time, although still enjoyable... was no longer enough for us. It was a little too touristy, a lot too quick... So we vowed that the next time we'd go, it had to qualify as epic.

No three hour tour. No down the path and back.

Truly epic.

So we originally thought that we'd go while in Iceland on the first leg of our upcoming journey. There was a nine hour one we read about briefly... We thought that sounded a little better. Nine hours in Iceland could possibly qualify...

Until I stumbled across a website for Norway.

I looked at it. I considered it. I figured i'd file it away.

Maybe next time we go... We can make it an anniversary present or something... Not this trip, but sometime in the future...


Then I was foolish (or perhaps wise) enough to send my wife the link...


My hesitation started changing pretty quickly.


She found one that started in the north of Norway... the far north... practically the edge of the world. If I wasn't pretty damn sure the Earth is round, i'd be sure we'd fall off going that far north.


Just to give you an idea:



View Larger Map


You can't get much farther north than that.


I've always wanted to go to the north of Norway. From what we've seen, it's probably one of the most amazing, stunningly beautiful places on Earth.


So now, after some brief convincing me on Beth's part... It looks like we're going to fly up to the far north just after New Year's... and head out on a four day dog sledding adventure.


If that's not epic... Epic doesn't exist.


Really, for us, it's the perfect time to do it. Who knows what life changes we'll find ourselves with in the next year or two... So, as I've mostly done for the last fifteen years... We're going to live for the now... and go have the adventure while it's there.


Take a little more setting everything up before it's confirmed... but I'm sold on it.


This trip is forming up nicely.

(and the count is at 24 more shifts... in case you were wondering)

The Countdown

One morning I was feeling a little bored... This is an unusual thing, I rarely feel bored. Yet this one morning, things were very slow. Time was moving at half speed (which it never does when it should). So I started thinking about the trip.

A quick calculation later and suddenly I had a solid tangible countdown going on. Not days total, rather days of work left before Iceland.

The problem with this, I quickly realized, was that the count was freaking long. At that point I had 94 shifts to work.

94!

23.5 weeks.

Probably a little early to start my count.

So each day, when I got in to work, I'd knock another notch off the countdown. The same way a prisoner marks down, day after day, ticks on the cell wall to count the days.

Today though, I'm happy to say the count is actually at a reasonable number.

30.

The home stretch.

Just over 7 weeks until our next adventure begins.

Am I looking forward to it? Do ya think?