Where do you live anyway?

I thought I would get the ball rolling on this blog with a little bit about where I live now.  I live in the city of Pullman, WA.  It plays host to Washington State University and is only 8 miles away from Moscow, ID, which plays host to the University of Idaho.  Both universities are the land-grant universities for their respective states.  Pullman is located in Southeastern Washington, right next to the Idaho border.  The area that I live in is affectionately referred to by all that live here as the Palouse.  The Palouse is named after the river that flows through here and it is characterized by a lot of rolling wheat fields with a couple very small "mountains" popping up every now and then.  Right now, the fields are either just dirt or slightly green with the small winter wheat that some farmers planted back in the fall.  I am very excited about seeing the fields in May when the wheat is much taller and starts turning all the fields yellow.  Spokane is 1.5 hours north and Seattle is about a 5 hour drive from here.  I can get to some good mountains in about an hour in most directions, I can get to the desert in two hours, Mount Ranier in four, and the Pacific Ocean in five.  There is a lot going on here, which will hopefully make for an interesting blog.

For some perspective, here are some maps to give you an idea of where I am relative to most of my readers.

As you can see from the map above, I am at about the same latitude as Sault St. Marie.

As you can see from the satellite picture, I am surrounded by quite a bit of farm land (actually, just outside my back window is a very large wheat field- but I will save those pictures for another post), but the terrain also starts to change a lot immediately south and east (and north) of me.  I also have a ton of hills here in town, which actually make commuting to school by bike harder than anywhere that I have ever lived before.  And it brings a very literal meaning to the joke about going uphill both ways.

I hope this helps you all get a better picture of where I am.  Of course, future posts will only help that even further.

Welcome to More!

Thanks for making the leap with me from Life on a Bike to Not Just Life on a Bike.  Any observant person would notice that my last blog post was over 2 years ago.  For anybody that knows me enough to be reading this blog, I don't need to tell you about all the drastic life changes I've had in only these past 24 months.  And you probably already know that I stopped writing for a reason, and that is because I stopped riding.  I stopped being interested in riding bikes and I especially started disliking racing.  Just a couple months after that last post, I dropped out of a race midway and called it quits for good.  I have done a few races here and there since then, but nothing too serious.  I have been gradually getting back into mountain biking, but the trick has been to make sure there is nothing serious about it.  No 4, 5, or 6 hour trainer rides in the winter.  No log recording every detail of every day.  I don't even know how fast I have gone or how far I have gone on any bike ride anymore because I got rid of my bike computer.  So now it is just fun.  And that is why this blog won't just be about biking and training.  This blog is going to actually be about life.  It took me longer than it should have to figure out that life can be even more awesome than it was when I am not focusing all of my time and energy on riding a bike every single day.  I figured out there are so many fun things to do out there.  I realized it too late to take advantage and fully enjoy the great opportunity of living in Montana.  I will not repeat that mistake and my life in Washington is going to always be an adventure.

This post has gotten a little more philosophical than I intended, but I think I am going to continue with that for just a little bit longer.  I was a whiny pain in the ass when I lived in Montana.  I took for granted one of the most amazing places I could have lived on this planet.  I have taken a lot for granted in my life, and getting older is helping me to realize that.  Life doesn't have to be about riding a bike everyday.  It doesn't have to be about perfect weather every time I want it.  It doesn't have to be about sports teams winning or losing.  It doesn't have to be about any one thing or just a couple things.  It doesn't need to be about anything except enjoying it to its fullest.  My plan for living in Washington and anywhere else I end up from now on is to make sure I see the awesome beauty and amazing opportunities that surround me no matter where I am (a plan which has been working so far for the past 6 months).  I don't think I was mature enough or ready to move to Montana.  Moving back to Michigan was a knee-jerk reaction that I did not think through at all.  Moving to Washington, though, was both thought out for a long period of time and was met with a more mature me.  There are decisions I wish I had not made in the last two years.  But now that I have figured so much out, and now that I am finding myself actually completely happy with where I am for the first time since August 9, 2009, I know that the experiences of the past two years have been invaluable to my maturation and to shaping me into who I am right now and hopefully to continue helping me grow even more.

I really hope I will keep up with the blog this time.  I have had so many adventures so far, and I have so many planned in the near future.  Scratch that, so many planned in the future.  And I have pictures.  And hopefully this blog will motivate me to take more pictures.  From grizzly bears to hockey to gardening to hunting, get excited to get caught up with what's been going on here and what is to come.

Thanks again for visiting.  Its gonna be a fun ride!