November 13th, 2020
Yes. We’re still here, just California dreamin’. It’s mid-November, and Kent and I remain stateside for what has been our longest stay ever. That’s individually – and cumulatively – in nearly a decade. This year certainly took a turn!
Back at the beginning of the pandemic, I wrote about how getting stuck in California was a blessing in disguise. Shortly thereafter, I wrote about how we coped when the pandemic caught up to us. Six months later, another life update seems overdue (and overly long – we have much to catch up on!).
Although we’ve continued our California dreamin’, little else has remained the same. In the second half of 2020, Kent and I have:
(1) changed jobs (and job fields) and returned to school,
(2) explored within a radius determined by the pandemic conditions, and
(3) switched our fitness focus (!).
If you didn’t notice, I’ve also been (slowly) getting some stuff done on the blog as well! 🙂 Here’s the full scoop on all of the above:
Working hard while hardly working
We taught our Chinese high school students online until our annual contracts expired in June. With the prospects of international students attending university overseas looking bleak, our school’s enrollment numbers plummeted. Our contract on our Qingdao apartment expired next, and a kind friend helped us ship our stuff to the US. It was an abrupt ending to strange chapter in our lives.
I was initially glad to have avoided the initial virus panic and winter pollution in China. But then I realized we’d never be going back to Qingdao. It hit me hard that we’d never again go for vegan brunch with friends or run on our favorite mountain Fushan. It can be tough not to have closure.
But we’re never without a plan! Long before the pandemic, I wanted to move to the Middle East in 2020. Eager to gain experience in a new land, there we’d also be set up for success on our main goal for 2020: a triumphant return to Oman by UTMB!
But, of course, that race – like so many others – was cancelled. Unlike 2019, 2020 was not going to be the year of the race.
Nor was 2020 the year we moved to the Middle East. Changes to the visa process and to our job offer were far from ideal. And without a race there to work towards, our motivation flagged.
So what did we do? We took a vacation. In June, Kent and I said goodbye to our former students, unplugged our laptops, and set off on a road trip (full time California dreamin’)! That trip would, in its turn, also be abbreviated by circumstances beyond our control. But that’s a story for the next section.
By July, it seemed like things were looking up in many parts of the world! I resumed the job search. There were lots of promising leads, followed by frustrating dead ends. Every time it seemed like something was going to work out, there were school closures or new visa rules that halted our progress.
But I had other avenues for my energy.
First of all, Kent and I had new, interim, online work. After many years of teaching, we tried out some office work – sans office! Who would have thought that I could be a virtual assistant – or that Kent would be a remote data engineer? It was a refreshing change of pace.
Plus, our employment funded a project we’d talked about for years: returning to school. We’re currently on course to become certified teachers in 2021! Classes and assignments for our program have certainly kept us busy as well.
It might seem like we’re settling in here and living the California dream on a more permanent basis. It’s true that we’ve been enjoying our domestic adventures, time with family and opportunities to challenge ourselves. But I’ve also got extremely itchy feet and can’t wait to get back out there into the world! To that end, I may have an announcement to make sometime in the near future…
Weekends are for wandering
In the latter half of 2020, we couldn’t adventure quite as freely as we could our early days of living in the US. Regularly scheduled work hours and school assignments had to take precedence over playtime. But being limited to weekends has never stopped Kent and I from having big adventures before!
This year, most of our fun has been close to home. During the worst of the pandemic, we ran ultras in our community forest and raced each other on local beaches. Packing snacks and a sleeping bag, we’d take our trusty adventure mobile on self-contained adventures in the people-less wilds of NorCal.
But come June, we set out on what was to be 2020’s big adventure. As the virus came under control in our area, I crafted a plan to explore a bit further afield. In a few weeks, we could visit a bunch of national parks in the Southwestern US and visit family: a California dream trip!
But we called off our trip before it had barely begun. We’d only been on the road a few days when the news took a turn for the alarming – again.
Coronavirus cases were peaking across the area we planned to visit. A surge in the virus was accompanied by a surge in domestic travel: millions of other Americans on summer vacation seemed to have the same ideas we did.
After months of feeling cooped up and weeks of planning, turning back was deflating. But while we didn’t get to explore as widely as we wanted, we also didn’t get sick. Neither did anyone in our families.
After the foreshortened trip, we settled in back in our new home for a somewhat unusual indoor summer of work and school commitments. But we were just as committed to making every weekend awesome! I have a great many new posts to write about those, so here I’ll simply say that having a play day once a week through the summer kept me sane and satisfied.
In October, conditions were such that Kent and I ventured out on another mini road trip – albeit this time much more circumspect. We visited our little niece for her birthday and then performed house/plant/cat sitting duties for her parents.
Of course, we couldn’t simply stay inside: SoCal is a completely different world to NorCal, ripe for exploration! We picked weekdays and off-peak hours to play in nearby parks and state wildernesses and had the kind of amazing adventures we always do.
Less enduring; still epic!
Realizing that 2020 was not going to be structured around races, we completely changed focus.
I almost signed us up for a virtual Mt. Fuji marathon, but in the end, we did not pivot to online events.
The forced recess from organized events had the entire running community re-evaluating racing, myself included. What I learned: I do like making connections – but I’m just not a hyper-social creature by nature. It’s thrilling to do well – but I’m no prodigy, and my competitive streak seems strongest during family game nights. But what I love most about racing is the opportunity to have new adventures in new places.
As it turned out, I had new adventures in spades right at my doorstep this year, even without racing! Kent’s parents moved since our last visit, so we had brand new turf to play on. After running essentially every trail in Humboldt County, we had a whole state of trails waiting: dazzling in their beauty and variety! As far as trail running is concerned, California really is a dream.
Kent and I ran several just-for-fun ultras this summer. With nothing to train for, running was just pure, personal pleasure. It felt just right.
However, unlike other times when I’ve been off of a regular training plan, I didn’t ramp up my mileage by running every single day or seeking personal bests. In fact, I scaled back significantly. For the past three months, I’ve been running just twice a week!
That’s because I’ve been putting my energy into building up strength and finding balance in my body. I’ve been bodybuilding!
This topic definitely deserves it’s own article in the near future. But I’ll say this: at the start of my new program, I just wanted to be a better runner. As weeks turned to months, I fell in love. I did not know that becoming proficient in push-ups could be so rewarding, but it is!
In previous years, I often named a race as most epic of the year. But things might be different this year…
Peaks and Penguins Progress
Progress has admittedly been in fits and starts this year. But I’m continuing to pour my passion into this blog whenever I can.
This summer, for example, was a busy time on Peaks and Penguins. I finally managed to catch up on all of my 120 summits mountain articles: an incredibly fun trip down memory lane!
Speaking of summits, please check out the 120 summits homepage (or the national parks or provincial parks homepages) to witness a little redesign! I’m stoked because it’s beautiful – and provides easier access to all of the mountain articles I worked hard on!
It’s also the first glimpse at the new and improved version of Peaks and Penguins that has been taking shape behind the scenes. Data and design are finally going to get the attention they deserve on this blog!
Many folks come here because they googled the name of a Korean mountain they want to hike. Some folks just check out the article they came for and leave. Some friends subscribe and stay. Just sometimes – my favorite – someone asks me a question! I’d like more of all of the above in the future, so I’m working on making this site better and better.
So it’s an exciting time on the blog, not least because I have a whole bevvy of adventure stories to tell from the past few months! Prepare for more American content in the form of parks and other play dates in the very near future!
Finally, I’d like to share that been contributing elsewhere too – most notably to Asia Trail Girls. Started by extraordinary runner, friend and 2019 Asia Trail Master Veronika Vadovicova, this website is a great resource for the Eastern hemisphere trail community. I recently created an exclusive trail guide to South Korea that I’m really proud of – please check it out, and stick around for lots of other great reads as well.
And that’s where I’ll end this update, lest it turn into the year in review before the year is over! I hope wherever you are today and whatever you’re doing, that you’re safe and secure. Remember to find little moments of joy right where and when you are, even as you plan for a brighter tomorrow. Please don’t forget that your health is your wealth, and safeguard it appropriately. Thanks for joining me on the adventure called life, folks!
