Washington

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Back in the USA
I am back in America for the first time in about a year and a half. It was a rough flight back, I don’t believe anyone should have to be on a flight for 16 hours straight, and that was just one of my three flights! However I made it back and stayed at my parent’s house for 2 months finishing up my thesis before moving up to Alaska. It was good to be back and also very strange to be back. I had to readjust my driving a bit. I guess I got quite aggressive driving in Africa as well as accustomed to shifting with my left hand. It was great to be home and see my friends but I did spend most of my days chained to my computer working on my thesis which I submitted to the external examiner on June 1st. The process is different in Africa and my thesis will come back to me with comments as well as the score the examiner believes I should receive if I revise it according to their comments. I should get it back around September and then will make the revisions and turn it into the internal examiner. Aside from working on my thesis I developed a new found love for biking. I logged a couple hundred miles of biking around the island, to and from my yoga and zumba classes as well as some day rides with my mom. I love biking. I always thought it was something I would like but I never stuck with it. I didn’t know the key to my biking joy would be found in a soft, cushy, amazing seat my mom found on an abandoned Huffy. Most of the photos on this blog are from random bike trips, I don’t think they are ordered but you can see a progression from our first bike trip, 10 miles, where we zip-tied soft lunch boxes to the fronts of our bikes to our latter rides that reached 40 miles where we have bike gloves, seat packs and lets face it, look much cooler. There are also some photos from the week my sister came down and our family spent time together for the first time in almost 2 years. We had a blast out on the river and at picnics with our extended family. Finally the last set of photos is from a camping trip my parents and I took right before I left for Alaska. Mom, Dad and I had a great time camping at Fish Creek outside of Leavenworth. We biked, hiked and just hung out around the campfire. We did have one terrible day of rain which is not much fun, but mom and I got stubborn and went for a bike ride anyways. We also went on a hike that was supposed to be an easy day hike that even Mocha and Dad could handle. But after many hours of vertical switchbacks we finally had to turn around. The map was very misleading but we had a great time laughing about it anyways. Not only did Dad and Mocha make it but Mocha seemed to be reenergized by this hike. The old dog still seems to have life in her yet! Overall I loved being home with my family and had a great time exploring some new bike trails!

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