Rooted in the East Coast Psych

I moved out west once.  It was awesome.  I wanted it to be my life.  Colorado.  Real mountains.  Countless bluebird days.  Snowboarding, hiking, climbing, mountain biking, and then all the adventure I had read about but hadn't even tried yet.  Natures' vast and seemingly endless playground at my doorstep.

But it wasn't my life.  I felt like I was on some weird vacation, but with way more "real" going on.  I learned an important and defining lesson.  I had branched out too far.  I am a person of my roots, turns out.  

These roots. 

Luckily, upon my return to Connecticut, I  found this.  

 Which lead to this.

Then this...

Soon after, this...

And now...this.

So here we are.  Surviving as adventure-seeking, rock-climbing, mountain-biking, ski-bumming, mountain lovers.  In Connecticut.

"Get the days" is a term a friend and I coined a while back (a friend that has endured several adventures with us).  Here in CT, you truly have to "get the days".  They are not handed to you sunshine-y, dry and temperate.  "The days" here are whatever you can gear up against, scramble out the door after and grab on to as they change quickly from one season to the next, sometimes within hours.  And you have to be ready to make a lot outta not that much.

Exhibit A - Me on not much

We complain.  I won't lie.  In winter we dream of consistent snowfall, powder days and crisp air.  In summer we dream of moderate temps, dry heat and far less bugs.  In Fall, we dream...well...just that it would last longer.  

CT makes you work.  It makes you seek and find.  It makes you research, hypothesize, plan.  It makes you gear up, gear down and pack like you're gunning for an award.

CT makes you try hard.  We get tired of top roping and finally sack up to lead trad, because, that's what there is in CT.  We learn to love our rocky, root-y, technical mountain biking terrain.  We ski anywhere, anything really, to be able to earn our turns.  

Difficult to choose a line in such pristine conditions.

What I have learned, while being rooted to CT, is that our love for the outdoors only grows stronger.  We stay determined to adapt, modify, and "get the days".  The days we make happen because we want it, because we have to get out there, because now we have a family that deserves as many of those days as possible.

In this blog, I hope to shine some light on our little east coast psych, on our family-style adventures, on the community that shapes our "normal" and on the success and failure met when you live to "get the days".