Okay then, it’s 2019 already. For those of you who might still be around on the blog and following on YouTube, I am still around. Everyone following along on Facebook and Instagram, you have seen that I have had A LOT going on this year.
I was able to get out for some good snowshoeing early last year, then a couple more hikes in the spring. Unfortunately, that’s where my dirt walking ended.
In April I got the opportunity to take on some new responsibilities at work that required me to travel a good amount. I spent a little over 2 weeks in Florida during April, then a week in New Hampshire in May. June I got to stay home, but had a lot of tasks that ate up most of the month. In July I spent a little over a week in Wisconsin, then August sent me to Mississippi for 11 days.
Record rainfall pretty much wiped out any days off that I wanted to spend on the trails.
Not only that, but starting in April we began the process of building a new home in Urbana (about 20 minutes north of Cedar Rapids). We moved in with the father-in-law in June, sold the house in July, and monitored the build processes on a regular basis. I have to give a huge thank you to Scott Lown of Building Concepts for building us a great home for my family in a short amount of time. He broke ground in August, and we moved in the last day of November. If you’re looking for a great quality builder in the Center Point- Urbana area, I couldn’t recommend him more!
Now that we are finally moved in, the holidays are over, and I finished setting up the basement to be a solid work space; I can finally get back to focusing on getting content out again. The backlog isn’t huge, so I should be able to buckle down and get some editing done and get caught up. I guess a positive with not getting out hiking is that the backlog didn’t increase during the editing hiatus. The newest thing I set up is a video recording area where I plan on doing some various discussions on how I plan for things, as well as some gear reviews. Although I’m undecided on the gear reviews. I don’t have the funds to always have the latest items released, or the high-end ones for that manner. So we’ll see where that leads.
As usual I put together a rough plan of hikes that is quite ambitious. After all, I have to try to make up for my immensely lackluster 2018. I’m really hoping for some good snow soon so I can start out the year with some quality snowshoeing again, rather than just some cold, concrete-like, frozen ground walking.
In closing, for all of you that have stuck around; thank you! Here’s to more fresh air in 2019!
The Iowa Hiker 