LOL.

Rather than content ourselves with the wonders of home, we headed to Iceland. Yeah. That Iceland. Iceland was supposed to have been the second part of the Fire and Ice Tour to celebrate our 25 wedding anniversary. However, Fiji filled our adventure cup for that year and we postponed Iceland. Plus, if we delayed until 2025 we could take Clara and Henry for their college and high school graduation trips. And thankfully, there's a direct flight from Seattle to Reykjavik so we'd watch the sun set over the North Cascades and wake up in the land of the ice and snow.

PSYCH!

But first, Greenland! (You know, that part of Denmark that's part of the European Union? Our #@$^&#@ allies? Keep that in mind. And remember how well appeasement worked last time.) Gorgeous mountains along the east coast with glaciers spilling into the North Atlantic. (Hmm... "North Atlantic..." Why does that sound familiar? Oh, yeah. NATO. Again: They are our @#$%@%^#$@ allies!)

And suddenly we were over Iceland. But no ice. And no snow. But there was smoke. And fire. And a VOLCANO actively erupting! We were only there for a week, but we did all the (south coast) things. We toured the Reykjanes Peninsula, got up close and personal with the Sundhnúkur volcano, and took a dip in the Blue Lagoon. And that was just the day we landed. (We don't vacation; we adventure!) We also visited Reykjavik, and did the touristy Golden Circle, visited puffins and climbed the Eldheimar volcano on Vestmannaeyjabær, hiked the Fimmvorduhals trail, visited black sand beaches, and saw so many waterfalls and yarn shops. We did a lot, but left assured we'd be back.

We got home and I couldn't sleep because my body thought maybe it was in Europe or on the moon or something. So surprise, surprise Tink and I visited the trees that were so absent in Iceland. Once our clocks had adjusted we would surely stay local, right?

Nah. Mr. HOS and I headed south to tag Middle Sister as part of my damn fool crusade to climb all the Cascades volcanoes. It was hot and difficult, but it reminded us we can do hard things.

Home for a couple of weeks and then back on the road, but this time to the east. I fished the Missouri River with dear old Dad. If you're thinking the Missouri is just like the Mississippi, that might be true lower down, but outside Helena it's still a real river with fish, fish, and more fish. Both of us got big rainbows and some of us got brown trout. Not saying who, but you can probably guess...

All these trips led one of my coworkers to ask if I even still worked. I mean, yeah. When I have to. I love my job, but what a life if I could just adventure all the time... <sigh>

But now we were really and truly home for good. Most of us, anyway. The boy was headed off to college (all of 35 miles away, but still) and that made me sad. We had a last hike before he moved to the dorms. The next bunch of adventures were tinged with sadness for the way things were.

Lilly and I did a trip into the Methow Mountains. It was supposed to be a "fall trip" with larches in their golden glory, but turned into a "winter trip" with a foot of snow overnight. Chilly, but wonderful. And it reinforced that Lilly is definitely my child.

Then it was fall, winter, fall, and a bunch of shoulder season hikes.

The end of the year was a new SCIENCE! project and finally, finally snow.

Phew. Take a breath. And now... stats. The original goal was 100 days of adventure. I ended with 248. I had hoped for 500 miles, but tallied 1,263. And my elevation goal was 200,000 feet and wound up with 277,139. It was a good year. (All this gets tracked on Strava. Lots of trips don't get moosefish posts, but they're all on Strava.)

As always, we were grateful to experience the lands of the Snoqualmie people and all the indigenous stewards of the lands we visited. (You can figure out whose land you're on at native-land.ca.)

Since I've got you here, here's a reminder to support the organizations, artists, and causes you believe in. Here's a bunch that helped make our year great.

Outdoors and SCIENCE!