Best of 2018

For me 2018 was a year of stability, setting into working adult life, and focusing on personal life goals and fun. I ran a marathon (!), went on my first international trip with Ben to Colombia, explored the Bay Area, received visits from a few dear friends, and did a lot of fun smaller trips around California and beyond. 

In 2018, I: 

• Visited Colombia, New York, Vermont, South Carolina, New Mexico, Washington, Oregon, and California
• Took 25 flights
• Ran/hiked 536 miles (my most ridiculous month was June, when I ran 114 miles at the height of marathon training) 
• Biked 563 miles 
• Saw 13 plays/shows (including Hamilton!) 
• Read 12 books 

JANUARY

This year I lived in the same place (Redwood City in the Bay Area) with my favorite guy and worked in the same job (Climate Resiliency Fellow at Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District) for the entire year - all adulthood firsts for me! This picture is from one of our parks on the San Francisco Bay. 

Dad and Marcia visited for a week - I enjoyed showing them around my new home, including some nice hikes around the Bay Area and a fun night in San Francisco seeing Avenue Q that unfortunately ended with my car window getting smashed. 

FEBRUARY

Ben and I did a long weekend visit to Seattle to see friends... and Hamilton! 

Great reunion with grad school friends in our favorite neighborhood. 

Hamilton lived up to the hype! Great celebration with best friends. 

I had fun exploring the Bay Area this year, like this hike up Mount Tam with some of the few local friends I've made. 

Amy visited for a long weekend! So great to see an old friend and we enjoyed San Francisco sightseeing (especially breweries). 

MARCH

My family's annual New York trip was enjoyable as always. We saw Madame Butterfly at the Met and Wicked on Broadway. 

No New York trip would be complete without meeting up with my dear friend Lauren as well! 

I took a 10 week California Naturalist class and enjoyed running in this park on the San Francisco Bay before class each week. This was a preview of the marathon training in this park that was about to take over my life for the next five months. 

I got some very cool work opportunities in March - I presented at the California Land and Water Conservation conference with my boss and spoke on this panel at the Bay Area Open Space Council. Satisfying to be treated like I have something to say so soon after starting my job. 

I also took an 8 week resource conservation class through the county government. The highlights were learning all about trash/recycling/compost and touring a wastewater treatment plant. 🤓

Ben and I took a good weekend trip up to Yosemite and stayed with my friend Elizabeth from Glacier. 

The hike up to the top of Yosemite Falls was a butt-kicker, but beautiful! 

APRIL 

Marathon training started in earnest: at least 3 runs a week, adding a mile or two to the long run every weekend. We did 100% of our training in this nice park on the San Francisco Bay with flat trails and lots of birds, rabbits, and sometimes snakes. 

I had 6 weekend field trips for my California Naturalist class, and enjoyed seeing more nearby parks and learning about local plants and animals. 

Ben and I went up to Bend to visit my dad and stepmom for a weekend - this is my favorite spot on the river near their house. 

Melissa visited for a fun weekend of San Francisco sightseeing and hanging out, and I failed to take any pictures of us so here's one of the Painted Ladies. 

MAY

I became a certified California Naturalist. 

Ben and I did our first race of the year - Bay to Breakers, a classic 7 mile run through San Francisco. This one was especially ridiculous because we had just run a casual 13 miles for marathon training two days before - this didn't even count towards our training. 

We traveled to Vermont for Matt and Rebecca's summer camp wedding, complete with canoeing and archery. 

Favorite wedding date. 

JUNE

Ben and I took a weekend trip to Lake Tahoe (for a half marathon, of course). 

Views along the half marathon race course - the 7,000 ft elevation made it harder than expected but at least it was pretty! 

Half marathon finish - Ben's first half marathon and my third, and we both met our goal times despite the elevation. 

Marathon training got truly ridiculous. Our longest runs were 18 miles, 20 miles, and 21 miles, then we tapered off for a few weeks before the race. When we started training it was an accomplishment to run one lap of this 5 mile loop trail, and by the end we were running 4 laps. It was grueling and we were very sore but it was also satisfying! We always stopped for food and ate all the ice cream afterwards.  

JULY

We celebrated July 4th sailing with Sterling and Andrea, and going to bed early because we had stupid work the next day. 

Marathon finish! It was an amazing experience that is hard to summarize in a few sentences. I felt strong throughout and it was so affirming to get myself through that challenge, physically and mentally. I couldn't quite believe it crossing the finish line. 

It was so special to have my mom there for the race experience, because one of the reasons I was inspired to run a marathon was watching my mom run 6 while I was growing up. It was so comforting to have her on the race course at critical milestones (mile 13 for dry socks, and mile 19 for chocolate!) and to share this experience with two people who have also done it and understand what it means. Always proud to follow in her footsteps. 

Two very happy and very sore marathon finishers. This is a day I'll remember forever. 

Final race stats - I finished in 5 hours and 24 minutes, right at the 12.5 minutes per mile pace I was expecting. Definitely not fast, but finishing under the 6 hour limit and not hurting myself were my only two goals!

AUGUST

Once our marathon soreness wore off, we had a belated 30th birthday party for Ben because his real birthday was a few days before the race. Good friends came over for grilling, pool, and games. We spent Ben's actual birthday on a failed whale watching trip - glad we had this party to compensate.

With marathon training behind us, we were finally free to do other activities like backpacking in the redwoods in nearby Butano State Park with Sterling and Andrea. 

Here is a cute photo of my department from our annual staff recognition event at work. I arrived just in the nick of time from a very interesting climate change adaptation conference in Sacramento. 

SEPTEMBER

We traveled to New Mexico for Sam and Ash's wedding, which took place in this beautiful labyrinth at Ghost Ranch. We had a great time taking in the Southwest scenery. 

More wedding date pictures! Southwest themed this time. 

We capped off our New Mexico trip with a great hike at Tent Rocks National Monument.  

Such cool scenery!

I did a whirlwind weekend visit to Washington for a fun camping trip with Marion and Melissa (and Leonard of course). 

Was very glad to be with friends and back in the PNW!

At work I helped lead a redwoods and climate change hike in one of our parks for the Global Climate Action Summit. It was recorded by an NPR reporter but sadly I didn't make the cut for the radio story. 

I went to South Carolina for my family's annual Myrtle Beach weekend - always a fun and relaxing time. 

OCTOBER

My biggest work accomplishment for the year was that our elected Board of Directors adopted this Climate Action Plan to reduce our GHG emissions as an organization. This was my main project in the first year of my job and I led all aspects of the development of this plan. I'm really proud of the finished product and grateful that my work, in a small way, contributes to solving an issue as important as climate change. Now one of my main focuses at work is implementing the plan. You can check it out here if you're curious. 

My dear friend Dahlia visited for nearly two weeks! It was such a treat to get so much time with her and go have some fun adventures around the Bay Area. We spent the first weekend eating our way around San Francisco, sightseeing, and enjoying the Blue Angels far more than we expected. 

Then Dahlia, Steve, Ben and I spent a weekend up in Marin, starting with a nice hike at Muir Woods. 

We also hiked to Alamere Falls at Point Reyes, which has been on my California bucket list since we moved here. 

We crammed in one last backpacking trip before fall really arrived - a beautiful trip just north of Yosemite with Sterling and Andrea. 

One of the prettier places I have ever pumped water. 

It was a very chilly night, but glad to get out one last time for the season and take in the gorgeous fall colors! 

Glad to have this backpacking crew! 

NOVEMBER

I met up with my dad and Marcia in Yosemite for a fun weekend get together. 

Finally made it to Glacier Point! 

Ben and I took a two week trip to Colombia! This is a very quick highlights video. 

First stop, Medellin, where we wasted the first day being exhausted from our red eye flight. At least we had this awesome hostel roof to nap on. 

Medellin was beautiful and fascinating - red buildings as far as the eye can see in this dramatic green valley. It was very affected by drug cartel violence in the 80s and 90s but has had a total renaissance and is now urban planning nerd heaven. 

We did a great walking tour of the street art in Comuna 13, a neighborhood that used to be one of the most violent but is now at the heart of the city's revitalization. It was a really powerful story. 

One example of countless amazing murals in Medellin - picture this surrounded by delicious street food stands and winding pedestrian-only paths and staircases every which way. 

After a rather brutal 7 hour bus ride, we arrived at our next destination in the mountains: Salento. This was the scenic view from our hostel porch. 

Easily the best food item in Colombia was fresh juice and smoothies everywhere you go. 

This was the charming method of transportation in Salento: cram 7 people inside a retro old Jeep, then have 4 more stand on the back bumper and hang on for dear life. It was a fun ride! 

This part of Colombia is known for growing coffee so we did a very interesting and delicious tour of a coffee farm. 

The highlight of our time in Salento was this hike in Cocora Valley. These wax palm trees are the tallest palm trees in the world. What a strange and beautiful landscape. 

Very glad Ben made us do the side trip to drink hot chocolate and watch these amazing tropical hummingbirds flit around. 

Staging our Instagram picture, with all the other gringos staging their Instagram pictures. 

In my natural habitat. 

We spent our last day in the mountains at this ridiculously beautiful hot springs complex. Unfortunately, all our relaxing was undone by an email received on the bus ride back informing us that our flight the next day to an island called Providencia was cancelled because the airport was randomly closed for the next two weeks to repave the one runway on the island. We wasted the better part of this day scrambling and trying to navigate, in Spanish, getting ourselves booked on the more developed party/resort neighboring island instead. 

I know, I know, major first world problem to be stuck on your second choice Caribbean island. We tried to lean into the resort experience we ended up with, and the beaches and ocean on San Andres were still stunning. 

We took a boat out for a snorkeling trip - I failed pretty hard at the snorkeling, but still saw a sting ray, and look at the color of that water!

Our boat dropped us at this crazy sand bar in the ocean, complete with multiple restaurants. How is this a thing?! 

More vacation please. 

We spent the last few days of our trip in Cartagena, a very pretty colonial city on the Caribbean with colorful buildings and flowers everywhere. We enjoyed it but were also sad at how totally insufficient a two week trip once every two years is. Cue scheming for grander adventures in the future... 

DECEMBER 

One last hike for the year, checking out the awesome Marin coastline with Miriam. 

I spent the first half of a wonderful holiday break in Portland with my dad, Marcia, Brian, Winie, and my niece and nephew who are way too much fun. 

After a quick interlude with friends in Seattle I spent the second half of the holidays in Port Angeles with my mom. We celebrated my 28th birthday with a great lazy day of coffee, puzzles, Thai food, and cake of course. 

The PNW sent me off with one perfect sunny day to remind me how excited I'll be when (not if) I move back. I don't know if that will happen in 2019 or 2020, but figuring out life plans will be an exciting (and scary, but mostly exciting) part of next year. :)

And one last photo, just a boring scene from home. Because most of my year was spent in this apartment that I love, with a guy that I love, and building a life together has been the best part of 2018. 

Cheers to the next.