I went camping with Phong, Phu, and LinnLinn in Saxnäs this week. It was a five hour drive during which we pulled over to view the scenery and I learned how to pee in nature. Seriously... I'm 23 and I had no idea how to go about something like that. It turns out there are no truck rest stops in Sweden, just little shoulders on the road and stretchs of forest.

Our cabin in Saxnäs was really nice, much nicer than I'd expected. But there are more bugs in Saxnäs than in Umeå. I think I got spoiled by the relatively critterless state of Umeå. I was showering at the cabin when I got that eerie feeling that something was nearby and there it was, the shower spider that persistantly continued to move around high up on the wall above the shower head. I almost abandoned my efforts of shaving half way through the first leg but I bared with the spiders creepy peepery and concurred! It was later returned to nature by Phong, since we're a 'capture and release' family when it comes to icky things.

On the second day we climbed that mountain in the first picture. We took a narrow path through the woods, fended off mutant mosquitoes and giant bee colored biting flies. Have you ever been bitten by a fly? Somehow it feels degrading so have something so low on the chain biting at you.

Anywho- we trudged up the mountain, taking more and more rests the higher up we got so as to heave breaths and wait for our hearts to slow down again... or perhaps that was just me. Phu and Phong were particularly energetic.

We made it to the top and on the way back, for some reason I was in the lead... I suspect it was gravity pulling me ahead of the others... but I of course managed to get us off trail and lost in the forest part for a good minute or two before we bravely decided to continue in the direction of the path rather than back track for a safer route.

And then for some reason they still let me lead the way.

Summer has arrived! And with it came the near endless daylight hours that I do so adore.

Last summer we went on a bunch of outdoor adventures around midnight since it's so light out and there's no one around and this year we decided to continue that grand tradition! This was our first outing of the year. We went to a beach that I now cannot remember the name of (I was told it meant 'magpie' in Swedish). It took a bit of a while to drive there and the road was curvy and Phu drove fast so I ended up having flashbacks of my youthful carsick tendencies but we arrived and I was absorbed by other youthful tendencies- such as frolicking in the sand and stomping in mud.

 

 

 

It wasn't quite midnight but this was the skyline. Linn informed me that the sun was setting at 10.45ish these days and rising around 2 in the morning. I think it was about 11.30 when I took this.

 

My beloved Phong. He did quite a bit of rock jumping. At first I tried to caution him against it with talk of potential hypothermia and when that failed I attempted to get pictures of his jumping... but my camera only caught blurs. That's how fast he was!