30 Before 30 Journey in a Year

Look off at Edward's Point Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity." John Muir What comes to your mind when  you hear someone say, "Let's go for a hike!"? Some of you may day dream of lacing up your Keen's, grabbing some water and trail mix and running out to the nearest trailhead. Some may contemplate the imperfect weather and possibility of bears to then retreat back to a beloved Netflix account. And some may think of hiking as a pastime reserved for those in our society who wear a lot of plaid, have plant based diets and use Tom's deodorant if any at all. But when it comes to hiking, I fall into the first category.  There aren't many things in life that are as consistently rewarding as hiking. Although I lace up a pair of Vasque boots, conquering a trail both in elevation and length provides a jolt of satisfaction and accompl

I  knew knitting would be hard; I never imagined it would take me 10 months to finally knit a pair of socks. Back in October, I began the initial steps of learning to knit. Like most current wannabe knitters with zero knitting experience, I started with a compilation of Youtube videos and online tutorials to find out what were the basics of knitting I would need to know before diving into my desired project: socks. The basics of knitting are to learn how to cast on, cast off, a knit stitch and a purl stitch. You'll also have to learn for more dynamic projects like socks how to increase and decrease your stitch count. Knitting patterns contain a lot of jargon and abbreviations that are not always explained so there was a lot of looking up terms. This Knitting Basics webpage from Better Homes and Gardens is very helpful for learning the basics and for identifying all the knitting slang. From my experience in the very beginning, you'll need to practice your cast on, cast off

Remember old TV westerns and lost in the wild style movies when someone needs to start a fire they just go grab two rocks, strike them together and maybe in two tries they have a fire? Well, I tried something similar and it took more than two tries. Don't ask me how I came up with this list idea item. Maybe I saw a Man vs Wild promo and thought "What survival skills should I know before 30?" Or maybe I was trying to channel my inner Katniss and didn't have time to master archery in a year. Regardless, starting a fire with flint made its way onto the list. Like any other 29 year old, the first thing I did when preparing for this was visit my trusty, know it all friend Google. And the nuances I found were both entertaining and strange. There were many fire starter purists that gave examples of how to make our own char cloth, the pros and cons of u shaped versus c shaped steel strikers and preferences on the type of flint family rock to use. Here's one example