Playing Dress Up: "Look Ma, Ima musher!"

So rather than delve into a further written explanation of my planned Canadian adventures, I took a few moments today to prepare a bit of a fashion show of sorts just for you. In Canada, there is something called winter. Not like winter à la Arizona...winter with snow. And ice and temperatures far below zero. And then I get on the back of a dog sled while dogs pull very fast, so there is this thing called EPIC WIND CHILL. I have been slowly but surely been trying to create this other foreign entity called "A Winter Wardrobe"; in Mesa, Arizona, when it is "winter", I wear a sweatshirt...jeans...maybe, just maybe, something other than flip-flops. Living in the heat of the valley for the past 20 years has thinned my blood down to Kool-Aid, so sometimes I might where two sweatshirts.

Not this winter.

If you were looking for a scantily clothed Victoria's Secret-style fashion show, you will be sadly disappointed (and I will be alarmed), because the name of the "Don't Die of Frozen Limbs" game involves a steady process of adding more and more clothes rather than taking them off.

Here I am. It is 100+ degrees outside and I am in my summer uniform. Add longer pants and a sweat-shirt to this get-up and you get Winter Julia.

Musher Julia though requires warm feet. She wears socks, but not just one pair...  The first pair is just to keep me from going loco crazy from the itchiness of the heavy duty wool socks.

Next, long underwear. Did you know that underwear came that way? I heard about them when my mom read me Little House on the Prairie when I was little, so I have ever since associated them with pioneers and covered wagons. 

Wool socks alone do not keep your feet warm. You need boots that are rated to keep you feet cold even if it is -148 degrees. I am not exaggerating. Read the specs online for these sweet "little" Baffin Musher Boots.  They are actually called that too. Naturally I bought them based off the title...if I actually wind up anywhere where it is -148 degrees, I may just set myself on fire.

Vests! Seriously, I never understood you until recently! I get it now. Cold arms, but warm blood coming from my hyper-heated heart. Brain, to keep you from getting too baffled by the temperature, how about a wind-stopper cap? Ears, who needs to be able to hear, let's just focus on avoiding frost bite. 

 

 Oh yeah, I was born in the 90s...never thought I would be dawning another pair of overalls though! And that hat! Have you seen those OmniHeat jacket commercials? Well, that, my friends, is an OmniHeat hat, which basically makes you feel like your brain is being microwaved, which is alarming in the middle of an Arizona summer, but I am sure will be rather comforting in the middle of the winter in Quebec.

Now for the hands. I have ridiculously cold hands. Not with these on though! When I showed them to my mama for the first time, she politely told me that Darth Vader stopped by and he wanted his gloves back.

 

And finally!  Add a parka with one more level of ear protection and some gloves to prevent my corneas from freezing (no really, that happened to the man I am going to be living with during this mushing business during a race last year), and I am all set.

I present to you: The Desert Rat Musher. When I run in the Iditarod, I am going to have that printed on my gear.

That's all it takes right? =P













For the honor and glory.

Benin and BEYOND, Travel Blog 2.0

One year ago, I was on a plane returning from my first every international voyage. After eight weeks, three countries, and two hospital visits, you would have thought I would have passed into some sort of drooling stupor by the time I got to the 3^rd plane at the 3^rd airport, finally bound for home, a short 10 hour plane ride later.

 You would have been very wrong.

I spent the first 2 hours being excited to see my family and my friends and the new puppy that I knew would be waiting for me. The next three hours, I spent being sad about all of the family and friends and culture and plates of attièke that I was leaving behind.

Which left me five hours to go absolutely bonkers.

I paced up and down aisles.

I did jumping jacks in the bathroom. (Those of you

who have ever been on a plane and in the bathroom are going “Yeah right, you liar. There is hardly room to sit on the toilet in those closet bathroom without bashing your knees, let alone do jumping jacks.” I say to you, DO NOT DOUBT THE WILL OF A STIR-CRAZY, SLEEP-DEPRIVED WOMAN!!)

I did squats, lunges, every callisthenic exercise I could think of short of burpees in the back of the plane, probably alarming the flight attendants.

Finally, finally….We landed. My blog was called “To Benin and Back” and back I was.

So, two days ago, to commemorate a year of “backness”, I bought a plane tickets.

With a departure and return date more than 6 months apart.

To a place 36 kilometers to the nearest VILLAGE, where temperatures in the winter are more often below zero than they are above.

Where I will be living with a man I met on the internet and racing sled dogs.

Call of the wild, or call me crazy, but Quebec here I come.

Welcome to Benin and Beyond, Travel Blog 2.0.

St. Michel de Saints, my future home. Photo credit to Stan, the man that I will be living with who I met on the internet. =D

Stan again, but also future me. Stay tuned. 

For the honor and glory.