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[Photo 1: Travelling] [Photo 2: Flint] [Photo 3: Diabetes] [Photo 4: Biketrials]

Travelling
 
I do more than 90% of my travels solo, mainly because I'm a photographer and we tend to run on schedules that are entirely wacked compared to regular people. I've been to most states in the U.S., including Alaska (twice) and, of course, my new home state and possibly my favorite state: Vermont. I've travelled through most of Canada, including the Yukon. But, the area that I fell in love with about 6 years ago is Scandinavia. I've been to northern Europe 7 times, including living in Sweden for one year and studying at Uppsala University.
 
And, my favorite place in Scandinavia is Lappland. I've been north of the arctic circle in Lappland and arctic Norway six times, at least once in every season. The photo here is of me on the 4th of July in 2003, on the mountain "Reinebringen", about 150 miles north of the arctic circle on the Lofoten Islands. The Lofoten Islands are a small chain of islands off the coast of northern Norway, where there is very little flat land and the mountains come straight up from the ocean. There is a vibrant fishing industry in the summer, and lots of darkness and northern lights in the winter. The first time I went to Lofoten was in October of 2001. I went back in December to experience the polar night (no sunrise) and what is sometimes considered the best northern lights display in the world. I went to Lofoten in 2003 to experience the summer, when everything is green and there is no sunset. It's really quite amazing how the atmosphere in Lofoten changes from summer to winter.

I like to experience cultures, and by that I mean that I don't like to travel to the really touristy areas of other countries. A place like Lofoten is little known outside of northern Europe. When I show someone a photo from Lofoten, they usually have no idea where the photo could have been taken. And, the people in that area are in a sense more authentic when there is less tourism. I like visiting the big cities like Stockholm and Copenhagen, but the cultures there are much more oriented towards cheap tourism. I've been places in Sweden where nobody had ever met an American that spoke Swedish. Situations like that really allow me to interact a lot more on certain levels. Plus, I'm more of a small-town person I think anyway. I could live in a big city like Stockholm, but I'd need an escape into the wilderness every so often in order to stay sane.
 
One of the more interesting places I have been is Hammerfest, the northernmost town in the world. The native people in the area of Lappland (northern Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Russia) are the Sami, and many of them are still nomadic and live entirely off the land, herding reindeer (caribou) across Lappland for a living. In the summer, the reindeer are closer to the northern coast and many of them were wandering around near Hammerfest. I set my tent up in the mountains above the town and went out on a hike looking for reindeer. It wasn't hard to find them, as there are literally no trees that far north and the sun was shining all day and night. I found a herd of reindeer and followed them until about 3am. At one point the herd was coming straight towards me, about 40 reindeer, walking slowly and eating whatever they could find. As they're used to people, they just walked right around me, coming within about 10 feet of me. It was a great, but really strange experience.

I love living in Vermont. I love to travel, but being a math grad student I don't have much time. So, being in Vermont means that the mountains and nature are close. I still travel when I get the chance, but I don't travel far, and I'm usually within a few hours of home. Vermont is a great state for small little adventures like that, and I'm finding photography and outdoor activities are great here. One of the things I always liked in my travels to more remote places was the ability to see the stars at night (excluding the arctic in the summer), and I mean to 'really' see the stars at night. In Michigan, I could never see many stars and the Milky Way was basically a myth. Here in Vermont, if there is a clear sky at night, I can see more stars than is possible to count and I can see the Milky Way from my porch. The photo below is of Moss Glen Falls in Vermont.