Not Quite Over the Hill: Troyer-Leistikow 2020 Year End Letter: Quite a Year

The year 2020 brought many changes to the world, and to our lives as well. But for us, much remained the same. We still live in Fairbanks, Eric still volunteers for several causes and does some writing, and Corrine is still a family physician at Tanana Valley Clinic. And we still get outdoors a ton (including doing the twice-a-year Fairbanks Trails Challenge!). Read about many of our adventures on earlier posts on this blog.

We started off our year with a couple of trips, one to Idaho to take on the 60-kilometer version of the Fat Pursuit winter multi-sport race on skis. Then we headed to Hawaii for a medical conference.

Corrine finishes a bike ride up Haleakala Volcano during our trip to Hawaii.

Back at home we continued with our winter pursuits, including doing the Winter Trails Challenge in a day and participating in some races. Though by the time of the Sonot Kkaazoot, a 50-kilometer ski race at the end of March, COVID-19 was here, so that race was run as a DIY event.

Eric celebrates finishing the 45-mile Tanana River Challenge on skis,
finishing last but proud.

Corrine put her quilting skills to good use!

With a couple of out-of-state travel summer trips canceled by the pandemic, we spent our free time exploring Alaska. We revisited old favorites and sought out some new ones, like the Nabesna Road area in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and the Petersville Road area. And, of course, we did the Summer Trails Challenge!

Eric takes in the view of Denali from Peters Hills off the Petersville Road.

Corrine was on her bike a lot. She did some long day rides, a couple of solo bikepacking overnighters, and attempted an “Everest.” Eric got to do a couple of backpacking trips to new places he wanted to explore.

Eventually, winter came, and we slowed down a bit. But we didn’t stop! We took a couple of fatbike cabin trips in the White Mountains National Recreation Area and once again did the Ski Your Age in Kilometers event.

We had some incredible morning light on a trip to the White Mountains National Recreation Area.

The pandemic didn’t upend our lives like it did for a lot of people. There was some scrambling at work for Corrine as they tried to figure out how to see patients safely, including using telemedicine. Also at work, Corrine stepped down as the medical director of family medicine, handing the reins over to a co-worker. She’s now back to being a full-time doc.

And because of the pandemic we did have to cancel a couple of out-of-state trips. But since much of our free time is spent in the outdoors far away from others, we didn’t have to change things drastically. We were grateful for that.

Unfortunately, we did miss out on a visit from our son Riley. He had planned to come visit in December, but we all agreed it wasn’t worth the risk. Our daughter Montana had visited earlier, so it was great to see her. Both our kids are doing well.

Montana is in Montana. She is living in Missoula, working for Hertz Rental Cars. Her hours were cut drastically for a while, but slowly things started to pick back up. She is also learning to be a DJ, dancing, and working on her music while trying to decide where else life will take her. She and Eric started having weekly Spanish chats together to better learn the language.

We really enjoyed a visit from Montana in August/September.

Riley is at the University of Iowa in Iowa City working toward his doctorate in physics. His area of focus is the pulsating aurora. His girlfriend, Sam (another physics geek!), is working as a pharmacy assistant while applying to the university’s Master’s in Science Education program. Both are weathering the pandemic well. They moved into a new, more spacious, apartment and recently got a cat. Riley took Sam on her first backpacking trip using whatever equipment they had (which resulted in some Christmas backpack presents!).

Riley, Sam, and their cat, Cassiopeia.

Hope you are all doing well despite the pandemic and all the other craziness life is throwing at us. (And feel free to congratulate us for getting our year-end letter out before June!)

P.S. A year-end letter for this past year surely wouldn't be complete without a Zoom family gathering photo, so here's ours!