Balabanova All Over
#TakeYourTimeOff
About Nadya
Hi there! I am so glad you found me! My mission is to empower you to #TakeYourTimeOff and explore the world. I started this blog as a way to keep family and friends in the loop when I went on a 3-week trip to Asia in 2011. Although I’ve always enjoyed traveling, it wasn’t until a trip to Peru in 2012 that I started to think about ways to make travel a… Read More
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Top Posts
[Whidbey Island, July 16, 2018] After a long day exploring the North Cascades, we were happy to have a very fluid itinerary. Our only imperative was to get to Port Angeles, WA, on the Olympic Peninsula. We had a ferry reservation for 4:15 pm but other than that, the day was wide open. Since we had plenty of time, we decided to try to find another Washington location for the 2002 movie The… Read More
[North Cascades National Park, Jul 15, 2018] With my Ragnar race now over, the actual vacation part of my trip finally began! On the agenda for the day was a trip into North Cascades National park. This very wild and undeveloped park is a haven for the backcountry hiker, but there are some great trails for day hikers as well. It has over 300 glaciers, the greatest concentration in the US outside… Read More
[San Juan Islands, WA, Sat, Jul 14, 2018] Getting up at 1 am after barely getting any sleep was not fun at all. Luckily, reuniting with van 1 for a short while helped boost our energy. The next 30+ miles were ours, and we were going to be running into the daylight hours on Saturday morning. This portion of the course took us over to the San Juan islands, where we were… Read More
[Bellingham, WA – Burlington, WA, Friday, July 13, 2018] And just like that, it was race day! Half of our team departed early in the morning in van 1 to get to Blaine, WA, where they got started at 7 am. They had just over 30 miles to cover, so we were expecting them to turn over to us around 1 pm. This meant we had the entire morning to relax in… Read More
[Bellingham, WA, Thu, July 12, 2018] Those of you who’ve been with me for a while may remember our previous Ragnar adventure in Hawaii. That was back in 2016. Our crew likes to get together for a running trip once a year for either a national park half marathon or a ragnar, and this year’s honors fell to Ragnar Northwest Passage. The course for this race runs from Blaine, WA, near the… Read More