This time every year, I get twitchy as my craving for time on the trails and in the woods grows stronger.

This year with the current stay-at-home orders and doing my part to help others, I’m craving that time away even more than usual.

Yesterday, I took a walk around my front yard, taking photos of the budding trees. Spring is slowly sneaking into New England, and I have a new lens for my camera that I wanted to try out.

Those few minutes of fresh air in the sunshine felt great, but they are nothing like the feeling of walking along a river or summiting a mountain and how the fresh air feels on your sweaty face.

Right now, we can’t enjoy the outdoors, like many of us would like to. It is the right thing to do by staying at home.

Thankfully, it seems someone else knew I’d be feeling the call of the wild, and I received an email asking if I’d like a free digital screener of this year’s movie adaptation of The Call of the Wild. I had wanted to see this in the theaters but didn’t get a chance to.

Growing up, I read and loved The Call of the Wild by Jack London. I still dream of someday visiting the Yukon, Alaska, and all the other remote locations I’ve fallen in love with from reading that book and others of the early settlers and explorers. Some day I WILL get to ride in a dog sled!

If you are not familiar with the story, you can watch the trailer here.

I enjoyed the movie, and after being in a bit of a funk all day, it was exactly what my soul needed.

I’m happy to say that after the first few minutes, you grow used to the completely CGI dog and quickly forget about it. The movie uses a lot of CGI, and it all starts to blend as your brain gets used to it. The characters are fun, and anyone who loves dogs will love this movie.

The howls and other “lines” from the dogs had one of my pups in a constant state of worry, so I finished the movie on the floor with her laying in my lap.

No movie is ever as good as the book that it is based upon, but I encourage you to watch this movie if you need an escape from reality for a while. It is family-friendly but may be too intense for some of the little ones.

As for my call? It is stronger than ever after watching this.

The idea of spending weeks in a cabin away from the rest of the world sounds pretty damn magical right about now. Even better is renting a campervan or an RV and spending months on the road driving around the Great White North, taking photos and collecting stories along the way.

Stay safe. Stay inside. Stay healthy.

Disclosure - I was provided a free code to watch the movie. I enjoyed it so I decided to share my thoughts.