Monthly Archives: August 2021

Travel

Getaway to du Quoin

Oh, the beginning of school, such a glorious time! It feels like summer just started, and it is already gone. In any case, at some point in July, I started worrying we would get the end of summer and wish we’d done more, so I figured I’d plan another weekend trip. I wanted to make it longer, but Louie couldn’t get away from work enough, so I found a cute airbnb about 1 1/2 hours away that would have opportunities for relaxing, swimming, hiking, eating, and just not being at home.

We found a lovely place in Du Quoin, Illinois, a town neither of us had heard of before. It was a cottage with a full kitchen, screened porch, and lake/pond access, and it had terrific reviews. We booked three nights for the weekend before my teaching semester started up again.

That was last week. Things went well, but life is getting busier and busier. I have a whole new calendar and billing system, and it’ll take people a little time to fully get used to it, but I think it’ll make my life easier and better. We had two party invites on Saturday, which was a lot of fun but exhausting…both mostly outdoor events and mostly/all vaccinated folks. But I digress!

We packed up the car and headed to Du Quoin on late Friday afternoon after Louie finished work. We found the place easily enough and got unloaded. There were wild turkeys and lots of big flies saying hello. We met up with our hosts and learned about the pond and some other important things (they require that you meet with them if you want to use the water). We had decided to cook dinner the first night, so we did that, and just relaxed. There wasn’t any wifi in the cottage, but there was phone service. It wasn’t a hardship, and the place was just really comfortable. The hosts even left us homemade granola, and fresh local eggs, milk, and butter.

The next morning we slept in a bit and then we actually had a thing to go to in Bonne Terre, a friend’s sister’s memorial service. We had decided to go, but decided to keep our trip to Du Quoin anyway, so we drove about 2 hours to Bonne Terre. It was a lovely drive, through rural farmland and corn and over the Mississippi.

We attended the service and visited for awhile and then headed back. I will say this: very few folks there wore masks, and we knew it was probably one of the riskiest activities we’d done in awhile.

We drove back and on the way stopped at Scratch Brewery in Ava, Illinois. I didn’t care for Ava, because there were two houses with signs out front advertising “Trump 2024: F**k your Feelings” except they wrote it out, and I found that incredibly offensive and distasteful. Both houses were along main routes, and while I imagine that many of the residents of Ava also dislike those people, I am happy to not return to the town. I would go to the brewery again though, but avoid anything else.

We had a sampler of beer and some bread with various spreads. Their beer is very unique and unusual, with things like Strawberry Sumac and Dry-hopped Sassafras. We enjoyed sitting outside and relaxing. It was another 20 minute drive to St Nicholas Brewing Company in Du Quoin which our hosts highly recommended. We had dinner there, and enjoyed their beers as well, though we realized we were actually still pretty full from the bread! St Nicholas was more of a standard brewery with a full menu, but we had a nice time. It was indoor seating, though we got a nicely distanced table. We figured at that point we were at the mercy of our vaccines and immune response.

I enjoyed the picture of Krampus on a nearby wall. German children are so lucky!

The next morning we headed to the Little Grand Canyon to hike. It is a hike in the 60 Hikes Book I’ve always wanted to check out, but it’s about 2 hours from home. It was only 40 minutes from Du Quoin so that seemed like a good plan. We loaded up and headed out and enjoyed the first part of the hike. There’s a point where the trail heads down some rocks, with steps chiseled into the rocks, into the canyon, and when we got there we realized it was basically just a creek. We started to try it, and then Louie slipped and fell and it was like a slip and slide! We decided to head back up. The hike was a loop, however, so we figured we’d hike the other side instead, and at least see a scenic look out and see how the other end looked. All in all, we hiked both sides up until you go down into the canyon but decided though the other side looked slightly less wet and dangerous, it wasn’t for us on this day.

After the hike, we went home and got ready to hit the pond! The pond/lake/whatever was a former strip mine that is now filled with water. One thing our hosts emphasized was that it was deep right away, and very deep: 25 to 100 feet! A little terrifying, but I just tried not to think about it. First we took the rowboat out to explore: there is a creeky old rowboat you can use. It was fun to ride while Louie worked hard (hah!) and we went some ways, to the end of the pond at the long end (it’s a wavy T shape) and then back. We were hot and sweaty then, so we hopped in the water for a bit. There is a ladder in and out, and plenty of floats to use so you don’t have to swim/tread water more than you want. The water was warm at the top but cooler down below.

After we got out of the water we chatted with our hosts a bit: they told stories of giant catfish and scuba diving! Then we went up to cook our dinner again. We figured we’d taken enough COVID risks the day before. We also managed to download a couple episodes of TV to watch (you can hook your phone up to a TV if you have something to watch) and enjoyed relaxing and watching tv before bed.

We got up early the next morning and headed home: we were both working after lunch and so we needed to get back. It was a lovely weekend getaway!

One of my pandemic thoughts was that I wanted to do more things nearby when we can rather than just waiting until summer to do longer trips. We’d like to still do a longer trip next summer if possible, but it’s been really nice exploring nearby this summer: Arkansas, Hawn State Park, Du Quoin. Maybe we’ll be able to do a few more short weekend trips over the upcoming school year.

Random thoughts

Staycation isn’t what it’s cracked up to be

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I’ve taken this week off from teaching in order to rest and recuperate before school starts up next week and my new teaching schedules goes into order. In typical fashion, however, since Louie was still working and we couldn’t go anywhere, I ended up signing up for another online training course, which I thought was 3 hours a day (it is) but then had 8 hours of video observations on top of that. Between that, getting things ready for next week and a few other little things here and there, I don’t feel like I’ve had any sort of break! I suppose I never planned it to be a fun vacation week, simply a week off from my normal schedule.

I have had a break from teaching, which is nice, and means I’ll be happy to see everybody again next week. I hope the schedule works out well, and I’m especially excited to start my Creative Ability Development (Improvisation) Classes up again.

Unrelated, I have a few new potential students and some who have been wait-listed. I do turn students away as well, usually with a recommendation if possible. I realized that sometimes those students will find their way back: I’ll turn them away one year, and a few years later they will contact me again, and I don’t always remember until I am searching for their email for some reason and come across the original one! Then I wonder what if I could have fit them in a few years earlier, how would our relationship and their skill be different? I can’t take everybody though, there are only so many viable teaching hours in a day!

My early morning teaching job starts up again in early-mid-September and I am both looking forward to it (we’re in person, it’s back to normal which I’ve never taught in, masks ARE required) and dreading it (it’s really early, COVID fears, I don’t know what normal is so I’m a little nervous about it). I’m sure once it gets started it will be lovely: getting up so early has changed my wakeup time throughout the summer—7 to 7:30 am is now my normal, and while that’s still usually with an alarm, without an alarm I might wake up anywhere between 6:30 am and 8 am. The truth is it has also changed my normal bedtime, which is now around 10 pm, sometimes staying up reading after that, and I’ll have to bump that up a little if possible during the year. I don’t know how much of my sleeping pattern changes are due to aging, and how much are due to having to change, and I never will.

When I was in my 20’s people always told me once I had kids I wouldn’t be able to sleep in anymore. While I’m sure that was true, for me I never was able to sleep in again after the election of 2016…the stress got me up early for months after that and then I just couldn’t anymore. I do usually wake up much like I did as a kid, ready to go and get doing things, though sometimes things means checking email and doomscrolling a bit in between writing emails, and drinking coffee. Anyway, so people without kids will never know if they would have lost their ability to sleep in as they aged, or whether they would have enjoyed continuing to sleep well and long.

I’m rambling a bit, so maybe I’ll let you go now. Do you find yourself able to sleep more or less as you’ve gotten older? Do you get up the same time on non-work days as you do on work days? Do you get enough sleep on a regular basis?

Random thoughts, Teaching

Getting Ready

I’ve been working all week setting up my studio schedule for the fall. I’ve also been working on using a new website/program for my calendar…I have hesitated to use a program for organizing my lessons just because I already have my systems in place for invoices, tax prep, etc, and it seems like anything I add is trying to duplicate things I already use but not the way I want. I’ve decided to bite the bullet here though, and try it out for the year, and I’ve gotten 95 percent of the data uploaded.

I’ve changed the way I run my studio for the fall to a set monthly rate and by the semester, and it’s been a challenge getting that information out. I know parents get a lot of things to read, but when I send something with the subject line Very Important Please Read, it usually is, because otherwise my emails have subject lines like No Lessons Tuesday or Recital is November 17th or things like that. Yes, I tend to summarize the email in the subject so people know what it will be about.

It’s a busy time for new referrals, and I wish I had another day I could add students to and still have weekends, but that’s just not possible at this time. Anyway, I’m excited to make a bit more money this fall and streamline my operations! (And if you are a current student reading this, seriously, just at least skim my emails and mark your calendars, okay? I spend a lot of time crafting each one and it’s much easier if I don’t have to then go through and talk with 40 people individually…)

My sister and her kids visited last week, and we had a lot of fun. We went to the Aquarium one morning, and the kids loved it. I wouldn’t say it is a great Aquarium, but there were some nice exhibits and it was very well done and fun for young people.

We made shark hats. My coloring isn’t much better than hers…hers is definitely better for her age.

We went to Grant’s Farm another morning and it was a bit hot and crowded for us, but we still had a nice time. Not much mask wearing, even in the cramped quarters on the tram or in the Biergarten. They didn’t require it, but common sense should (and it should be required.)

Grant’s Farm is always trying to get more money out of your pockets. We paid them money to feed their goats, cows, llamas, birds, etc, and also shelled out for a camel ride for my niece.

Otherwise we just hung out, tried to stay out of the heat, had some nice meals, went to playgrounds, and such. It was exhausting but great to spend time with the kids, and of course my sister Leslie as well.

We had some bad storms the other night. We were fortunate that we didn’t lose power that night as many did, though we did lose power the next day for a few hours, likely while the power company was trying to restore power to others. We did have a chair get blown over.

I saw this the next day and texted Louie about how we had some storm damage. Before he got too worried, I sent that picture.

My nephew really liked sitting in the blue chair.

Louie went away for the weekend to visit some friends, but I have some stuff tomorrow so I stayed behind. I decided to make some jam and mustard today, so I made rhubarb strawberry with stuff from the freezer, a bourbon brown sugar mustard, and a swiss chard walnut pesto with swiss chard from the garden that we kept not using to cook with. The first two are canned and the pesto is in the freezer for the future. I also have a basil plant, so I might should make some traditional pesto this week as well!

I’m taking this upcoming week off from teaching to get ready for the fall. I think it’s important to have down time in order to recharge. We have a short airbnb trip planned for a couple nights, but otherwise I’m around, taking one more online course and catching up on things around the house.

Hiking

Last Gasps of Summer

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It’s been a minute since I blogged (I hate that expression but I’ve started using it to fit in, haha), so let me pop in and say hello. I’ve been busy, more than you’d think for summer.

I’ve taken two different online teacher courses (I’ve been learning tons, and really just trying to take advantage of this opportunity to learn online: if it goes away, taking one week of training in person, when you factor in travel, taking off work, and the tuition, would cost about as much as the nearly 5 different courses I’ve taken over the past year!) so that kept me busy, plus teaching. I’ve been working hard these past few weeks on getting my studio and my studio schedule organized for the fall. One thing I am telling myself is that if somebody can’t fit into the schedule, that’s okay. It happens, and I don’t need to lie awake stressing over how to make it work for everyone. (Yes, I do that sometimes. Yes, it is a little insane.)

It’s also been a bit of a stressful time. I got exposed to COVID from a student (vaccinated) and then had to do the whole teaching online/testing/waiting for test results thing. I know I wouldn’t technically have had to quarantine, CDC guidelines don’t say you should, but I imagined how I would feel having to tell my students if I tested positive, and that was enough for me to ask them to be online for a few days of lessons. I’m glad I’m mostly seeing folks in person though, because I didn’t love being online all day again. I still teach some students online, but I see more than half in person. I assume something like this will happen again this fall, with the delta variant running rampant through our area, but I hope that more vaccinations (come on, vaccinations for under 12’s) and going back to intense mask wearing will help. Oh, and I found out I had tested negative just in time, as my parents were visiting for the day.

Louie and I camped for two nights at Hawn State Park. We’d camped there before, but this time we took a walk-in site. It was a nice location, though the walking in was a little annoying. The first night we had the area to ourselves and it was beautiful…then a group of young people had two or three of the sites, so we lost our solitude. They were perfectly nice and respectful though, and we had a weird incident involving a man walking through the sites poking around at about 5 to 6 am in the morning, but nobody was hurt. I noticed him first, and quietly awoke Louie, and we weren’t really sure what to do, but my impulse ended up being to start yelling and wake up the other 12 people sleeping nearby, while Louie had evidently been planning to go out and approach the guy calmly, and either way, we got the guy to leave (he had a lot of excuses for why he was there) and blah blah blah. I don’t really feel like talking about it more.

The day we spent at Hawn was nice, except I was dealing with a migraine and the heat was pretty bad. We did a hike of about 4 miles, and then ended up eating dinner at a nearby restaurant. This was when we still trusted our vaccines, which we may not anymore: we ate at a patio last night, and I think it’ll be awhile before we eat indoors again unless it’s a place we really trust to be either vaccinated or mostly vaccinated and well spaced.

Our tent site
This little area was right behind the camp ground, very beautiful!
We really liked the shower icon.

Anyway, after we left Hawn we headed to St. Genevieve just to visit the National Historic Site–it had recently been turned into a National Historic Site, and I wanted to see it. We visited the Visitor’s Center and watched a short movie and saw a few displays, including a wonderful model of the town.

Not the model of the town, but some house models. This vertical post construction is what the town is known for.

Then we took a house tour (the Felix Valle House) and learned quite a bit, and then we just walked around a bit and had lunch at the Anvil Restaurant. There are other houses we could have toured, but we were ready to go home at that point.

Anyway, then another week and more went by and then my parents visiting, just for the day and overnight on their way somewhere else. We did a little sightseeing, and went to see the Ulysses S Grant National Historic Site, which none of us had been to even though it is less than 20 minutes from my house. It had a really nice museum and we took a ranger guided tour of the grounds. It is a small site, but very educational and well done. We were probably there about 1 1/2 hours total.

From the museum, these were Ulysses’s parents, Hannah and Jesse Grant. They were abolitionists.
The backside of the house with the laundry and kitchen building. The Grants did own enslaved people.

We had more time after that, so we headed down to visit the Arch Grounds, which my Mom hadn’t been to since they were redone. We didn’t go inside there due to worries of too many people, but just walked around a bit. The weather was really quite nice, not too hot and sunny, so it was a lovely day for it.

We had pizza from Pizzeria da Gloria that night, which is quickly becoming Louie and I’s favorite pizza place. Try the mushroom pizza!

My sister and her family are visiting for a few days, starting today, so I’ve been cleaning as well, getting the house ready for more visitors (okay, full disclosure, I haven’t been doing much cleaning, but we did move some things around and then we had to set up a futon) and planning some fun activities. We are planning to visit Grant’s Farm, the Aquarium, and the new Playspace at Forest Park. We have reservations for one outdoor patio meal at Katie’s Pizza and Pasta, and otherwise are cooking or doing takeout: if we need to wear masks again, we shouldn’t be unmasking inside in front of strangers whose vaccination status is unknown. It’s too bad, because I was enjoying going to some restaurants and sitting inside, but…

Have you been to the NPS sites I mentioned above? What is your take on eating inside? Any other thoughts?