I’ve had “write blog post about Ontario” on my to do list for an embarrassingly long amount of time. Sometimes with writing the issue is just sitting down and getting started!
I think the best thing to do at this point is tell you the highlights and share some pictures. We were visiting my sister Leslie and her family in Chautauqua, New York and thought it would be fun to extend our trip by visiting Niagara Falls, and then I got into the idea of camping, and a trip plan was made!
We camped two nights near Niagara Falls at the Niagara Riverside Park Motel and Campground. We had a nice spacious site that was in the back corner. Louie had never been to Niagara Falls before, so we saw the Falls (they are beautiful, but wow the surrounded area is insanely touristy and trashy), and then we did the Hornblower Cruise (formerly Maid of the Mist.) It was fun to be in Canada hearing phrases such as “toonie sized hail” and “sorry.”
A min golf course in downtown Niagara FallsWearing the requisite red ponchos for the Hornblower Cruise to the fallsOur campground.
The weather was beautiful as far as temperature, but we did have to dodge a few storms. On our second day we did a hike at the Niagara Falls Nature Glen, went to Niagara-on-the-Lake and had lunch (at the Prince of Wales Hotel, VERY GOOD) and walked around, visited a winery (Trius Winery) and sampled some ice wine, and had a delicious dinner at AG Inspired Cuisine (also VERY Good!)
View from the hike, you can see Louie’s hat there too.Some Ice Cream in NOTLWe could see Toronto across the lake, this was Lake Ontario.
The next morning it was a bit rainy but we managed to pack up. Our next stop was Selkirk Provincial Park for one night, but we took the scenic route and drove by Lake Erie, visited Ridgway for breakfast, Port Colburn for a snack and to see the drawbridge, and finally to the park, where we walked along the beach and did a hike through the woods before setting a fire and relaxing. The birds were unbelievably loud!
The drawbridge: it went up to let boats through and we were thrilled to see it happen!Our site at SelkirkLake Erie. We dipped our toes in but it wasn’t good for swimming, too stormy in addition to looking very rocky.Another rainbow!
The next day we drove to Pinery Provincial Park where we would stay for two nights. This park was much bigger and was on Lake Huron. It was slammed with Canadians in trailers having a good week at the beach! We were stuck in traffic for 45 minutes just to get into the park, but after that it was not so bad.
We walked along the Lake our first night, but the second day we canoed on the River, took a hike and then went to swim in Lake Huron. This didn’t last too long because it was cold and we decided we were took old and tired to try to wait out the cold until we got used to it, but it was invigorating and a lot of fun!
We saw this giant larvae near Lake HuronView from the hike
We relaxed by the fire the second night until the rain came, and then it stayed overnight. After several lovely nights where rain was predicted but didn’t show up, we got rain on our last night and ended up having to pack up frantically in the rain and drive to the first restaurant we could find for coffee. Our drive home was uneventful and overall, it was a lovely trip! We got a really good sense of the southwestern part of Ontario and got to see 3 Great Lakes as well as Niagara Falls, and we had some lovely nights camping and enjoying the fresh air.
September is almost over, and I feel like it just started. I know I say this a lot, and everybody says that busy isn’t a good word, but oh my goodness this month has been busy.
My before school classes started last week, so I was waking up early and going to teach a bunch of 4th graders how to hold their violins. I have two new colleagues in my classes and they are both amazing! We have three new people total, and I’m sure the third is amazing as well–I just haven’t worked with them in the same way.
I also had a performance this past week with several evening rehearsals. It was a solo part in the premiere of a symphony written by a really nice cello player named Alexander Groesch. The performance went well, though I was relieved to have it behind me. It turns out that many of my colleagues turned down the solo part because they thought it was too hard. I tend to not shy away from difficult parts, and frankly, it wasn’t that bad, just a few tricky spots and some things that just needed to get into my ears. I may simply be a sucker for punishment though!
I had an extra busy week as well due to a few appointments: the doctor, the dentist, and the vet. In the future I will try to remember to space these things out into different weeks!
We went to Urbana last weekend to visit our friends Michael and Heather and to see some concerts/shows at the Ellnora Guitar Festival. It was a wonderful trip–we saw three concerts: Rodrigo y Gabriela, Sharon Isbin and the Pacifica Quartet, and the Ron Carter Trio, which ended up being minus the guitar player who couldn’t find a flight after his initial flight was canceled. We stayed over one night, and also got to enjoy meals at a few local restaurants. It was a lovely time and we loved the variety of musical experiences!
Sharon Isbin and some of the Pacifica QuartetRon Carter on bassSelfie with Sharon Isbin who was fantastic!
Last night we saw “Space: A Celestial Circus Show” which was put together by a wonderful colleague of mine, Abbie Steiling. She composed and played the music (with some other players as well) and it was a fun show with circus performers and pictures of Space by Abbie’s husband, Frederick. Some of the audience didn’t know how to behave in public (a woman in front of us actually had a video playing on her phone WITH SOUND for her young child! you could only hear it during very quiet parts, but WHAT?) but we still enjoyed the show.
So much purple!
Anyway, we have some Trader Joe’s croissants coming out of the toaster oven, so I’d better go. How is your September going?
I won’t say I always did this, but in recent memory I take Labor Day entirely off and it’s wonderful. Yesterday had that amazing feeling of, it’s Sunday but we have another day off! Maybe someday I will only teach four days a week and make Monday a second day off (or a day off, in the case of gigs.) In any case I’m looking forward to my day, though I have a few errand type things to do this morning (including grocery shopping).
Leslie stayed a night and we got a picture on the morning she was leaving. I recall this was the most humid I could recall it being at 8 am, so awful!
The past two weeks have been good but busy. Work is ramping up, and there have been ups, downs, stressors, and relaxing/fun activities. Stressors include playing viola on a chamber music concert and feeling inadequate about it, some other performance things, and of course generally worrying about having overextended myself this semester with my teaching schedule. Ups include getting to teach the Tchaikovsky and Mendelssohn Concertos both TWICE last week, having a fun wine dinner with friends at the Whittemore House Friday house (this would doublecount as a relaxing/fun activities), feeling valued by being asked to teach more students than every at Wash U, finding out both of my students who auditioned for orchestras at the Community Music School got in, and more.
Wine Dinner menu
Downs are things like: worrying about a friend’s upcoming surgery, feeling inadequate at the viola and sort of missing out on playing the violin on the concert instead, sometimes feeling left out in social settings (though I’ve been working on it), feeling overly tired some days and not giving students my best (I was BRAINDEAD by Friday evening.)
A wedding at the Cathedral Basilica
Relaxing and fun activities: Other than the Whittemore house wine dinner, we had dinner at a new to us restaurant called Diego’s Cantina. It was fine but not my favorite, but we sat outside and the weather was lovely…but then the table next to us started playing music on their phone, I kid you not, even though there was already music playing over the speakers. It was infuriating and ridiculous. In any case, we ate and left and then went home to relax and watch Suits, which Netflix finally convinced us to start watching.
We saw Union Avenue Opera’s last show, Ragtime
We’ve also hosted some friends for brunch AND dinner recently, as well as having gone out to eat with various other friends and Louie’s family-the end of August was a flurry of social activities and I hope to continue hosting people and seeing friends. It’s so easy to get caught up in the busy-ness of the fall season (this is truly the post-COVID schedule, not that COVID is gone, but that any ill affects COVID put on concert scheduling are gone, and perhaps more people are playing violin than ever) and it’s nice to keep seeing friends and feel like there is slightly more to life than fixing bow holds and telling people when to taper a phrase more.
Muriel enjoys sitting in my teaching chair other times and dislikes when I teach
I know I go back and forth on this blog about what I want to do with my schedule. In June I was thinking I wanted to cut back on teaching a bit, and while I actually haven’t added many new students to my private studio, I am teaching my highest college workload ever. This is a variable thing, and I figured the opportunity might not present itself again (I usually have 4-6 hours and I’m actually at 10) so it was worth doing, especially to get to teach some more advanced students, and I always love my Wash U students. But it’s a lot on top of other things…I will make it work, but I think it’ll be an exhausting fall. I’m a little stressed about my before school job starting and the early morning hours: I feel like right now I have plenty going on but I’m not overwhelmed yet, and I worry it’ll push me over, but I also know I can fit it in because I’ve done it before. This may be my last year there, but I haven’t decided for sure–we’ll see in April or May.
I had a funny conversation the other day on a family zoom: I mentioned how I knew many of them read my blog but never commented, and my youngest sister says, what, you are still blogging, I thought you quit ages ago!
Which, I suppose in a way I did, and then I kept it up! So here we are. It’s the first week of the fall semester for me, in a way, but also the end of summer, and it’s UNBEARABLY HOT outside. The humidity is real.
I say in a way, because this week I started teaching my private students fall schedule, but next week I start with the college kids at Wash U. I’m working on that schedule. And then a few weeks later I start my other school job where I teach before school, and along the way gigs and concerts start ramping up, and before I know it my schedule is super crazy!
But things are well. The summer was fun and relaxing and I did many of the things I wanted to do. Many are still left to do, and I’m trying to prioritize that. I weirdly hurt my shoulder last week doing something–literally I don’t even know–so it’s been feeling gradually better. I tried to run a few times in the horrific humidity: one time unsuccessful due to the shoulder pain, but the second time more successfully.
We’ve done some fun things lately: Saturday night was especially fun. Louie and I walked over to a place called Joe’s Cafe and watched some friends perform with a group there. It was a lot of jazz/latin music, some improv, some written, and so much fun! I always plan things to do, and then right before usually wish I could just stay home and chill, but usually the things are way more fun than staying home would be, and this was an evening that will stick with me for longer! Ranya is one of the first friends I made when I moved to St Louis, and she is an awesome cello player, and Alyssa and Asako were the two violinists, and they both have different styles of playing and are both terrific at what they do. The rest of the band was good too, and the group kept us entertained the whole evening.
I’ve been making a point to get together with friends more often: the pandemic got me out of that habit, and I know that it is so easy to do nothing and it’s harder to get that inertia going, but so well worth it. In the past week I’ve gotten together several times with friends and every time it was so much fun and made me happier. Which was absolutely the intention, and hopefully it did the same for them! It’s also nice to chat with someone other than Louie: we spend a lot of time together, especially over the summer, and it’s always good to get together with others. It’s so easy to just hang out with the other person in your relationship, isn’t it? And then you work a ton, and then just want to watch TV and rinse, repeat.
Miles giving Louie a hug from behindMy windowsill plants
I’m looking forward to a wonderful semester. I know it will be pretty busy, but I am hoping to stay on top of things, have time for exercise and social activities and keep organized. I’ve mentioned I started using a paper planner again for day to day planning. I got into a planning podcast this summer which is by a blogger I’ve read for years (the SHUBox) and that made me want to try paper planning again. I’m using a 90 day planner by Savor Beauty, which is actually a little ridiculous, but I love the reflection pages, which are making me really think about what I want out of life. It’s so easy to get into the day by day of life and just let things happen rather than really considering what I want, and it’s been fun to work on that. I also enjoy having my goals for each day set out (for days when there is time aside from appointments) and then checking things off. I still of course use my google calendar for all things and My Music Staff for teaching lessons organization, but this is for the on the ground day to day stuff. We’ll see how it works during the hectic fall times!
Anyway, that’s all my boring stuff. I’ll end with a cartoon that I saw online that made me laugh.
We got home a few days ago from a lovely trip to visit my sister’s family in western New York and then into Ontario for camping. It was wonderful to see them! My niece and nephew are 8 and 4 and they are both delightful, inquisitive, and of course, adorable.
My sister Leslie and brother-in-law live in Phoenix during the year, but spend their summers in Chautauqua, NY working at the Institution there. They have a house in nearby Sherman, NY, and we enjoy visiting them and experiencing small town life as well as enjoying the events at the Institution.
The houseWe are shared this cinnamon roll at Bemus Point Inn and RestaurantWe attended the Sherman Bicentennial Parade. There is a large population of Amish people there and a family was across the street from us, collecting candy from the floats.The shriners had a float. Nearly everybody threw candy at the kids and it was a blast watching them pick it up. Luca and Louie enjoyed working together to have ChatGPT make up storiesWe saw the Orchestra play Peter and the Wolf one afternoonWe were very excited about it.Luca really liked this fan.He also enjoyed using my phone to take pictures and selfies.We went to see one lecture by two men who had hiked the Grand Canyon, not from rim to rim, but through it, by the river. Peter McBride and Kevin Fedarko, and they both have written books. It was terrific!Louie takes terrific pictures!Pretending to be a pirate who has lost BOTH eyes.We got to see Augustin Hadelich perform the Sibelius Violin Concerto with the Festival Orchestra. He played Por una Cabeza as an encore. And we got to meet him (again) after the concert at a private reception.I participated in an impromptu Suzuki play-in and busking experience with my sister and niece, and other people from the orchestra and their kids.
We had a great time: food, concerts, family time, walks, hot tub time, lectures, parades, and more! It rained more than we might have liked, but that just meant more time playing games and making Chat GPT make up stories and AI make up pictures and lots of cuddle time. With the kids, that is. After that we drove up to Canada (just Louie and I) but I’ll save that for another post, so that I can get some other things done now.
I don’t start teaching until Monday so I’ve been taking care of things around the house and learning some new music I’ll be performing at the end of the month and in September (and October, never hurts to get ahead on learning music when you have the time!). I’ve also been getting everything ready for the fall semester and trying to get my fall schedule at Wash U organized. It’s always a pain getting started but it’s also fun and you never know what each semester will look like, which keeps life interesting.
We left off in Mueller State Park and then headed to Breckenridge. We were spending the night in Frisco before the conference started in Vail. When I originally planned this trip, we were going to head home after Mueller, but when Louie got invited to his conference, it magically worked out with just one extra night!
In grad school I was lucky enough to be able to spend two summers playing with the National Repertory Orchestra in Breckenridge, Colorado. It truly spoiled me for all other mountains, at least for awhile. I had also been back a few times to visit, but not in over a decade and never with Louie. I had wanted to stay overnight in Breck, but it was more than we wanted to pay (many of the places to stay seemed more geared towards longer stays, so they would have a reasonable night fee but a high cleaning fee which would make more sense if you were there for a week or something), and the places I found to reserve camping were already full by the time we needed to book. I did find some affordable places in Frisco, so I booked a night at the Snowshoe Motel (which when I just googled it now suggested I google “snowshoe motel death” and found that somebody was murdered there in 2014, but I digress, and it was a lovely motel, seriously). But I’m getting ahead of myself.
As always, we had an amazing drive to Breckenridge. The route from Mueller State Park to Breckenridge was all state roads and was beautiful. We went through Fairplay and over Hoosier Pass. We got to Breckenridge and had lunch at the Breckenridge Brewery where I had spent a lot of time in the past. It had changed, but also hadn’t changed, you know what I mean?
Then we found a place to park near the Riverwalk Center and walked around the town. It was a busy day and people were out and about, but I enjoyed looking to see what I recognized, and sharing the town with Louie. Breckenridge is surrounded by gorgeous mountains on all sides, and is really a special place. It’s also totally crowded and expensive, and full of tourists and traffic, but that’s to be expected in today’s world.
The Riverwalk Center is where the orchestra I was with performed. It used to be more of a tent structure and they’ve made it more permanent.I spent a summer looking at this view from the Tannhauser Condominiums on Main Street. They were still there!The Blue River!
After a few hours, we were ready to head to Frisco and check into our hotel. We got cleaned up and went to do some laundry in a nearby laundromat (ah, road trip troubles), which was easy enough. Frisco is a cute little mountain too as well, but less busy, and we were still early in the season, so it was surprisingly un-busy. We had dinner at the High Side Brewery (they had a BBQ truck too.)
The next morning we had the hotel breakfast and then checked out of the hotel and headed for a hike in Frisco. I found a loop called the Frisco Peninsula Loop which contained the Lakeshore, Perimeter and Buzzsaw Loops. I suppose it was really more of a biking loop, but we had a great time hiking and enjoying the views.
After the hike, we were pretty hungry and decided Mexican was in order. I remember having a pretty good lunch at a Tex-Mex place in Frisco in the past, but we found something better, a place called Cielo Oaxaca that I highly recommend! They had excellent mole sauce and everything was delicious.
Then we headed DOWN to Vail. it would be a relief to spend a night before 9000 feet, you know!
Louie had a conference in Vail at the Grand Hyatt, so we checked in there. It was a terrific room with a balcony, and it was wonderful to hang out in and relax. Since we spent 5 days there, I’ll just give you some general things we did and some highlights rather than a day-by-day.
The view from the room, not amazing but absolutely lovely
We ate at The George in downtown Vail twice: they had a terrific happy hour special on food and drinks and we loved the vibe. We also ate at La Cantina for dinner once and had breakfast at Two Arrows Coffee. We mostly had lunches and other breakfasts at the hotel, which was naturally quite overpriced but very convenient. The food in Vail was really pricey and though I’m sure there were many amazing restaurants there, Louie’s conference took up his time so we didn’t do an evening out with an expensive restaurant.
We were able to do a few hikes. We hiked the Strawberry Lane Trail, which was mostly just hiking up ski areas, but like we said, we don’t have ski areas to hike up and across in St Louis. We also hiked the Grouse Creek Loop in Minturn (we had to get the car out of the valet parking for this one), which was a lovely hike. We kept running into people who saw a moose, starting with a man at the beginning warning us that just up the trail a moose tried to attack his dog, which we warned other people about, but never saw a moose ourselves. We saw some moose tracks in the mud, and we even heard the story that evening at the banquet, about how some man had been attacked by a moose on the Grouse Creek Loop that morning (except we saw the man and it wasn’t him, it was his dog, and his dog was okay, they were just shaken up) so we really got to experience how rumors get started, but like I said, sadly no moose for us.
Louie’s poster for his poster sessionThere was a lot of snow still remaining!We visited the Betty Ford Alpine Gardens one evening.The closest we came to a mooseThe tent where they held the poster sessions at the conference.
Honestly, the hotel was nice, but it was a bit under construction, which was annoying. There was a path to walk to downtown Vail, but parts were diverted due to construction as well. The hotel did have a wonderful free shuttle to Lionshead and Vail Village, which ran quite often, and would also take you back. We took advantage of it several times, and often ended up walking back in the evening as the weather was lovely and we wanted to get exercise (and it was downhill slightly, hah.) I loved our time in Vail, but finally it was time to go home!
We visited with friends in Denver en route, just for lunch, and then drove most of the way across Kansas. I won’t bother mentioning where we stayed overnight, but we didn’t care for it, but we got up early and finished the drive the next day and we were glad to be home!
I hope you enjoyed reading these blog recaps of our trip. I’m sorry it took me so long to get through, but perhaps that just increased the excitement? Please leave a comment if you are reading, I love hearing from readers 🙂
