The semester schedule, especially for college, often just seems like a mad dash from beginning to end. It’s slightly less so for school before college since the semesters are longer, but there’s still that same feeling.
The days are longer, the birds are louder, the air is warmer, it was Spring for a few days, and may be almost there again now.
Life: life is hectic and busy. Louie is completely overworked right now, but his sprint only goes through the end of April. Mine goes longer, but I’m not as overworked. Still time to read, to plan upcoming trips, to relax.
I haven’t felt like getting into the garden yet this year. I’m not sure if I’ll do it or not. I think I’ll probably plant at least a few things, maybe beans and zucchini, but since we’ll be gone I want to time it so that hopefully it’s okay if I wasn’t there the whole time.
It’s been a tough semester, with some work reasons I won’t go into here. I will say: I’ve been working hard on envisioning my own life, what I want the rest of my career to look like, and coming to terms with the fact (probably 20 years late!) that what I see as success and happiness in my career is what matters, not what other people see as success, especially colleagues who may have very different world views. I am not teaching in order to make my students into competition winners or performers, I am teaching because I want them to love playing the violin like I do, but I also know that for most of them, this is one part of their lives, and that’s okay. I want it to be a good part.
The same with performing: I can’t do everything. I have said repeatedly that I’m glad to be doing less, and I’m still playing for sure. I’m saying yes, I’m saying no, making decisions for myself. Do I get feelings of jealousy when I see what other people are getting the opportunity to do? Yes, sometimes. And sometimes those pangs are very fleeting, because then I remind myself, you chose a different path, you had a lovely evening, you played that other job, you already turned that gig down because it conflicted with something, or whatever. You can control your second thought.
Maybe they are just bragging on social media to make themselves feel better anyway, because they are missing something in their life, or because the freelance game is like the Game of Thrones.
Or, maybe they are genuinely happy and sharing because of that, it’s possible! There is room for all of us, their happiness doesn’t take away from mine.
I got new hiking shoes! I am trying a zero drop shoe. I thought that I didn’t need new hiking shoes for the summer and then I realized that my shoes were actually falling apart and worn down. We went on the Lime Kiln trail last weekend, and my calves were working hard on the uphills, but otherwise I loved them. I’ll need to build up those muscles.
New hiking shoes!
My old shoes treated me well: I hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, all over Utah (we did 5 parks in one trip!), Colorado, Missouri, and more. These shoes are more trail runners, so they are lighter, and probably won’t last as long, but the lightness is a nice feature as well. They are the Altra Timp 3 Trail Runners.
You can see my old shoes in these photos: With Louie at Delicate Arch in Arches National Park, me hiking up to Mills Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park, and relaxing by Mills Lake in RMNP on my 40th birthday.
I’ve been reading the Inspector Gamache series of books lately by Louise Penny. I happened into the first one somehow and then have been reading as many as I can. TV wise, we’ve been watching Occupied, which is a Netflix show in which Norway is occupied by Russia for their gas…it really takes on a whole new level watching this show during the current atrocities Russia is committing in Ukraine, but the show is good and making us excited for visiting Norway.
Food wise: we attended a Wine Dinner at the Whittemore House last weekend. It was a pairing of Moroccan food and wines (not Moroccan, but just to pair.) We had a great time. I haven’t been cooking anything super fun lately, just quick dinners to get by, like frozen pizza, fish and roasted vegetables, pasta, that sort of thing. Oh, one favorite recipe lately is Black Pepper Tofu and Eggplant from the Smitten Kitchen.
I got a comment on my blog yesterday that I moderated, because I can: I pay for the blog. Someone I didn’t know accused me of being “afraid of Trump signs.” Yes, I mentioned that there were political signs in the area and that led us to not want to spend more money.
I didn’t say what the signs were. You can assume, but you might be missing some: some signs were Trump/Pence. One was a former Trump/Pence sign with the Pence torn off (traitor to the party, right?). There were many confederate flags, and some Let’s Go Brandon signs.
I’m not afraid. But I did not start this fight. I am not the one leaving up divisive political signs or adding to them, long after an election is over. I am not the one who put politics in the middle of a pandemic of a deadly virus that killed AT LEAST 1 million Americans.
So, it boils down to, do I trust eating in a restaurant in an area with people who support an autocratic ex-president who still supports Vladimir Putin, who is currently bombing civilians, (including maternity hospitals) in a sovereign state?
No.
No I do not.
Of course it goes much further as well. I have so many friends and family members who are in the LGBTQ+ community. I know that those signs stand for taking away their rights to simply live as who they are. I know that those friends and family members would not be welcome in these areas. And I want to go places where they are welcome.
Am I afraid? No.
But I have dollars to spend, and one life to live, and what I have, at least, what I still have for now, is choice. I chose to visit an Airbnb in a rural area. I chose to visit some state run natural resources, which I support highly. I chose not to spend any additional money in the neighboring communities, for a variety of reasons, one of which was that we had such a lovely view from our room and had brought food to cook.
Are there lovely people in these places, just as there are lovely people everywhere? I am certain. There are lovely and not lovely people who live everywhere.
You may not know this about me, but I grew up in a small town in South Carolina. I grew up surrounded by confederate flags and Reagan supporters. Don’t assume you know me because I live in a city now.
But, as a traveler, as a human, I have choices. I’m debating visiting Austin with Louie in the summer (he has another conference there), and I think, hmm, do I want to go to Texas? All the guns, all the anti-trans legislature, etc. Plus the heat (my god, the heat!) in June will be annoying. But there are some really interesting looking things there, and I know Austin (and Texas) are full of wonderful people trying to do wonderful things for the world. And Louie has a place to stay because of the conference, so it’s just the cost of the plane ticket and any missed work (which, it’s summer, if I can’t be more flexible in the summer when can I be?)
All this to say: I welcome comments from all readers, but I reserve the right to moderate in any way I see fit, especially for personal attacks.
We only had a weekend to getaway over our respective Spring Breaks, and didn’t want to drive too far, so I decided to figure out a trip that would take us to do some interesting hiking. I also wanted to stay somewhere reasonably interesting, which ended up being a bit of a challenge. We settled on visiting the Garden of the Gods (in Illinois, not Colorado) since we had heard wonderful things about it and knew a few people who had gone. I couldn’t find much information about what to do online, so I hope this post will be helpful to you if you plan a trip!
So the Garden of the Gods is a Wilderness area in the Shawnee National Forest, and honestly, we barely tapped the surface, but I’ll tell you what we did. But first, let me tell you where we stayed!
I had looked at some cabins closer to the Garden of the Gods, but they were either too expensive or already booked up. I realized that there were a few options in areas overlooking the nearby Ohio River though, and settled on a place with a jacuzzi and porch overlooking the river. That location has several varying options, and they are all part of the same place. (It is a former Catholic Retreat called San Damiano.)
It was about a 3 hour drive for us, which is about right for a weekend. We left around lunch on Friday and arrived mid-afternoon. Check in was easy (key in our room), and we immediately found that yes, the view was as advertised.
The place itself was…quiet and isolated. There were a few other cars there and we saw a couple out walking their dog, but otherwise it looked run down and abandoned (there was a large building that used to be perhaps a conference center, which looked simply closed during our visit, but maybe closed for good.) We unpacked the car and then took a walk, following a sign that said “to the Ohio River 1/3 mile”. Indeed! It was a trail that went around the bluffs, really a road, and then we were closer to the river level. We walked for about a mile, and kept thinking maybe somehow it would circle back around, but it didn’t, so finally we reached what seemed to be “the end” and turned back. We also explored a bit around the building we were staying as well, as there were some benches, statues, etc. to walk around and look at.
Part of the road might have been a boat ramp at one time, but looked a bit flooded.
We got back up to our room and went out on the porch for “Happy Hour” of cheese/crackers. The porch wasn’t entirely private, but we had our own space. The room we had was part of a building with four rooms, but only the one on the opposite end was occupied. There was a nearby building that had a couple on the end as well, and at this time everybody seemed to be out enjoying the view.
It did get a little chilly however, so we went inside and turned on the gas fireplace and started cooking dinner. We had what we needed to cook, but nothing extra! There were no wine glasses either, which I figured just meant that the place was tired of people breaking them, since they did have a wine bottle opener.
At one point, we saw our first barge!
You can see our excitement!
It was exciting, because we could see the barge from afar, coming around the bend, but then it slowly got closer and closer.
We went to bed early, after watching a few shows on Netflix: there was a tv but no internet, so I assume just a few local channels. Do bring your own downloaded entertainment!
Oh, and barges make more noise than you might think. After dark, we would hear them coming up and down the river.
The next morning we enjoyed coffee and watched the river more. It was a bit chilly and rainy so we mostly watched from inside.
Our next plan was to visit the Garden of the Gods. We did two hikes there, which I highly recommend. We started with the Observation Loop, which is a must do hike in the area. It’s short and quite easy: there’s a mostly stone path to follow, and you can go off path and climb more rocks, or you can just stay on the path.
These rock formations were huge!This one looked like a turtle.I think this was called the Devil’s Smokestack, but there’s a 40 percent chance that is just in my head.
After we hiked the Observation Trail, we drove to the Indian Point Trailhead. It was a smaller parking lot, but was pretty crowded. This hike was around 2 miles, and was very enjoyable. We went counterclockwise. It was a little muddy starting out, but wasn’t bad overall.
The views at what I assume were Indian Point were very nice.
Not a bad view!
And then the trail goes by a bunch of rock formations, some with crevices and cave-like features that likely more adventurous people than me crawl all over. We really enjoyed this hike, and also the solitude of it. It was easy to follow and was well marked, though I’d downloaded it on Alltrails as well.
After that, we knew there was more to do at the Garden of the Gods, but nothing that we really felt like we knew enough about. So, if you have been and have recommendations for next time, please tell me! It looked like there were some longer hikes, but all the All trails reviews mentioned horses and being poorly marked…and we just didn’t want to deal with it. So do the Observation Trail and the Indian Point Trail, and then drive to Rim Rock Trail, which is about 15 minutes away, and will be awesome…when they fix the stairs.
The stairs look amazing. And they were closed for repairs.
We enjoyed about a 1 mile hike around the Rim Rocks Trail, but couldn’t do what looked to be the highlight of the Trail, going down those stairs into the rock formations down below! I would highly recommend all three of these trails, and none of them were particularly difficult–the Indian Point Trail was rocky and you’ll want good shoes for all of them.
After that, we decided to visit the nearby towns. We started with Golconda, which was technically the mailing address of our retreat. It was a little tiny town on the Ohio River, with a history of being a place where the Trail of Tears went by. The Wikipedia page tells the story, of a ferry man who refused to help the Indians cross the river, and made them wait in a cave and many of them died there. The town itself was quite run down (though to be fair, so are parts of my city) but the river was nice: we drove up on the levee and went down as far as we could. Oh, I considered renting an airbnb on the levee here with a lovely porch to watch the river, but I’m glad I chose the one I did, with the jacuzzi, and being further from town. There wasn’t much to do there, though there was maybe one little restaurant.
We also visited two other nearby towns, named Rosiclaire and Elizabethtown. We had thought if we saw a fun looking restaurant we might have dinner in town, but didn’t see anything that appealed. (We also get a little uncomfortable with all the political signs in these areas, to be honest, and that makes me not want to spend any more money, as well as concerns over health safety.)
So, we headed back to be on barge watch! And by that I mean, more cheese and crackers, and the sun even came out for a bit.
There was no outside table so we had to improvise.
And then we cooked dinner and relaxed.
One interesting thing that happened in the early morning was that we heard a barge blowing its horn, over and over. I was tired and chilly and didn’t get out of bed, but I chatted with the neighbor later and she said it was a foghorn–that the fog covered the entire river and there were two barges passing one another blowing their foghorns at one another. I should have gotten up!
Anyway, we took our time getting going in the morning, but left around 11 am. On our way out we stopped by the outskirts of the Retreat center to do a short walk in the woods and visit a giant statue.
The walk took us to an old cemetery, a pet cemetery (it was sweet but if you read Stephen King you will get shivers reading that phrase) and what looked like it used to be a place with statues but was now just old wooden posts and cement block with broken bits. I think it was a place to visit the Stations of the Cross and I don’t know if it was taken away or vandalized, or what, but it wasn’t anything anymore. We did see a few deer as well.
The main building, which looked to be closed, perhaps abandoned?
I hope you get a chance to visit the Garden of the Gods sometime, or visit the Ohio River. We definitely enjoyed our stay and would go back again, especially to hike the Rim Rock Trail with the stairs fixed and maybe another longer trail in the Garden of the Gods area.
It was an easy drive home, less than 3 hours and the cats were happy to see us.
Question: are you familiar with the saying “March comes in like a lion, but out like a lamb?” Answer in the comments!
Okay, so things are busy here, as usual: gigs are heating back up, lots of Lent and Easter stuff happening, oddly a few new music concerts, and travel planning…because now we are going to NORWAY in late May/early June.
Louie is presenting at a conference, and we are taking advantage to visit Norway. I had actually been planning a different trip to New Mexico/Colorado, so I had to change gears, cancel some reservations, etc, and now I’m fully on board with our new planning. I was a little stressed at first, because I am not that great with change, but once I got my bearings, realized the planning is the same except it’s like, farther away, and started on my research…I’m so excited.
It is worth noting that is it much more expensive planning an international trip rather than a domestic trip with lots of camping. But luckily Louie’s work will reimburse parts of our trip (the conference lodgings, his plane ticket) and that does make it more reasonable.
Otherwise, I’ve been teaching, practicing, scheduling, looking forward to Spring Break. We are getting away for a weekend around Spring Break (unfortunately Spring Break, yes, always must be capitalized is actually two different weeks in our household, hence the weekend trip) to the Garden of the Gods area in Illinois. We’ve reserved an AirBnb overlooking the Ohio River and look forward to getting some hiking in, hopefully with good weather and not like, constant rain or something. Who knows!
So that’s where I’ve been. We’ve also been doing some nice stuff: Great Artists Series Concert, had a movie day where we watched TWO MOVIES in one day, hunkering down during an ice storm, enjoying 80 degree weather on the same day one week later, and more.
Image of roasted cherry tomatoes with cheese.
I heard about and then made the “famous” tiktok tomato feta pasta. Google it, make it, enjoy it.
Have you been to Norway? We are doing Bergen, Balestrand, and Oslo. Any suggestions are welcome!
Anyway, just a quick pop in to tell you how my week is going so far.
Honestly, last week was a really difficult week. My job was difficult, I was failing at everything, my students were doing poorly and it was all my fault, my class was the worse in the group rehearsals, mine had the worst posture, etc, etc. I had some days where I just broke down. I was tired and fantasized about quitting my early morning job at the end of the school year…or just never going back again even.
But I made it to the end of the week somehow, and had a nice weekend! And Monday was a holiday so I got tickets to a play on Sunday night.
I got the tickets from the St Louis Repertory Theater. I’d played a show with them a few years back, and we went to see A Christmas Carol in December, so when they sent an email offering a good deal on the latest play, I thought why not. I bought two tickets, had them held at Will Call since it was close to the date, and didn’t really pay attention beyond that.
We went to the theater at the appointed time and realized…oh so they don’t always have their shows at the same place. It was locked, no one was parking, nothing going on! I checked my email and realized, oh my gosh it’s at a different place about 14 minutes away.
Somehow we made it! We were a few minutes late, but it hadn’t started yet, and we got our tickets and got seated just in the nick of time!
The show was called Stick Fly and we really enjoyed it. It was both entertaining and thought provoking, which is the best way to be I think. I’m so glad we didn’t give up and go home, which is what we were very tempted to do after failing. The production runs through March 6 and I highly recommend it–just be sure to notice the address of the theater.
So I guess the morale is, keep on keeping on. It’ll get better. Or something.
And then this morning, I had my school job and it was fine, my students are doing a bit better, and I just need to keep at them and not let things slide, and then I went to Trader Joe’s. I got some orange sodas which I thought would be a nice weeknight treat.
As I was unloading I had the horrible thought that I had left them on the bottom of the cart. I didn’t see them anywhere, and I had almost done something like that in the past and thankfully somebody had noticed before I drove away. I thought, wow, this week is turning out just like last week, isn’t it.
But as I unpacked my bags I saw that the sodas were just in one of the bags. I hadn’t forgotten them at all!
I will take this as a sign that this week is going to be okay.
Weather here is crazy. Warm, cold, ice, snow, warm, cold, etc. We had all the seasons from Wednesday to Friday of last week, according to one of my college students. I argued that we didn’t see summer (if we had there wouldn’t still be ice around). In any case, the weather keeps us on our toes, doesn’t it? Today is supposed to be warm by afternoon, but then snow is in the forecast again for later in the week.
We’ve had some fun activities this weekend–dinner at Louie’s mom’s on Friday night (a takeout beer dinner from the Whittemore House) and then we went to Jazz at the Bistro last night with our friends Ben and Roz. We had pizza with them beforehand, and then hung out again afterwards since the second Jazz show was sold out and we couldn’t stay. The show was great: Christian McBride on bass, Benny Green on piano, and Gregory Hutchinson on drums. I would have watched it again if it wasn’t sold out (if there are tickets available for the second show you can trade in for new seats, no additional charge.) Tonight we are going to see a play at the Rep called Stick Fly: they sent a code for discount tickets which were a really good deal and I didn’t want to pass it up. It’s nice getting out and about again.
I have tomorrow morning off from my school job due to President’s Day, but this week we have a big concert on Wednesday. The school is going “masks recommended” starting Tuesday rather than “masks required” so it’s a little stressful. No, there is no vaccine mandate for any employees or students or anyone. They do have protocols in place to put masks back in if the number of COVID cases gets above a certain percentage at any one school, but seeing as we teach students from 5 different schools at a 6th school, it doesn’t really make that much sense to me. The COVID cases are only known because of self-reporting, as well, so I suspect they are underreported. Oh well! We are told there are resources to help with our anxiety and that N95/KN95 masks protect the wearer…
You might ask, how do I feel comfortable going to shows and such but not being at work with unmasked people. The shows ask for vaccine proof or a negative test, and people are required to wear masks. The jazz shows do serve food and drink, but I can choose to keep my mask on, and they require masks and testing, which means that people have had to make extra effort to be there and aren’t likely to show up fully symptomatic, as they might be for school. Also, if I’m going to catch COVID, as I’ve said, I want it to be from something fun. We should be safe at our jobs, at our schools, etc.
I canned some pickled beets with beets from the CSA. I had to get a new canner to go with our induction stove, and the awesome thing is that it’s a steam canner, so it uses way less water.
The steam canner at work.
I’m doing a practice contest with my students starting on March 1. I’ve been working out the details all week, and I got it sent out (well, scheduled to send for tomorrow). I am hopeful it will encourage more practicing and be fun. In a nutshell, the students track their practicing until the end of the semester, and the top three practicers win automatic prizes. In addition, each student gets a “raffle ticket” for each 15 minutes they practice, and then I’ll do a drawing and pick three more winners. I don’t have the prizes yet but am planning on $10 gift certificates to a variety of places, some ice cream places, maybe target, that sort of thing. I think it will be really interesting to see how it goes and to see how much some students practice. It’s a good incentive as we head into contest/recital season. I’ve got several students doing Solo and Ensemble, and 12 students doing the NFMC Festival, and then probably a bunch playing on the recital at the end of April.
I’ve also been trying to get ahead on my summer planning, and setting up stuff for the summer/fall. This month doesn’t seem as busy as March/April look to be so I wanted to use my time to make plans for the future. I’m working out how I want the summer to look and how to streamline my teaching schedule so I’m teaching less time when I’m teaching less students. I think it’ll be the best summer yet as far as those things go.
How is your February going? Did you witness the ridiculous women’s figure skating final night of crying?
