July has been a whirlwind. Mostly good stuff, with a small amount of COVID in it (mild illness, on a whim took a test and tested positive, but a few days later tested negative again).
I played the whole season with the Gateway Festival Orchestra this year, and it was a lot. It was fun to play so much orchestral music, but man I did not want to wake up on some of the Saturday mornings for rehearsal, haha. I also had some other random gigs: weddings and concerts, including some viola stuff.
I taught a bunch of students, and I have four more days of summer teaching left. I enjoyed having some students for just the summer, and I have set up my fall schedule, mostly.
And we did a few things with friends, though we also had to cancel some things. The most picturesque thing was going to see the Chihuly Exhibition at the Botanical Gardens.
We sadly attended a goodbye party for two friends, Michael and Heather, who are moving a few hours away. It was a wonderful party, but a sad occasion, though we are very happy for them!
We didn’t accomplish as much at the old house as we originally thought we would, but we have done a bunch of stuff at the new house. One thing we’ve been waiting on is putting stuff on the walls, but we did a little more of that this month too.
I read a ton of books this month. Highlights included Demon Copperfield by Barbara Kingsolver, Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld and Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson.
I’ve got a lot to do this morning too, so I’ll leave you with that picture of Muriel and Miles sharing a hammock.
I’m sorry I haven’t been adding more recaps of my trip earlier…isn’t that how it goes? Rest assure I have notes and such and I hope to get a recap done soon. But life has been busy with plenty of activities!
When we got back, I went straight into summer teaching. It was a lot of fun getting back to it after several weeks off. In addition to teaching, we went to several operas at Opera Theatre (with the Young Friends dinner, the best deal for opera ever, dinner and drinks, plus your ticket, for about $50. )
At the opera
We also went out for my official birthday dinner at Bowood, and I got a facial at STL Skin and Body, where I hadn’t been in over a year. It improved my skin immensely!
Then my sister Leslie and her kids came to visit, so I took another week off teaching to hang out with them. We spent our first morning at the City Museum crawling all over the place. The next day we went to the Arch–the kids had loved seeing it and when they learned you could go up it, they requested to do that.
On top of the Arch!
We went to Circus Flora one night. Everybody loved the trained dogs and the tightrope walkers the most, I think. My nephew kept going on about the little chihuahua and how he thought it was amazing and how cute they were.
My niece got into sweeping and ended up sweeping my house, dusting with various dusters, and leafblowing the front with a new Ryobi leaf blower (battery powered) that Louie had gotten recently. I want to clarify that I did not request that she cleaned the house, though I may have gotten the ball rolling by once asking her to help sweep something off the kitchen floor during dinner prep. I’ll tell you, the front steps never looked better, and I need them to come back and clean up more.
The kids sweeping the front sidewalks.
We had a wonderful time visiting and hanging out, and they enjoyed exploring our new house.
We have some sticks to deal with in the back.
And then after they left, we were sad, and exhausted. We went to another opera that night, which ended with a real life proposal onstage.
The woman in white was the female lead in Treemonisha and her boyfriend surprised her with an onstage proposal. She said yes!
And then yesterday Louie and I went to the .zack theater in midtown to see the Amazing Acrocats. It was great, and much what you might expect from a cat circus. Basically sometimes the cats did the tricks they were supposed to and otherwise they did cat things. It was a lot of fun and we would highly recommend it if you have a chance. They are going to Denver next and then later to Minneapolis and Chicago.
We ended the weekend with a barbecue with Louie’s colleagues and some Succession watching (we are working through the latest season.) It was a busy but fun week!
Looking ahead, I am getting “back to normal” this week with lots of teaching and a few gigs. After that my sister Carrie visits over the holiday and we have a few plans for that as well, but I am not taking the week off, just having some time off due to the 4th of July falling on a Tuesday. I know there is still plenty of summer left, but as it is almost July, I am worried it will go by too quickly for my taste! I remind myself I have 6 more weeks of teaching scheduled, which is quite a lot, so there is plenty of summer left.
I’ll take a short break from my trip recaps to tell you how I’m doing right now. (Don’t worry, I’ve been going through photos and figuring out what to write about, and I will likely do another post tomorrow.)
It’s been the first week of summer teaching and it’s been great. I absolutely adore teaching at home in my new home, and I’ve enjoyed seeing my students again. I have a few new ones, and a few only over the summer, so things have been fairly busy. I am much more relaxed with my teaching rules over the summer and students are only required to take a certain number, but many take more than the required number. It’s nice to spread people out more over the day as well, and I’ve managed to only schedule 4 days a week as well!
Today is my last teaching day of the week and I only have a few hours. Then I have a relaxing afternoon (plus grocery shopping) and Louie and I are going out tonight for dinner to celebrate my birthday, which was last week. I told him it was okay to count the trip as my birthday celebrations but he disagreed. We also went to see the opera Susannah last night, and enjoyed a “Young Friends” buffet beforehand. We are just pushing the boundary of Young Friends, but I assure you we are still young for the opera!
I went for a run yesterday: I decided to get back into running so I have started a beginning running training plan through Runkeeper. It gives you 3 a week–I had meant to start on Monday but woke up with a headache so I pushed it back. My knee is doing mostly okay but my hip was hurting last night, but I think not bad enough to skip my planned run tomorrow. It really is mostly walking anyway, so I think I can listen to my body and do what works. I’m not sure if I also hurt my hip when I hurt my knee about a month ago, but I think it’s related. It’s nothing too bad though.
The weather has so far been warm but not humid so it’s been incredibly pleasant here. I will be grateful while I can! The cats were glad to see us when we returned: we had people stopping by often but it’s not the same as constant companionship. Muriel wasn’t so sure about violin however, and I think she would be happy never to hear the instrument again (sorry Muriel, not going to happen!). Miles is growing slightly less shy, and the students get to see a bit more of him, at least from a distant.
I feel like there isn’t too much to do here, which is somewhat true, if you ignore that we still need to finish decorating the house here, probably some yard work as well, but more importantly, there’s the other house. But it’s important to have down time and try to strike a balance, and the other house is a longer term project. We will likely go over there on Sunday and do some work.
So that’s me right now! How is your summer going? Do you have a lighter work schedule or keep doing the same?
We left off on Day 4 in White Rock, but I have a few editorial comments before I continue with the recap.
I was reading through some old trip recaps, and I realized that Louie and I HAD spent a night in Oklahoma before: evidently we stayed a night in Tulsa on our trip home from New Mexico on a previous trip. Now, obviously it was uneventful as I have no recollection of it, but I thought it was worth mentioning for total accuracy reasons.
So that brings us to White Rock, New Mexico on Day 4 of the trip.
We slept well in the Yurt, and woke up early. We weren’t sure how crowded Bandelier National Monument would get, but it’s always a good idea to try to beat the crowds. We were among the first in the parking lot (yes!) and got loaded up to hike into Frijoles Canyon, the most popular part of the park.
It was really nice to have the place basically to ourselves for awhile. It was a beautiful day, and the views were terrific.
The Native Americans built various buildings into the side of the mountains, tucked into alcoves, down low and up high. There are lots of parts of the buildings left to see, as well as ladders to climb (that the park service added in for us to climb, but likely was a way that the ancestral pueblo people got around.)
As always on these trips, there is tons to learn and forget. We read signs about history, about plants and animals, rocks and other geology, climate, etc, and then promptly forgot most of it.
After seeing the buildings on the Pueblo Loop in Frijoles Canyon, we headed to Alcove House, which is 140 feet up up the cliff, and involved climbing several long ladders. I started up and then decided it wasn’t for me, so I waited down below while Louie went up to see Alcove House.
Look for Louie up high on the ladder!
Another reason I had wanted to go to Bandelier was because there is a trail called the Frey Trail. As it turns out, the trail goes from the campground to the park, and isn’t much to bother with unless you are staying in the campground, which we weren’t. (It didn’t take reservations and I prefer to have everything planned out so we don’t have to stress.)
But we passed by where it ended, and who doesn’t love a trail with their name on it?
We did hike up a little ways, just to say we did. We did!
Anyway, Louie enjoyed the Alcove House, and then we hiked back to the visitor’s center. There were plenty of signs along the way to learn, and then forget, though I did learned about Gambel Oaks, which helped me identify them throughout the entire trip!
We had a quick snack and bathroom break, and had to decide what to do next. We enjoyed a cup of coffee and some cake at the cafe, and then headed out on the Falls Trail, which was supposed the next most popular thing to do after Frijoles Canyon. It was a cool hike, but the weather wasn’t quite as nice and kept lightly raining on us. It was getting hot though, so it was probably for the best.
The Falls!
The trail might have continued further at other times but we got to a place where it was closed off, so we headed back.
After that hike, we decided it was time to go. We stopped by the campground on our way out to see the other end of the Frey Trail.
We even hiked in a little ways, and saw a woodpecker right up close. Louie had left his camera in the car, so he was upset that the one time he didn’t have it, we saw a woodpecker right there!
It was only about mid-afternoon at this point, so we decided to go check out nearby Los Alamos. It’s a weird place out there, lots of restricted areas owned by the Department of Energy, probably housing nuclear weapons but nobody would know (unless you visit mar-a-lago, I suppose?). There’s a National Historical Park in Los Alamos, but it was closed, but there is some stuff to see. We went to the Bradbury Science Museum and learned a lot, but what I didn’t like was that I felt the bomb was glorified and I wanted to see a more nuanced approach: hundreds of thousands of innocent people were killed, and our country did it, and maybe it ended the war but maybe the war was already ending and we didn’t need to kill all those people. So I found being there very upsetting, but Louie enjoyed some of the science stuff, so it was a mixed day for us.
We ate dinner at a Mexican place called El Rigoberto’s in White Rock, and then enjoyed hearing the rain on the yurt as we went to sleep that night. I will say this: White Rock was a nice base for Bandelier, but there aren’t very many restaurant options. There is a good sized grocery store and plenty of gas stations.
Day 5: We woke up and decided to eat breakfast at the Fig and Pig before headed out of town. It was tasty, though oddly busy with a large group of people. We had a 4 1/2 hour drive to Mesa Verde on the docket for this day, and there were a few options as to how to go. We decided to take the route that would head north into Colorado first and then west. We were eager to see some “real” mountains!
The drive was gorgeous, and went through a variety of small towns, like Abiquiu and Tierra Amarilla. We stopped for lunch in Pagosa Springs, which has hot springs and a lovely river through it: we walked around a bit and then had a picnic by the river. (Interesting fact to me: we camped in Pagosa Springs when I was a kid, according to my journal.)
You can see the build up from the hot springs over the years!
After lunch we continued along, and finally made it to Mesa Verde around 3:30, just before the visitor’s center closed, so we had a quick look at the exhibits before checking into our campground. (Also where we camped when I was a kid: even the campground map was similar, nothing really had changed in over 30 years in that sense.)
Campground check in was excruciatingly slow, but we finally made it, and then we had to go pick out our own campsite. I found this stressful, but it wasn’t too busy yet and we drove around trying to figure out what the best option was: there were just a few tent only loops and that is what we chose from. We eventually picked one with a decent view, good privacy, and relatively close but not too close to the bathrooms.
After we set up the camp first (and this picture is from during meal prep, as obviously otherwise we would have everything in the bear box, which is conveniently and scarily location immediately next to the tent, in order to attract the bear to where we are), then we had time for a short hike from the campground. We headed out for a 2 mile hike on the Knife Edge Trail.
Views abounded!
After our hike, we made a fire and our first camping dinner of the trip. (Mac and cheese with tuna and canned peas, yummy!).
One constant of the trip was that the days were warm/hot enough, but as soon as the sun went down it got cold. We thought Mesa Verde would be the coldest, but we were incorrect. However, the sky was the darkest! In the middle of the night I needed to get up to go to the bathroom and I was blown away by the night sky. There were stars upon stars, the milky way, distant universes, who even knows. So many stars that normally you can’t see because of the background lights around you.
Day 6: This morning would start with a tour of Cliff Palace. Several of the cliff dwellings could only be seen with a ranger led tour, which nowadays you have to reserve online, two weeks in advance. But it turned out that during the time we were visiting Cliff Palace was the only one that you could do! It’s too bad, because I was really wanting to try Balcony House again: we had gone when I was a kid and I remember it was scary but really fascinating. However, Cliff Palace is the largest cliff dwelling and I was pleased to secure a time. We ended up arriving too early, of course, because they said to allow an hour from the campground but it didn’t actually take that long. There wasn’t too much to see in the area so we just wandered around and waited for our turn.
The tour has a few scary moments but mostly it’s not bad, and the structure is amazing to see, that it was built when it was built, that it is still standing as much as it is, and that we can see it. It’s all just amazing.
Cliff Palace.
The ranger led a terrific tour and we learned quite a lot about the people who built these houses. One interesting fact was that the people building at Mesa Verde weren’t doing anything particularly unique for the time: these sorts of houses were being built all over at this time, it’s simply that the ones in Mesa Verde have lasted longer over the years. It’s quite fascinating that all of sudden, everybody was building homes the same, as if they saw it on instagram, but it was likely due to trade.
In any case, we got to get up close and personal with the site, and then we climbed a couple of ladders to get out and that was a little scary but I managed.
After Cliff Palace, we had more to see. Unfortunately Wetherill Mesa was closed during this time (construction) but the rest of the part was open. We stopped at all the places, and took pictures and walked around and read stuff and promptly forgot most of it, as usual.
Interesting side bar: my old trip diary said we went to Wetherill Mesa and rode a train. Also we stayed at the campground and it was cold in the morning.
I thought this was interesting: this is a dwelling that isn’t open to the public, but there were people there in it that we could see from the lookout. We saw a trail that was marked “do not enter under penalty of law” or something like that, and I figured out that it was likely part of the route down to the house.
At the Spruce Tree House area, we decided to do a longer hike, the Petroglyph Point Trail. It used to be that you could go inside the Spruce Tree House, but it isn’t currently open to guests.
Petroglyph Point Trail was only 2.3 miles, but it was a lot of challenge, things to squeeze through, step over, lots of ups and downs. We ended up being able to see a cliff dwelling, not in fantastic shape, but one that was out away from the crowds so that was cool.
And then there was the petroglyph panel, which I did not seem to get a really good picture of. It was a little crazy when we got there with an odd amount of people and I must have gotten overwhelmed.
The rest of the hike wasn’t as interesting–there was a place where you had to climb over a couple of huge rocks that was pretty scary/difficulty, but obviously I managed. And we just kept hiking and finally got back to the visitor’s center/area where the hike started. At this point I was pretty tired but we forged ahead with more sightseeing.
Around 6 pm or so we headed back to the camp: we wanted to shower before dinner, so we did that and then enjoyed some Indian food packets from Trader Joe’s while sitting by the fire.
Day 7: We had to pack up in the morning, so we did that first, and then headed out for one more hike before leaving Mesa Verde. We wanted to hike the Point Lookout Trail, which left from the campground, and was 2.2 miles with 400 feet elevation change–doesn’t sound too hard, but it started climbing right away. Good morning to me! The hike was straightforward at least: up to the view, back down. The view was terrific!
We loved seeing Mesa Verde, but we were even more excited about getting closer to those snow capped mountains in the distance. To be fair, we didn’t know if we were going to those mountains or other mountains, but we knew that our next few stops were closer to similar mountains.
That’s where I will stop for this post. We were leaving the Cliff Dwellings portion of the trip and heading into the mountains. Next: the Million Dollar Highway and Ouray awaits!
The end of the school year is always busy with performances and such. I’ve had juries at two schools (don’t even ask), festival, the studio recital, school recitals, school concerts, and this weekend is graduation for Louie and we have people coming into town.
I am ready for some downtime and vacation. I’m worn out and exhausted! The good news is that the house is doing well and we are mostly just living in it. There is still more to do: mostly putting stuff on the walls, but we are unpacked, we have all the furniture and rugs we wanted to get, and we are finding where things work best to store and use them. It’s a delight living in this house, and it’s a delight teaching in this house. There are many things in my life that haven’t turned out the way I wanted, or perhaps as well as I wanted, but Louie and I are very happy together in our beautiful home.
Every time I come home I am so happy to be there. I love how our rugs and furniture turned out and I am so excited that we picked them out ourselves…Louie and I learned quite a bit about what our personal styles were through the process, something we had never really done before. Muriel approves of the rugs as well.
My parents visited last weekend. I realized I didn’t take any pictures, but my dad took a nice photo on his bike ride.
We had dinner with Louie’s parents, took many walks, had dinner out, went to a biergarten and enjoyed the outdoor weather, and they watched me play a solo with the St Louis Classical Guitar Orchestra and assisted with my studio recital. It was a great visit and I’m glad they were able to make it up here.
Playing a short piece with the Guitar Orchestra. It was a lot of fun and they were really nice.
A lovely gift from a student. The studio recital was terrific. We held it in Tower Grove Park at a pavilion and had a little reception afterwards as well. It wasn’t too long but everybody did well and it is always nice to get everybody together in one place for a bit.
Sometimes Miles and Muriel share the hammock. They spend HOURS a day on the cat tree looking out the window. I would too if I were them.
Peonies blooming in our yard.
I have to say, I’m feeling much better about the progress we’ve made on our move after having people over. I tend to be pretty hard on myself, but I realized, we moved in less than two months ago and basically are done (except for the walls) so, that’s actually pretty good. I tend to compare myself too negatively to others and have been trying to focus more on the positive. I feel good about what’s going forward with my career and jobs, and I’m looking forward to a summer filled with family visits, vacation, events, and relaxing, as well as teaching.
It’s easy to see what other freelance musicians are doing and feel jealous of them: I don’t sub with the symphony, I am part time in my jobs, I don’t have any really fancy titles, I don’t have any summer festivals I go to, etc. But I have what I have and nobody can do everything, nor should they! I try to remind myself to count my own blessings (cheesy, I know) and to not compare my inside to other people’s outside!
I keep thinking I’ll write here more often. Perhaps I will going forward, now that things are settling down. How is May going for you?
I am counting down the days left that I have to get up really early! School is nearing an end, everything happens all at once, and then we are hitting the road for a bit and seeing some mountains.
I got to see my favorite current performing violinist, Augustin Hadelich, play a solo recital Sunday night at the 560 Center at Wash U as part of their Great Artists Series.
A program which includes Bach’s Partita no. 3, Ysaye Obsession Sonata, and Bach’s Partita no. 2!
He played entirely from memory, of course, and even had an encore: the slow movement from Bach’s A Minor Sonata. It was an unbelievable night, and at times it felt as if the entire audience was holding their breath.
I was lucky enough to be able to meet him after the concert as well. Louie was kind enough to take a picture.
The next day Augustin did a masterclass with some students at Wash U which I attended as well. In addition to experiencing such an amazing performance, it was fun to see various friends and colleagues from the violin (and viola) community here. I got to catch up and chat with several people that normally I only see in passing here and there, and it was really nice.
We have seats right up front and we adore them. I highly recommend any concerts that the Great Artists Series puts on, but this was a highlight. Thank you Jen!
Other stuff going on: Jazz Saturday night with friends (and dinner before at Brasserie), Dim Sum with Louie’s parents on Sunday, lots of stuff around the house, and lots of teaching!
We’ve been opening the windows when the weather is nice and of course the cats love this.
I forget if I shared our new living room set up with you yet. We put the finishing touch on the furniture the other week when we got the orange chairs, which I love. When I walk in the front door, I am just so happy every time.
It’s always one of those “I can’t believe we live here” moments. I was never a person who wanted a big house or cared too much, but I might have been wrong. Having this lovely home has made the past month so phenomenal. I am sure it will wear off, but we are both just so happy to be here. To be fair: I hope the feeling doesn’t wear off, because we need to appreciate our privilege and how lucky we really are to be able to afford a lovely home like this one. There is still more to organize and unpack (mostly pictures, some books) but I can’t believe how much we have done in just over a month.
If any local readers need any cardboard boxes or know anyone who does, please let me know. We have a few. Also packing materials.
Muriel has started climbing up on the stair railings. This makes me very nervous when she does it on the higher floors! I suppose she’ll be fine…
