I sound tough sometimes, on this here blog, but I never feel very tough. (Do I sound tough here sometimes?)
Right now, I feel exhausted. April and I ran a 5k yesterday morning, and then today Louie, April, and two friends named Amanda joined me for a mud run called the Crusher in Eureka, Missouri.
I say, I’m not tough, because both Amandas seemed to think that hiking in and out of the Grand Canyon and running a 5K the day before meant I was tough and all kinds of athletic and would do well. I’m not. I get scared easily and I fall a bunch. I lack upper body strength and I run very slow.
I’m going to process today a bit more, and also hope that the races will put pictures up to share. But a mud run was an experience I hadn’t had today. Are they supposed to be mostly waiting in line to do the obstacles? We did wait an awful lot, probably as long as we were running and actually trying to complete the obstacles.
I digress.
Last weekend after our float trip got canceled, Louie and I decided it would be best to do an epic hike in the area. We chose to go up and around Bell Mountain, which made a 12 mile hike. It was about a 2 hour drive.
We probably underestimated the difficulty, and it was muddy, I actually ran out of water, I wished I’d brought my hiking sticks, and most of the folks we saw were backpackers, but we had a memorable day, probably pushed the dog too much even though she seemed to have fun, and definitely made a great memory!
The trail to the top of Bell Mountain starts on the Ozark Trail. We didn’t hike far on the OT though, before going off on the Bell Mountain loop. If you want to take the loop, the author of 60 Hikes within 60 Miles recommended going counterclockwise so you save the views for the later portion. It was muddy from the get go but once you get used to that, and just accept that you’re going to get a little wet, it was pretty nice.
Not sure what’s going on with me in this picture, but there were lots of rocky parts. This hike was similar in ways to our hike last fall in Taum Sauk State Park.
There were several creek crossings. By now creek crossings were old hat for us. I guess I’m becoming a more experienced hiker, even though I keep making mistakes like not bringing enough snacks and thinking that a 12 mile hike will be easy because it’s in Missouri.
There wasn’t as much elevation change as in the Grand Canyon, but there were some steep parts, especially the climb from the creek up to the summit. We were hoping for the expansive views the book author promised us, but we just got a teeny bit. Maybe because of all the trees. As always, no matter the challenge…hiking in Missouri continues to be mostly wandering in the woods. We sometimes daydream about moving somewhere more scenic (sorry Missouri) but then we remember how cheap it is to live here and how we get to travel a lot, and how our jobs and such are here. Sigh.
But the view was pretty decent from the top. Amazing for this area, honestly. That’s what happens when you see the world. You get spoiled.
Okay, fine, it’s really beautiful. And we were jealous of all the people backpacking. There were a few ready made camping sites along the trail, one I thought looked really cute near the creek, and then on top of the mountain too.
So we might be back, though summer ends up usually getting pretty hot and buggy here.
After last summer’s big road trip, I mentioned to my sister Leslie that the annual NPS Louie and I had purchased didn’t expire until the end of this summer. She suggested we come out to Phoenix to visit, and take a few days to see the Grand Canyon. She was very generous to offer us their older car to borrow and a bunch of camping gear.
Louie had never been to the Grand Canyon. I had been but not since I was a small child (11 or so). The Grand Canyon is about 3 1/2 hours from Phoenix, which makes for a short drive though not really a day trip. Leslie, who is evidently a wonderful travel agent/itinerary builder, suggested we spend some time in Sedona on our way north, so ultimately I planned our time to have 1 night in Sedona, 2 nights at the Grand Canyon, and then home.
I like to look at the Trip Advisor Forums for advice on traveling, though Louie and I like to hike more than most members of the forums there. I’d found much of their advice last year to be excellent, with the exception of their great love of the Black Hills (it was fine, but we could have spent one night there and been happy rather than two). However, in the Sedona forums, there is at least one member who insists that you must spend 4-5 nights in Sedona in order to make it worth visiting. To me this is ridiculous. Sure, a week in Paris beats a day in Paris, but both are worth it. Maybe not the day if you fly in and out from the US for one day, but it’s a trip from another fairly nearby location, a little time is better than no time!
(I’m overwhelmed by my good fortune in being able to travel sometime, and right now I’m overwhelmed by all the beauty we saw and want to convey it to you.)
Okay, so…first we spent a few days in Phoenix hanging with my little niece Athena, and my sister and brother-in-law.
We rode the carousel and the train at McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park in Scottsdale.
There was a lovely shaded playground.
We took selfies.
And we went to the zoo.
And then on Wednesday of the week, it was time for Louie and I to load up their Honda Civic (with stick shift) and head for Sedona. We piled in our clothes, cooler with food and drinks, tent, sleeping bags, sleeping pads, camp chairs, hiking boots and poles, stove, and more (maybe) and headed to Sedona. The drive was around 2 hours.
One big potential issue for our night in Sedona. The forecast was for rain and storms!
Sedona is known as Red Rocks Country. Once we made the turn off the interstate we started seeing evidence of this. It was so much unlike Missouri!
Our first stop was at the Sedona Visitors Center. We needed the restrooms, water, and lunch. I talked to a really helpful ranger at the desk as well. I hadn’t planned too many particular hikes for Sedona. For whatever reason, I’d found it difficult to get maps or find exact things to do so I’d figured we’d wing it…I love planning things, but as I’ve told you before, Louie enjoys winging them and being more in the moment, so I figured he’d help out with this part The ranger asked how long we were there and when we told him, well, this afternoon and tomorrow morning, he didn’t yell at us that we hadn’t allocated enough time (we wanted to be in the Grand Canyon by mid-afternoon the next day) but instead made a few really helpful suggestions.
We first visited the Bell Rock area, which was just north of the visitor’s center. The sky didn’t look too menacing yet so we took a short hike up and around.
My mom is probably worried about all the red dirt. Back in South Carolina where I grew up she hates the red dirt that we would track into the house. It stains, and she would shout “Red Dirt Alert!” to make us stop in our tracks and remove our shoes.
Hiking: fashion? Those wire trash cans filled with rocks were to mark the trail. There were lots of signs warning us to stay on the trail, which was great until we’d get to a place that was only rock and didn’t seem to have any trail markers at all. It was fun to explore though!
Louie was smart and wore an orange shirt in order to blend in.
Here you can see the bad weather is starting to move in. We knew we weren’t terribly far from shelter though.
I took this of Louie when he went up a big higher than I felt comfortable doing so. Some of the rock climbing made me fear of heights kick in. Or perhaps my fear of rock climbing.
When we got back to the car, it started raining, and storming, and kept up for a bit. We decided to go to the store to pick up a few things we’d remembered that we’d forgotten (ha, good writing there!). The storms had blown threw by the time we were done (Sedona is full of shops and restaurants and places to stay, not remote at all) and we went to drive around something called Red Rocks Loop, that the ranger had recommended. It was definitely still a little rainy but not bad. We didn’t really feel like hiking though…we are tough, sure but rain hiking is more work. The loop wasn’t that exciting, so we finished and then went to our campground.
I’d booked a night in a campground north of town called Manzanita Campground, run by the Forest Service.
Our first time by the campground we missed the turn entirely, but found it the second time. There’s a steep one lane driveway down to the campground and the sites are along Oak Creek. Other than the rain and the fact that the only facilities are vault toilets, I loved it.
We set out for a short hike before dinner-I’d seen there was a trailhead right across from the campground and we though we’d check it out, just for a few minutes. The rain had stopped, but it was still really wet.
The hike went through an area that had had a fire recently. Later Peter was telling us about it, but now I can’t remember. It was recent, and it luckily didn’t spread too much further than the small area.
(This article I found seems to be about it. We were camping in the Oak Creek Canyon area.)
I wanted to get back to camp before it was too dark, so we only hiked for about 45 minutes. It was neat and we were sorry we couldn’t go further.
It was a cold night. I believe it ended up being close to 40 degrees overnight, hard to believe it was May and Arizona! (Not everywhere in Arizona is hot like Phoenix, but that’s easy to forget). In any case, we made Trader Joe’s Vegetarian Chili with some sides and enjoyed a beer by the campfire. Sort of. The fire was hard to start due to the dampness (we managed, we are used to rain here in Missouri, despite the camp host almost refusing to sell us wood) but the real problem was that the firepits were about 3 feet tall and blocked all the heat. Oh well.
I didn’t sleep that well-first night camping, cold…it was a bad combination. We got up and loaded up the car and headed further north. We decided to hike the West Fork of Oak Creek Canyon.
The ranger had recommended this hike, yes, that’s how we roll (also Leslie and Peter did, but they recommended several hikes that we didn’t get to do either). He’d said he loved it because it was unlike anything else in Sedona. At first that sounded appealing, but then we started to worry, what if it was like Missouri instead? It was lush and green, but luckily it wasn’t really like Missouri.
The trail goes along the Oak Creek the whole way. It crosses the creek 13 times along the way (and then again on the way back). The creek crossings were quite a lot of fun!
It seemed they meant you’d have to walk down the creek for 2 3/4 miles! Maybe in some seasons it would be lower, but that just didn’t sound terribly fun to me.
It seemed they meant you’d have to walk down the creek for 2 3/4 miles! Maybe in some seasons it would be lower, but that just didn’t sound terribly fun to me.
After finishing the hike we had a quick picnic lunch before heading north (again) towards the Grand Canyon National Park. And that’s where I’ll end today’s blog post, with the two of us in a car, drinking sparkling water, and driving north, looking forward to the next portion of our adventure.
Be sure to check out my giveaway post! You can win a free 5K race entry.
The weekend went by. I’m starting to feel less congested (fingers crossed) and I’m hopeful that by vacation time I’ll be feeling 100 percent. (Totally have no idea, but power of positive thinking?)
We bailed on our long hike plans yesterday but decided to hit up Castlewood State Park instead. We ended up hiking the River Scene Trail, and it was a lovely day for it. I found the hike challenging due to not feeling great, and the uphills were definitely hard. The views were pretty, and there were tons of people out enjoying the day.
The first part of the hike is lots of uphills, beautiful river views off the bluff, and is quite rocky. Then it’s down a huge set of wooden stairs (you can see old rock stairs off to the side where people used to get up the hill from the train station to various clubs and cabins), under the train tracks, and then it’s a lovely walk in the woods along the river. Louie and I constantly joke that hiking in Missouri is just walking in the woods, and I think we get tired of it sometimes! The River Scene Trail is a good one though, and will get your lungs pumping. Heart pumping? Lungs working?
Mackenzie started having a severe allergic reaction to something this morning so I had to make an emergency trip to the vet. She’s there now and got a variety of shots and is on an IV for fluids (her temp was quite high). They are keeping her for observation since it was pretty bad and evidently she was starting to have trouble breathing. I’m hoping she’ll be able to come home by evening. What caused it is anybody’s guess—is it related to her normal allergy issues or did she get a bug bite or something?
We did go into the woods over the weekend. We did a long hike at Greensfelder Park. My phone said it was 9.55 miles, Louie’s said around 7.5, the trail said less than both of those. Who knows. My phone ALWAYS shows a longer distance than Louie, though usually his says he has more steps. This is a great mystery—I often have my phone in a bag and he often has his in his pocket so we’re guessing that’s the reason for the disparity but it doesn’t make that much sense.
The trees are pretty.
We ended up skipping the Farmer’s Market in the morning in order to go hiking instead. We want to really be in shape (well, the best you can going hiking once a week, ha) for our upcoming Grand Canyon trip.
Saturday night we went to the symphony. Karen Gomyo played the Sibelius Violin Concerto and it was breathtaking. Her sound, intensity, and clarity were amazing! It was one of my favorite performances in some time.
Sunday I got to see a student play with her orchestra at the Community Music School, which was really fun, actually!
And then Louie and I went crazy at REI and ended up each buying a pair of hiking shoes. So we both own good hiking boots AND good hiking shoes. I think this gear thing is starting to get out of hand, but it makes sense to have both, we think.
So now it’s Monday and things are a bit thrown off due to the vet run, but I’m trying to have my normal routine: email, practice, blog. I’m listening to some of the pieces we are learning for the Perseid Quartet for fall concerts and having a lovely time. The weather is beautiful, not too hot, sunny, and I’m just hoping Mackenzie is doing okay.
These guys keep me busy! And yeah, it’s been a hard year with the animals. Losing Oistrakh in January, dealing with all of Chloe’s issues, and Mackenzie’s allergies (which seem less serious but still undiagnosed and causing problems.) It’s been a theme for this year.
I realized that I haven’t blogged about anything since Chicago! That’s not fair to my regular life.
Though, of course, there are more interesting things to talk about when one is traveling and doing all sorts of interesting things, rather than being at home teaching students, practicing, or administering all manner of veterinary medicines. (Eye cream, insulin shots, pills, ear wash, specialty shampoos…it’s worth it?!)
For the cuddles…it’s worth it!
Monday I took Mackenzie (the dog) in to see a specialist, an animal dermatologist, for her hair loss/itchiness/rashes she’s been dealing with. Our regular vet was at a loss so it was time to bring in the big guns…(I brought my big wallet to deal with the big guns). They ran all sorts of tests and, 2 hours later, sent me home with more medications and more instructions. We aren’t at a solution yet, but we are waiting for some test results and I feel positive the new vet will find the answer.
Over the weekend we did a few social and outdoor activities. Friday night we went to Milagro Modern Mexican with friends—this used to be my go-to restaurant with my friend Melissa, before she moved to California Restaurant trends change, I guess—though it’s more than my job and living situation has changed? In any case, it was a tasty dinner, though we did have to wait a little bit, which I hate doing—when there’s not a dedicated waiting area I spend most of the time feeling like I’m just in the way!
Saturday we went to Rockwoods Reservation for a hike. We’d been there before but thought it was worth revisiting. This time we first hiked the Lime Kiln Trail, which we had done before, but we hiked in the opposite direction.
After that we decided to try another short hike in the area called the Trail Among the Trees. It was pretty neat, with tons of bridges, a cave, and some nice views, but weird in that much of it was paved with asphalt. The terrain is pretty varied and the trails are very well marked. The alpacas were still there, across the street in a farm with Llamas too, and Louie mostly wanted to go to the area in order to see those guys. We are very tempted to sell everything in order to start our own Alpaca Farm.
Mackenzie was trying to decide whether or not to jump into the water. She chose, yes, jump.
NO BOULDERING.
In the evening Manuela from the quartet played a really fun recital (with Diana on piano, who the quartet has worked with several times). It was at the Tavern of Fine Arts. We tried two items off the bar menu, one was marinated olives, and the other was pickled vegetables. Both were great—the vegetables included pickled beets and pickled cauliflower! (You can pickle that!)
Sunday was Easter, so of course I played at a church service, but we had a lunch with Louie’s family and a potluck dinner at Eliana’s (big quartet social weekend, we should do it more often!). Overall it was a great weekend—not too overexerted, but enough activity to feel invigorating.
This week has been going by quickly, as I shouldn’t even have to mention. I’ve been dealing with allergies/a cold/who knows exactly, so lots of sneezing on my end. Otherwise, I’ve been running, practicing and teaching—getting things done and set up for the rest of the school year.
One fun thing is that I got a grant/scholarship to attend to a teacher workshop this summer—I’ll be attending Indiana University’s Retreat for Violin and Viola Teachers (Part 1) in July. I’m looking forward to being inspired and learning new things—I haven’t attended a teacher seminar in several years and I’m grateful for the opportunity.
Well, I’m off to a rehearsal, then teaching, and Taco Thursday at Publico tonight. What are your weekend plans? We have symphony tickets for Saturday and are thinking of doing a hike—we have the Grand Canyon trip coming up and need to be in shape!
Sunday nights can be kind of fun. Sometimes I start daydreaming about what I want to add to my schedule next, sometimes I relax, sometimes I have a 3 hour opera rehearsal and then get home and eat some ice cream.
This weekend was packed with activities, as is more common than not. I feel a bit anxious about the next few weeks as I have several performances and some other stressful activities, but I think I’m mostly staying on top of things…other than the pets, probably. But I digress.
Friday night Louie and I went to see the Marcus Roberts Trio at Jazz at the Bistro. We stayed for the second set (if you buy tickets for the 7:30 show you can usually stay for the 9:30 show for free, if there is space, and there always has been for us) and it was interesting to see how different each set was. We were on opposite sides for the first and second sets so that gave us a fascinating comparison. I thought the group sounded great and very polished. (This is not a review of the group as I’m hardly expert enough to try…this is a review of my life and lack of writing skills!)
Saturday we woke up fairly early to meet my friend April and her boyfriend for a hike. We had been wanting to do the Lewis and Clark Trail from 60 Hikes within 60 Miles for over a year, and this was a great day for it. The forecast was sunny and OVER 70 degrees. In February. On our way to the trailhead we passed at least 50 percent of the population who were heading for the St Louis Zoo.
Plenty of people had the same hike idea as we did though, and the trailhead parking lot was full so we had to park on the highway, but it was fine. We met our friends and two dogs, so together we were a hilarious group of 4 people and 3 dogs of varying sizes.
We decided to hike only the Clark Trail. We might go back another day for the longer portion, as it was a very enjoyable and scenic (for Missouri) hike!
Overlooking the Missouri River.
Louie tried to get all the dogs to drink water. It was a warm day for them, but they were polite enough…that is to say, Mackenzie drank first and the others knew enough to wait their turn. They all got along well, though we met a few crazy dogs on the trail.
All in all it was a beautiful and somewhat challenging hike. Since it was such an unseasonably warm and beautiful day there were tons of people out. I’d love to go back again on a slightly less crowded day and enjoy a bit more solitude, but I’m always happy to see other people out enjoying the world.
Saturday night we went to the Tavern of Fine Arts to see my friend and colleague (fantastic cellist) Stephanie perform with a guitar player. They played a variety of pieces, many by Brazilian composers, and she also played a Bach Suite on her baroque cello. It was a packed house and the rest of the Perseid Quartet was there to support her. We didn’t get the greatest seats and ended up being squeezed on the back couch with some late comers too, but it was a really interesting and enjoyable performance.
Sunday was work day. Louie and I had brunch at his mom’s but after that I had a meeting with a bride, a student, and a rehearsal, plus practicing. We got home from brunch to see that Chloe had urinated on the front couch. Well, I think it was urine, it was a large wet spot. I chose not to smell it and decided it was unlikely she had simply spilled a glass of water. I don’t know if this means we have even more urine issues to look forward to, or if she got startled and peed, or what. She seems to be doing decently well, no new skin problems as of late…(fingers crossed). Sigh. I cleaned up the best that I could—luckily it is an old couch.
Last thoughts before I wrap this post up. I know that I am very random here sometimes, and write about all kinds of things. To be honest, that’s what I enjoy reading most. While I will read articles on a variety of topics, the blogs I enjoy most cover a variety of subjects. That being said, is there anything you’d like to hear more of? Any aspects of my life you’d like to learn more about? I’m not making promises (especially if you are too nosy, ha!) but please ask questions in the comments section! I love hearing from readers, this is a big part of why I do this…
The ranger asked how long we were there and when we told him, well, this afternoon and tomorrow morning, he didn’t yell at us that we hadn’t allocated enough time (we wanted to be in the Grand Canyon by mid-afternoon the next day) but instead made a few really helpful suggestions.
Restaurant trends change, I guess—though it’s more than my job and living situation has changed? In any case, it was a tasty dinner, though we did have to wait a little bit, which I hate doing—when there’s not a dedicated waiting area I spend most of the time feeling like I’m just in the way! 
