Category Archives: Travel

Phoenix

December?

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I managed one post in November, yay me!

Happy belated Thanksgiving and Happy Hanukkah!

We traveled to Phoenix over Thanksgiving.

Wearing masks at the St Louis Airport.

I’d been stressed about getting ready for the trip for a variety of reasons. Leading up to it I had a busy weekend with a gig and three student recitals (in person!). They all went well, but I was exhausted overall from the year. Then I had to teach a morning class right before we went to the airport, so I had to be all ready to go by 6:30 in the morning and then trust Louie to finish up getting ready to leave the house empty for several days. He picked me up at work, and we got to Sky Park, through security, all that with no problems.

We flew Spirit Airlines since it was significantly cheaper than our other options. You are only allowed one free personal item, so we decided to pay for one checked bag (up to 40 pounds only, which wasn’t an issue for us but if you are considering it, just an FYI). Mask wearing on the flight out seemed pretty good, but the way back was NOT GREAT, and at one point the pilot came onboard threatening to land the plane in Amarillo and boot people off. It got better for a short period of time but several people near us took their masks off to “eat” and then never put them back on. When we landed back in St Louis mask wearing at the airport was about 50-50. Phoenix airport was very good about it though.

Anyway, we spent Thanksgiving week visiting my sister Leslie and her family, and my sister Carrie flew out to visit as well. It was nice to see them together, the weather was lovely, we made a huge meal, we ate that huge meal for at least three more meals, and it was nice to have a few days off teaching!

We did a short hike on Thanksgiving morning to work up an appetite!
Everybody except Carrie on the hike. Carrie took the picture.
At the playground on a different day. Carrie is picture, far right. Luca is swinging.
Oh, here was Carrie doing a proof of actually being there. I left my phone in the car because my pockets aren’t big enough so I had to depend on the kindness of others to share photos.
Chocolate bourbon pecan pie
Pumpkin pie
Old Fashioned Cream Pie, my favorite.

As pictured, we made three pies. We also made turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, corn casserole, green bean casserole, brussels sprouts, and cranberry relish. I think that’s everything?

In addition to just hanging out, the hike, and the aforementioned playground, we went to Zoo Lights at the Phoenix Zoo. It was really cool! So many lights all over.

I loved this style of lights/decorations. There was a whole path of animals like this, set up in various habitats.
Lights reflecting off a large pond.

We flew home on Saturday in order to save money, so I was able to decorate on Sunday. (And catch up, clean, laundry, etc.)

Nothing to see here, just a Christmas tree with a large cat in it.

Anyway, I’m sure December will fly by! I’m finishing up the semester, a few more weeks of teaching, makeup lessons, open house performances at school, some extra gigs but not too many, and a few parties/social events.

We are doing the Garden Glow one night with friends and having an aged eggnog tasting afterwards–what snacks go well with eggnog?

Anyway, 22 more days until Christmas break! That actually includes two days off, which long time blog readers know is rare for me. Thanks to the pandemic for pushing me away from so many gigs, for cutting down on the number of gigs, and for making me see that having a day off here and there is nice…though I definitely have some creep of pre-pandemic busy-ness returning…I think it’s okay.

How was your Thanksgiving? What are you doing this month to celebrate the holidays?

Books, Hiking

Bison Jam

It’s been a busy week, but we’ve made time for some fun as well.

Over the weekend I decided to do some baking to test out the new oven. Verdict: terrific!

I made pumpkin cranberry bread: I made it vegan to share, and at first I was doubtful, but by the second day it was fantastic. (It turned out my first bite may have been tainted by some expired crisco I’d used to grease the pan. The loaf we are giving away doesn’t have that issue.)

Then I made fruitcake to age for Christmas. I don’t know how it turned out, exactly, but I think it’ll be really good. You may say, fruitcake, that’s gross?! but you would be wrong. Some fruitcake may be gross, but some fruitcake is fantastic, as long as you like dried fruit, nuts, and really moist (yes, moist) cake.

We’ve been managing to get some weekday hikes in, and this past Tuesday was no exception. Louie and I went to Lone Elk Park to hike the White Bison Trail, advertised to be 3.2 miles. We’ve hiked it several times before, but never during this time of the year, which we highly recommend.

We saw several groups of elk along the way (give them space, they ARE wild animals–one group was fairly near the trail–10 to 30 yards away–and the male was standing in front defensively watching us hike by!) and then after our hike we went driving around. We saw another group of elk right near the roadway (in fact, we may have missed a “one way” sign and gone the wrong way down a road due to our excitement over the elk) and then we headed for the bison area.

A bunch of elk just hanging out. This was the women and children: the male elk was on the other side of the road keeping an eye out.

Bison, yes. If you aren’t aware, there is a bison herd at Lone Elk Park here in the St Louis area. They are in a fenced (electric) area and can’t get out, but they have room to wander.

We thought it was a bust at first, as we didn’t see any bison where we have in the past, and were able to leave disappointed, when lo and behold, we came up on a line of stopped cars, and there we were, in a good old-fashioned bison jam!

A bison jam!

We watched the bison from the car, taking pictures, admiring their strange large heads, slowing driving forward when possible.

We were probably “stuck” in the jam for about 15 minutes and it was glorious. If you haven’t been out to Lone Elk Park, I highly recommend it.

Anyway, other than that, teaching, etc, I’ve read a few books recently. I particularly enjoyed Emily Henry’s Beach Read, Tia Williams’ Seven Days in June, and Marie Benedict’s The Personal Librarian. Before that (not sure if I already recommended these books): Katherine Henry’s Early Morning Riser, and the Royal We series by Heather Cocks, Kristin Harmel’s The Forest of Vanishing Stars, V.E. Rue’s The Invisible Life of Addie La Rue, Kristin Hannah’s Magic Hour, Jennifer Weiner’s Mrs. Everything, and Kiley Reid’s Such a Fun Age. TV wise, I just finished watching “Only Murders in the Building” on Hulu and found it quite entertaining.

How is your fall going? Have you decorated for Halloween?

Travel

Getaway to du Quoin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hiking

Last Gasps of Summer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Books, Random thoughts, Travel

Family Visit and such

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I was so busy telling you about our Arkansas Trip that I haven’t told you about our trip to visit family in Chautauqua, New York. My sister Leslie and her family own a house in Sherman, New York, which is near the Chautauqua Music Festival where her husband works in the summers. This is the third year in a row we’ve gone out to visit, and it was lovely.

I won’t do a play by play, but instead share some pictures and tell you a few things we did.

Walked around the grounds of the Chautauqua Institute–this is near the belltower.
Hiked down to the Chautauqua Gorge but it was too watery to go further, so we went back up and hiked along the Cusamano Trail instead for a few miles.

I believe this was at Long Point State Park, where we walked around a little bit.

Not pictured: Southern Tier Brewery Company–great place to have some beer and some food, nice patio.

Luca driving a wooden car around.

We didn’t go on the Chautauqua Belle, but maybe another time. We walked along the Lake aways from here, and then got ice cream nearby. We eat more ice cream while in Chautauqua than we do all year long!

The grounds of the Institute again, you can see the Bell Tower on the left.

Luca wearing cool sunglasses for the Fourth of July.

We walked around the Audubon Community Nature Center in Jamestown, NY and saw lots of birds and chipmunks.

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I taught Luca awhile back to show us his “bebo” or belly button and never tire of asking.

We also got ice cream at Bemus Point, had dinner at a place in Sherman called Pine Junction, lunch at Stedman Corners Cafe, and coffee and lunch at Crown Street Roasting Company. And we ate some delicious meals at “home” as well.

Leslie went above and beyond with this meal!

It was a week long trip, which was pretty long, but it was nice to spend time with the kids and just hang out and relax. There are always more things to do next time!

We stopped at Taco Johns on our way home!

Anyway, then we got back home to this…

What else have I been up to? We had our annual fireworks barbecue, which is a cookout we have the night of the Sublette Park/Hill fireworks. We weren’t sure if it was happening due to COVID, but it did, and it was small but fun. We’ve been eating out a bit more than before, though trying to keep cooking, so usually just once or twice a week. I’ve been keeping up on the garden and just pickled a whole bunch of green beans today, three jars from the garden! (I make dilly beans, which might be my favorite sort of pickle.)

I played an outdoor concert with Metropolitan Orchestra of St Louis, which was held in a parking lot…have I played a concert in a parking lot before? I want to say, yes, actually. I played a concert with my band as well, in a front yard as part of the Kingsbury Ensemble’s A Little Lawn Music.

That made for a busy weekend, so I was happy to have this weekend entirely off. I don’t have the energy I used to have…or the desire to run around as much. I have been trying to be mindful of that when accepting jobs for the fall, how much I teach now in addition to how much I do actually really enjoy having some downtime. I’m behind on gardening tasks anyway!

I’ve been doing a lot of reading of course, and thought I’d share some of what I’ve been reading lately for you to consider:

Books I really enjoyed: Caul Baby by Morgan Jerkins, Big Summer by Jennifer Weiner, American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins,, The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, The Red Lotus by Chris Bohjalian, These Tangled Vines by Julianne Maclean, Anxious People by Frederick Bachman, 28 Summers by Elin Hilderbrand, Nomadland by Jessica Bruder

Books I liked well enough: Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline, The Elephant of Belfast by S. Kirk Walsh, The Light in the Ruins by Chris Bohjalian, The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas, Milk Fed by Melissa Broder, We Love You Charlie Freeman by Kaitlyn Greenidge

Cozy Mysteries I enjoyed: The Bennett Sisters Series by Lise McClendon

Nonfiction I found interesting: The Body, A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson, How to be a Victorian by Ruth Goodman

I know I didn’t give you any information about the books, but you can read a bit of them online 🙂

Anyway, we have some interesting plans coming up: biking tomorrow on the Katy Trail (at least that’s the plan), a camping trip to Hawn State Park, various family members visiting. We also bought tickets for Jazz and for the Symphony for the fall so that’s going to be different than this year! Work wise things are still pretty busy these next two weeks because I’m doing another online seminar (I am obsessed with learning right now) and teaching as well. I am taking a whole week off in August though, just to relax, and we are getting away for one more weekend before school starts up again. I don’t want to think about summer ending, but I know that life moves on…and I do love fall weather. I am hoping to get a better life-work balance going forward, though I know that is unlikely to happen while I have my early morning school job.

What have you been up to? Read any interesting books to share? Done any interesting things that you recommend to others?

Hiking, Travel

Arkansas Travelers: A Quick Stop in Fort Smith

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I’d been feeling a bit overwhelmed by what would be my last trip post, if I kept the same pattern of two nights, and then I said to myself, this is MY blog, nobody except me and my mom reads it, so why not break the last post up?

So far I’ve told you about  Little Rock, Hot Springs, and our wonderful cabin in the Ozarks near the town of Pettigrew. Our next airbnb was south of Fayetteville where we would be spending our final two nights of vacation, but I wanted to make a stop en route.

I like seeking out National Park Sites, not for a bucket list or anything, but because they are often well done and worth visiting, and I enjoy learning about history as we travel. I noticed that Fort Smith National Historic Site wasn’t too far out of the way, and I’d also found a blogger who really loved the town of Fort Smith, so we decided it was worth a short visit.

I wasn’t sure if our google directions already took the gravel roads into account when telling us how long it would take to get there, but it turned out they did. It took about 1 1/2 hours to get to Fort Smith, so we rolled in somewhere between 10 and 11. Fort Smith is located right on the western border of Arkansas by the Arkansas River, and our directions had us briefly in Oklahoma, which was very exciting.

That is Oklahoma.

The Visitor’s Center was closed due to COVID but there was a ranger sitting outside with a table of brochures and happy to answer any questions. I’m sorry we missed whatever museum would have been inside, but he said otherwise, just walk around and it is all well marked.

Various pictures from the route. There was a bit about Fort Smith itself, fighting against Native Americans and stealing their land and the Trail of Tears, things about the Civil War, a supplies area, and a garden.

It seemed that the Fort was important in its history in regards to the Civil War and the Trail of Tears. Some of the information we read was a little confusing out of context, for instance we read something about the soldiers at the Fort abandoning the town when South Carolina seceding from the Union, but then later referring to the soldier being there fighting…so maybe that visitor’s center museum would have been helpful? Or a book I suppose.

In any case, it was a nice place to walk around. There was an extra long walk one could take down by the river, which added about 3/4 mile (I am just trying to remember this without research, so I could be wrong). We enjoyed a nice walk along the Arkansas River. We’d had dinner along the Arkansas River and crossed it a few times by foot in Little Rock and now we were seeing it again on the other side of the state.

It was a lovely, shaded walk on a hot day.
The sign was at the edge of the property on the walk, not near the parking lot. Does that mean that the US is becoming a more pedestrian country?

After about an hour, we had seen all we could see. There weren’t proper restrooms at the site, so we figured we’d go and find lunch and bathrooms at the same place.

We drove down a very quaint, historic looking downtown strip to find a place called A.J.’s Oyster House. It was perfect: friendly, cool, had bathrooms, and we enjoyed some oysters too. I got the Oyster Po’boy and we split some Oysters Rockefeller.

After lunch we decided to pop back over to the downtown area to walk around, but I got distracted by a sign about Victorian Homes, and we ended up walking by some of them instead. They all seemed to be law firms now.

We couldn’t check into our airbnb until 3 pm and it was an hour away, so after our stroll we got coffees and relaxed at the Fort Smith Coffee Company (super cool place!) until it was a reasonable time to take off.

Keep your eyes out for the final, or who knows, installment of the trip to Arkansas!