Category Archives: Travel

Hiking

Two Nights in Golconda (Near Garden of the Gods)

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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 did stop by to look at the old lock and dam site.

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.

Travel

In Like a Lion, Out like a Lamb

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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!

Books, Hiking

Snowstorm

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We had a nice ice/snowstorm last week. It started Tuesday night late with ice, then a bit of snow, then a break, and then it starting snowing early Thursday and snowed practically all day. I had off school for my early morning job, and then taught online Wednesday and Thursday. Friday I did go into the college to teach, though I borrowed Louie’s Subaru rather than drive a Corolla.

It was beautiful to watch, and I’m glad we got the snow, but I’ll be glad to see it gone. Today the high is in the 40’s so I’m hoping it makes things easier to get around in and that I can start driving my own car again without concerns.

This weekend has been mostly at home relaxing, but we’ve done some interesting things over the past few weeks. One day we hiked the Lewis and Clark trail–it was after a snow, and there were some icy bits but mostly it was a wonderful day of hiking, and the weather was perfect: sunny and in the 40’s. It’s nice hiking in St Louis in the winter when it’s warm enough, because there are no bugs, and if it’s a scenic hike you get more views.

Quite a lot of the hike was along the Missouri River. It had a lot of ice floes traveling along it.
The hike was about 8.5 miles. This was the map from Louie’s watch. You can make it a 5 miles hike, or shorter if you just do the out and back to the first river overlook (which is very nice) but I have to say, the whole hike is really nice! It isn’t terribly steep overall, and so much of it is along the river that it might be the most scenic hike in the St Louis area.

We also walked around Forest Park a few times and enjoyed the scenery there.

We often park near the World’s Fair Pavilion to start any walks in Forest Park. This was on a cold day after a bit of snow.

We haven’t been out much otherwise, lately. It’s cold and you know, omicron. We’ve eaten out a few times though, at Lily’s Mexican and a place near our house. And last night we got takeout from Himalayan Yeti, which we had almost forgotten about! There are some leftovers for lunch as well.

Cooking wise I’ve made a few delicious soups lately. I might have already told you about the Broccoli Cheddar soup, but I’m not sure. That one we ate with leftover rolls from Union Loafers: I had bought some things from them for Christmas, but froze the dinner rolls as we couldn’t eat it all at the time. I wish they sold them year round.

I also made the potato mushroom soup linked here. I made a few substitutions based on what I had, but I chose it because I had mushrooms and potatoes to use up and we wanted a soup. Highly recommend.

TV wise we’ve been watching 1883 and Euphoria as they come out, we just finished the latest season (or half season?) of Ozark. Last night we watched figure skating and other things on the Olympics.

Books: Non fiction I’m reading a book on the Marquis de Lafayette, Hero of Two Worlds by Mike Duncan and They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South by Stephanie Jones-Rogers. I am slowly working through my nonfiction book stacks.

I also read Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang which was a memoir showing a family of Chinese immigrants and their great difficulties living in NYC. Very thought provoking and well written.

Fiction wise: I recently read Mrs. Dalloway for my book club.

Eight Perfect Hours by Lia Louis, a cute romance

The Heart Principle by Helen Hoang. I would have liked this book better if the main character hadn’t been a violinist as I found most of the violin parts to be pretty bad (poorly researched), but the rest of the book to be wonderful.

It’s another week ahead of me, and it looks to be a “normal” week, weather reports look fine, it should be back to work, teaching, getting the spring festival application done, and a few other things. I slept poorly last night worrying about stupid things, and had some weird dreams of trying to get to various gigs in Ohio, but otherwise, no complaints! We are preparing for a performance in late February at the school, which gives us a good direction for the next few weeks of classes.

What have you been up to? Read any good books lately? Goodness knows I don’t actually need any more on my lists, but I’m always up for me.

Christmas, Travel

Happy New Year!

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Happy New Year! I feel like I should give you all of my New Year’s Resolutions and wrap up my favorite parts of the year AND tell you all about my Christmas Vacation, but since it’s already January 5, hmm what to do?

I’m back to work officially now, though I have the rest of today off. I taught my class this morning, and thought, since I’d been wearing cloth masks and everybody says cloth masks are bad I’d try a surgical mask instead (what I had on hand). I don’t know how people play the violin in a surgical mask, it is impossible and it pokes me in the eyes. Sigh. I’m not quite sure what to do as the only masks I have found that I can play violin in are cloth masks.

Yes, isn’t it great that the pandemic has grown so large again and things are being canceled? So, maybe that’s where to start telling you about my break. We were told oh yes if you are vaccinated/boosted it should be fine to travel, don’t worry, and then suddenly everybody was getting COVID anyway. But we decided to risk it to see our family, because at this point it’s been nearly two years, and it was fine to avoid activities for a bit, but you have to live your lives. I mean, driving down to South Carolina was still probably the most risky behavior.

The last week before Christmas was busy with finishing up teaching, packing, playing with Mannheim Steamroller, seeing my friend April, seeing Louie’s family, and playing Christmas Eve gigs.

Christmas Eve selfie (me in a mask in front of a Christmas Tree).
Swedish Christmas Dinner at Louie’s mom’s house–she has several of those chime candle things that the chime turns from the heat of the candles.

We had a wonderful dinner with Louie’s family, lots of good Swedish food, including a homemade Princess Cake. It used to be that no one knew what a Princess Cake is, but now, thanks to the Great British Baking Show, they not only know but they have very strong opinions about it.

The Princess Cake.

Truthfully, I do not love marzipan as much as some, but it was a lovely cake.

We drove to Clinton, South Carolina (my hometown) on Christmas Day, which was a terrific drive. It was warm enough that we ate lunch outside at a rest area, at a picnic table! I’d packed egg salad from AO&CO which was a fabulous idea–it made for a lovely picnic and a treat. Driving on Christmas Day meant that most restaurants would be closed, but that the traffic was nonexistent! We made excellent time and were at my parents house (also known as home) for dinner. My mom had a few casseroles for Christmas Dinner, so we enjoyed corn casserole and sweet potato casserole with chocolate cake for dessert (I think!).

The next morning we had my family’s traditional Christmas Day brunch (though it was the day after) of cheese grits and fruit cocktail. We also had shrimp cocktail, which was traditionally eaten on Christmas Eve. My other siblings had other Christmas plans this year, so it was just the four of us, which was very nice and low key. We hung out, went for a bike ride, and visited.

My dad helping me get set up on the electric trike for our ride.
My dad adjusting the seat.

My dad has an electric assist “trike” and he just happened to have an extra one on hand that he had purchased for one of my aunts. Louie had to ride a regular bike, though he got a chance after our first ride to switch out.

The next day we drove down to Columbia to visit Congaree National Park. We weren’t the only ones with the same idea, and while it wasn’t as busy as Arches or Grand Teton, we did have to park in the “oversized vehicles” lot as all the regular spaces were taken. There are boardwalks through the swamp area that you can walk on, as well as many miles of trails and canoeing to be done. We opted for just the boardwalks since my parents weren’t up for more extreme hiking.

It was a beautiful day, eerily warm, but lovely to be outside. We walked around for about 2 hours and then had a small picnic.

Lots of swampy waters, though it seemed like a pretty dry time. I imagine it is much swampier in the spring and fall.
My dad was likely pointing at a large loblolly pine tree, since that was a big feature of the park.
You can see some dwarf Palmetto trees in the background.

We also went down to the Riverwalk to walk along the Congaree River near downtown Columbia, but didn’t go too far: my parents were tired of walking and in the words of my niece, it smelled like Chautauqua Lake in places.

It was my parent’s wedding anniversary so we wanted to take them out to dinner. (They tried to insist on paying, but that’s how things go). We ate at the Bonefish Grille on the way back to Clinton and enjoyed a lovely meal outside. We didn’t want to eat inside with them as to avoid anybody getting COVID.

The following day we went up to Greenville to walk around and have lunch. We also visited an electric bike shop and test rode a few bikes with electric assist. We learned there are two different kinds, torque assist, where the bike goes according to your pedaling, and I forget the name, but the bike just sorts of goes faster. These were Pedago bikes and even had a throttle, you could simply go up to about 20 mph without pedaling at all!

Our next stop on the trip was Macon Georgia to visit Louie’s in laws from before. They are wonderful people and very supportive of his relationship with me, so it was a fun time. The mom and two sisters were visiting, and we had a great time eating, drinking, playing games, chatting, and doing a little sight-seeing. They had two dogs there too, so the house was a bit louder than at my parents’.

We had some great meals, a good seafood and tapas dinner outside a restaurant, a fancy Christmas dinner with some more family (mushroom wellington for the vegetarians, along with potatoes, brussels sprouts, homemade rolls, and tomato salad), and New Year’s Eve with fancy appetizers and leftover dinner from Christmas. We were so glad to spend time with everybody!

The table, set for Christmas dinner.

COVID wise we saw a few more people than we might have felt comfortable, but everybody was vaccinated, and a few even took rapid tests here and there, but so far we are still not showing any signs, so I think we might be safe.

After that we drove up through Atlanta and spend a day with my friends April and Charlie. It was something close to 80 degrees so we hung out on their front patio and then had dinner at a really good Mexican place near their house. Louie and I both had the tofu enchiladas which came with a mushroom sauce and were amazingly delicious. We have already attempted to recreate them but ended up making enchiladas with mushroom gravy–oddly tasty, but perhaps not quite right.

April and Charlie’s house, fully decorated for Christmas!

We headed back home the next day, and hit every possible traffic spot, stuck in traffic in Chattanooga for probably 1 1/2 hours, another 1/2 hour in Nashville, slow downs north of Nashville due to snow and traffic, and finally got out of the snow and the traffic to get home around 9 pm. The cats were thrilled to see us!

So now I’ve been back a few days. I’ve spent a fair amount of time simply reading and relaxing. Today my plan is to start packing up the Christmas Decorations, and then read some more. Tomorrow I’m teaching some private students (officially the semester starts Monday, but I’m doing some makeup lessons from last semester) and then Friday the same plus my early morning job. Next week we are back to my full teaching load at home plus early morning, and then the following week is the start of the college semester, except we are online for the first two weeks, so I’m not sure how that will affect things (i.e. which of my students brought their instruments home?).

How was your Christmas and New Year’s Eve? (if you celebrate) Did you get some time off? Did you get COVID? Did you see family and friends?

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?