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 piePumpkin pieOld 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?
Oh my goodness! I decided to spend more of my free time reading books and less of it doing other stuff, so I haven’t told you about anything lately. (I’ve developed an obsession with the Philippa Gregory books.)
I promised I’d tell you about our hike on the Lewis and Clark Trail the other day.
We’d hoped to do the whole thing, but it turned out part of it was underwater, so we hiked about 3 miles and turned back when we had to. It was a nice hike! Pretty busy, some bugs, a little humid, but it’s a very scenic hike (for Missouri…) and it was enjoyable.
Where the trail ended. It’s a loop so we could have hiked from the opposite direction as well, but we went the more popular way.
Afterwards we needed to use the restroom, so we popped into the Weldon Springs Conservation Area Interpretive Center. Um, that place was a little crazy.
Those rocks are covering a pile of stuff that is covering up all sorts of radioactive material. It’s perfectly safe, they say, but it’s pretty crazy that it exists, and that you can climb up the mountain! Between that and watching Chernobyl…anyway, the Center is worth a stop in and the two rangers working there (a husband and wife team) were very knowledgeable and eager to share their knowledge with visitors. And the bathrooms were excellent.
Over the last weekend I went to Phoenix to visit my sister Leslie and her family, including my brand new nephew! It was a low key visit as far as leaving the house to do things, because it was a bit too hot outside for much activity, and especially activity involving a very tiny baby. We did go to a neat brewery and a “build your own enchilada” place, and we got Stroopwaffle McFlurries.
Tonight we are going to a Young Friends Opera performance. Tomorrow I’m playing with Weird Al (so fun!!) and then Sunday is a day off and dinner with my friend April who is visiting from Atlanta. Looking forward to it!
Happy New Year! I had a wonderful Christmas visiting my family in Phoenix, and then I proceeded to come home and be sick with a terrible cold/flu thing for nearly a week. I suppose I should be glad I was already on vacation because I didn’t have to cancel anything (except a quartet rehearsal) but it wasn’t the way I wanted to spend the week.
That’s okay though. It’s been really cold and being sick gave me an excellent excuse to stay inside, mostly in bed. And it reminded me that we aren’t as in charge as we think, and that health really is the most important thing. I plan to work harder this year on maximizing my health, both physical AND mental. This past year I didn’t eat as well or exercise as much as I could have, and I definitely spent more time being anxious and stressed than was good for me, so I’m going to focus on those things.
I’m getting ready for teaching next week, and doing a few things to prepare for the semester ahead. This spring should be a bit easier than the fall, plus I get to ease in. In the fall I returned from a 2 week vacation and had to work nearly a month straight, with loads of gigs in addition to all my students. This spring semester I don’t have so many gigs right off the bat so I can focus on practicing (lots of fun music to learn!), teaching and scheduling my Wash U students, which is always an adventure. I’m already well into my viola challenge of #100daysofpractice on Instagram, but I’m also hard at work learning some wonderful repertoire for the quartet this semester (we have several fun concerts scheduled) and I’ve found myself involved in piano trio/sonata concert as well, so I’ve got a lot of great performances and chamber music lined up. Orchestrally I’m heading to Illinois for two weeks this spring and playing some things in town, doing an opera, and doing a few broadway shows at the Fox. (Sorry, this post is kind of a brain dump, then again, not sorry, that’s how it always is here!)
So, a few pictures from Christmas:
We did quite a few fun activities in Phoenix. We went to an event at the Desert Botanical Gardens called the Luminarias, where the place was lit up with luminaries and you could wander around listening to various live music groups. I liked the mariachi band best.
We went to the Museum of Musical Instruments, where I had never been before. It was fascinating, and I’d love to go back with Louie sometime. There was an overwhelming amount of information, but it was really neat to see all the different instruments.
The octobass is VERY large, so I also took a picture of a miniature violin. Nice contrast!
We had a wonderful time just hanging out, eating good food, opening gifts as well. My niece Athena is in the “stick out your tongue” phase of photo taking, but I thought my parents (especially my dad, who has really perfected that look, as it was present in nearly a dozen photos, where the rest of us ranged from crazed with eyes open too wide/shut to somewhat fairly normal) and sister Leslie looked good in this picture!
On the last full day of my visit, we took a day trip to Sedona. We hiked a little around Bell Rock, took a tour of the Palatki Heritage Site, and then headed to Jerome for a short visit too. It was a full day, and then afterwards nearly all of us got sick! Traveler’s notes: National Parks passes are useful for visiting Sedona as otherwise you have to pay for a Red Rocks pass for the day. And the Palatki site is only accessible via approximately 7 miles of dirt road, which is fun in a Prius C!
That’s my aunt Connie on the right, Mom on the left. They are sisters. Oh, and an interesting side effect of wearing a Go St Louis shirt while in Sedona—numerous people from St Louis talked to me. I guess we are a friendly people!
In any case, it was a nice trip, always fun to see my niece especially (she changes the most) and of course great to see family. Louie and I did our separate things with the plan to come back to St Louis and celebrate New Year’s Eve together—we DID do that, but since I was really sick it ended up being lots of tissues, cold medicine, Netflix, and a real struggle to stay up past midnight. I did, but we decided to save the champagne in the fridge until later. (Perhaps today, as Louie is taking the GRE this morning and might want to celebrate after!)
Goals for the new year, just to sort of solidify them. (Then again, saying sort of solidify isn’t very solid.) Be able to roll with the punches. Focus on stress relief and health. Be a good friend, but don’t worry about how many friends I have
Today, as far as internet retailers would has us believe, is that day that everybody pretends to go back to work but actually spends all day shopping online. I don’t understand “work” evidently, as when I’m working, I am not able to shop online! Perhaps a reader can explain? I assume those are different people that the people who occasionally yell at us at gigs to “get a real job.” (Actually happens.)
We flew home late last night from Phoenix. In a surprising twist, we almost had our flight canceled due to bad weather in Phoenix! The plane we were supposed to ride on got diverted to Tucson, and still might have made it, but in another surprising twist, our flight was moved to a different plane, and by 1 am we were home safe.
Thanksgiving was nice. Things are never quite as relaxing with a toddler around, but it was fun. We made some excellent food, took a few hikes, read a lot of children’s books, and watched nearly all of the new season of Gilmore Girls (when I’m going to finish it is anybody’s guess as I’m frantically trying to catch up on life now, but soon I hope!).
Louie got attacked by a cactus—look at his shoe! Don’t touch as they are very sharp!
I didn’t have my selfie stick but we did pretty well anyway.
Just over three weeks until Winter Break. I have three performances, lots of teaching, and it’s raining. (Grocery shopping in the rain…ugh, hate it!) Winter, or at least fall is here, and that’s where we are.
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.
I know I say this a lot, but WOW where do the weeks go? How are we one full week away from Thanksgiving already? I guess the trick is to keep your head down and keep plugging away, eh?
Or keeping busy. Sometimes I think, WHY oh why do I keep doing things that cause a lot of stress for no good reason? For instance, last night’s quartet concert caused a lot of stress because we were performing Beethoven’s Op. 59 Quartet no. 1 for the first time, and it is really a beast of a piece. I put many hours of practice into it, and we put many hours of rehearsal into it. But the fact is, there is plenty of good reason, just not financial. So often society tells us that success is measured through paychecks and job titles, but I disagree. We succeeded last night by pushing through and doing something really difficult for no real reason other than the sheer joy, no, exhilaration of performing at our highest level, and performing one of my favorite quartets. Granted, I have quite a few favorites, but op 59 #1 is up there. One of my goals is to be able to perform the late Beethoven Quartets… op. 132 is my absolute favorite piece of music. But without performing and working through and struggling with these other Beethoven Quartets, which are so satisfying and wonderful in their own ways, I will never get to the late quartets. I may never anyway, but I’m on the path. So my whole point is, yes, this stressed me out, like all performances do, but I love performing and I love finishing a performance and feeling successful and accomplished, and feeling like my life is important and that I am doing something important.
(We perform again next Saturday at the Tavern of Fine Arts. Come out and hear us play Beethoven and the Dohnanyi Piano Quintet.)
Last weekend we traveled to Phoenix to see our friends Mark and Karen get married.
I did not realized quite how tall I was until this picture.
Louie and I stayed with my sister Leslie and her family—everybody else there plays with the Phoenix Symphony, basically.
I played with a quartet for the ceremony. It was like being at work but with a shorter yellow dress. Perhaps nearly too short for sitting on a stage.
This was my view during the ceremony. It’s one of the things that sucks about playing for a friend—you don’t really get to enjoy the ceremony, but it is always an honor to be asked to play by a fellow musician!
The reception was at a place called The Duce and was a lot of fun.
Too much fun, probably.
This picture is stolen from another wedding guest’s facebook page. Louie and I met through Mark and Karen, but failed to get a picture of the 4 of us. Actually that’s not true, as they are in the background of two pictures above, but that’s not what I mean.
Since it was such a short visit, and we ended up hanging around the house each day looking a bit rough until it was time to get ready for the events, I didn’t get as many Athena photos as I should have! *vain*
She wasn’t sure about this selfie.
Anyway, after a whirlwind trip over the weekend, the week felt like it had been going on and on. This weekend isn’t so bad, though I have some makeup lessons each day so I don’t get any official days off. We are going to the symphony tonight and out (finally) for a nice dinner for Louie’s birthday tomorrow (3 weeks late) so it should be a lovely weekend. We’re also hoping to get out into the world during the day and hike, walk, or run, and perhaps get some housework done too. Basically there aren’t nearly enough hours left to do all the things we’ve had to put off, or to do and see the things we want, but we keep at it.
Chloe is healing…slowly. I wish I could explain why she has to wear the cone, but then maybe she could explain what’s going on with her and then we’d all be happier. Until then, lots of cuddles and petting, and cleaning up urine and gross stuff. It’s a hard time.
I have to remind myself that life isn’t a straight line, there are ups and downs, and sometimes you take a few steps forward and a few back. I’m feeling run down and tired right now, and as usual I’m rambling, but…I’m really looking forward to some downtime over Thanksgiving (and seeing family!). I always really need to make an effort to see friends and people other than Louie-he’s great, but I can’t ONLY hang out with my boyfriend, and the same for him, we need more people! When life gets busy it’s easy to want to finish the day in sweatpants watching TV with a glass of wine, but that’s not necessarily the best thing to do every night. I think part of this age group is that we are all busy with work and then exhausted, and if you don’t plan in advance, nothing happens, but you just hate planning every step of your life in advance. Sigh.
Why do I always start complaining when I start blogging? I swear I have all these interested positive thoughts and then…I just start complaining about how hard life is. It’s not so bad. After the concert last night I met Louie at Mission Taco for our traditional Taco Thursday and had some good food and great conversation. Between now and Monday I only have 4 1/2 hours of teaching (!!) and that doesn’t seem like so much. Lots of time to catch up on all the housework
And thanks for your comments on my last post, the few of you reading. I think you’re right—my writing hasn’t gotten better, but different, as I’ve grown as a person. The best thing I can do is keep reading and writing. A good excuse to read more books, to help my blogging, right?
*After hitting publish I was thinking about how I often feel tired, even after having gotten a new bed. Sometimes I think it’s because I need more exercise! But I thought, gosh, why do we keep trying to do all these activities when I’m run down, and the answer is, because you look back and you remember the activities fondly, you don’t remember nights on the couch in your pj’s. At least that’s how I feel! So it’s worth it, and I probably just need a couple days off to reboot. I haven’t had a few days off since we got back from our trip in August.
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.
