Heading to Oxford, Ohio, For A Night

With Dad

Crazy Girl

Nick's Intense

Getting To The Ball

Kite Weekend

It's 5:30 here in KC but actually 6:30 in Chautauqua, so I got up, ready for our 9 hour ride this morning, before stopping in Oxford  It's nice not to worry about snow on the roads (I think).  We hope to be off before 7:00 or earlier and Evie's now up, so it should be no problem.  We have had a great vacation, an understatement, both family and adventures, so what more could we ask for. We are both finally starting to think of Chautauqua, which we haven't much over the past two weeks...unusual for us.  Seeing my neighbors pictures of their purple martin houses up already in the lake, got me to thinking about spring time at the lake.

Yesterday was a lazy day, not a lot going out, just hanging out with Tom, Mary and the family.  We did go to Nick's soccer game at 11:00, another windy day out on the pitch.  His team played the league leaders but lost 1-0 on a penalty kick.  They played well, however, and could have easily had a victory with a bit of luck.

We came home around 1:00, had  lunch, watched some  basketball, and worked on a puzzle with Marlena, who seems to enjoy it. Tom and Nick went off to a local golf course to play nine holes.  It was such a nice day that they could not pass it up.  Later afternoon, Evie and I started the arduous task of packing up our things, trying to figure out what we would need for the next two days, and put the rest away.  We are going to spend tomorrow night with college friends,  Joe and Mary Lou Barry, who live in Oxford, Ohio.  It's about a nine hour drive but will take ten hours because of the time change.  We have not been down to Miami in thirty or forty years so it should be fun.

We all watched another silly teen movie, about 4:30, about a girl tennis player who finds a boy friend and finally wins the championship.  Sound familiar? All a girl needs is a guy to make her happy, end of story! For dinner, Tom cooked out again, this time strip steaks, with mushrooms, asparagus, and mac and cheese from Costco, Nick's favorite, absolutely sinful.   We then watched some of the Miami Heat game, did the dishes, and the kids went to bed early because they have school tomorrow and we hope to be off to Ohio by 6:30 or 7:00.  We will have to wait and see if we get off on time.  We have had a great weekend with Tom and Mary and  their kids, a great, happy family.

Sunday Soccer, Then A Barbecue Afternoon

Perfect Passing Position

Sitting On The Bench With Girl Friends

Marlena and Her Coach

Enjoying the Sun

Nick, Turning On The Jets

It's  now 7:50 and I have been up since 6:45, reading the Kansas City newspaper (thin), catching up on the Chiefs and Royals teams, losers like the Browns and Indians.  It looks like a sunny day, highs in the 60's, a great day to be outside, to watch a soccer game at 11:00 in Kansas, to barbecue strip steaks out on Tom's porch, later afternoon, and, of course, play some volleyball with my granddaughter, Marlena, the rising star along with Marisa, in Darien.  All are up and on their Ipads, except Nick, who tends to sleep in, lucky boy.

We watched lots of games yesterday, like many parents across the US, as their children's sporting events take up much of the weekend, unlike the old days, where parents actually had a life to themselves, some what a part from their kids.  In the old days, kids played with kids, usually alone, and parents socialized with others parents, usually without kids.   A mix of the two might be nice.  As I mentioned yesterday, Nick had a soccer game at 7:00 in the morning, forty five minutes away, so Evie and I voted to watch Marlena play volleyball on her Lee's Summit Tiger team, ten minutes drive away at 8:00 and 9:00.  Two games were going on simultaneously, and though Marlena's team lost both games, it was fun to watch, as they play three timed games for a match. The girls are having a good time and learning how to play the right way though some of the coaches do not look like they know much about volleyball.  I sat next to a Mom who played in college and she was going crazy, could hardly watch her daughter play.  Reminded me of myself when  I was watching my children play.  Now I am a grown up and play it cool, sort of.

Granny Having Fun With The Family

We came home, had some lunch, and around 11:30, drove back to Overland Park Kansas for Nick's second game at 1:30, against a team from Milwaukee.  We waited for the game to start by taking Marlena to a nearby playground.  It was a surprisingly chilly afternoon, windy, so that you needed a fleece to stay warm.  Nick's team won 3-0 so all was good.  On the way home, we stopped at Costco, so Evie could get her Costco fix, but I ended up buying more than her.  We came home, and I played volleyball with Marlena, teaching her a few fundamentals about passing, and she is an excellent learner.  When I show her something, she does it easily.  There are coachable players and uncoachable kind; the first are fun, the second are frustrating.

Dinner

For dinner, Tom marinated a salmon filet, then cooked it outside on a cedar plank.  It was unusually good, and along with brussels sprouts, rice, and salad, we had another Saturday night feast.  We watched a terrible movie, about a basketball team in Iowa, who won the State Championship but we had fun making fun of it, predicting what was going to happen.  We all were tired, especially Nick and Tom, so we were in bed by 10:30, a fun day.

Four Game Day in Kansas City

Marlena and Evie Playing Games on Their Computers

Up at 6:30 to a surprisingly cool day here in Kansas City.  It looks like a sunny day, but the high will only be in the low 60's if that.  At least it will be sunny.  Tom and Nick had to leave around 5:45 for a soccer game at 7:00 in Overland Park, KS, about a half hour ride.  Nick had a soccer game again at 1:30 in the same park, against a team from Milwaukee.  Marlena has two volleyball games this morning, one at 8:00, the next at 9:00

Not a lot to say about yesterday, as we left sunny, lovely Scottsdale to return to the Midwest of Missouri, at least we had Tom and family as solace.  Not really, but we did have a great time in Scottsdale, thanks to the hospitality of Claire and Henry, mostly, and the wonderful weather, not too hot, so that we could hike each day in the spectacular mountains surrounding most of the cities in Arizona.  I always have remembered T.S. Eliot's line from "The Waste Land,", "In the mountains, there you feel free/ I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter," and you feel free, off alone, if not physically, in your thoughts, high above the cities, or in the valley or gulch, looking up at these miracles of geology and past history.  I miss not seeing them out my window already.  If we did not have Chautauqua Lake to look at each morning,  I think I would have to move to somewhere with a view of a mountain.

Looking back at our visit to Scottsdale, neither one of us assumed we would be hiking to the extent we ended up doing.  Each day, we became more and more excited about exploring a new trail and before we knew it, our morning routine was not complete without a six mile hike somewhere in the mountains.  I hope we can keep it up in Chautauqua, no mountains of course, but plenty of great parks, trails, and hills to explore.  And we can always come back West, if our hunger for mountain hiking gets too great.

We were up early in Scottsdale, watched the sunrise on the mountains one last time, had some breakfast, said our good bye's to Dot, went over to Claire', for another cup of coffee, to hold their granddaughter one more time, then off to the airport with Henry.  Fortunately, his son Scott was arriving about an hour after us, so he was just going to wait there.  Our flight went quickly, just a little over two hours, although bit bumpy when we landed.  We got to Tom's around 6:00, and Marlena was at a birthday party until 7:30 and Nick was out with buddies playing some kind of nerf ball game.  Tom ordered Chinese, our third night in a row for it, and we all chowed down when the kids got home.  They are all good, ready for the weekend of fun with Granny and games.  Because we were all getting up early, we were in bed by 10:00, all of us tired.

Leaving On A Jet Plane For KC (Lost Dog Wash to Taliesin)

Towards The East

Typical Trail

Cactus Ready to Bloom

Always Cactus

Desert and Mountain View

6:20

Up early, 5:30, ready to head back to see our grandchildren in Kansas City.  We have to be at Claire and Henry's about 9:00, so we can get to the airport about 9:45, our plane leaves at 11:40.  Not a lot to do since we packed last night, just put the bags in the car and go.  We are going to miss an early morning hike but are happy to have had nine great days of hiking anyways.  The sun has not risen yet, the mountains blots on the skyline, the wind whistling through the trees, the songs of a couple of different birds.  No joggers or walkers yet on the trail just out side Dot's backyard.

We decided to walk Lost Dog Wash again, mainly because it's all mountains, no houses like yesterday's hike on Quartz Trail.  We took this walk this past Saturday, a hot, sweaty day for a hike, and we made it in three hours.  This time we walked the other way, six miles, and it took just about three hours.  It was a glorious morning, what else around here, and we started up the mountain at 7:45, with only two or three other cars in the lot.  There was a nice breeze as we hiked up a section of Ringtail, which connects with Old Jeep, which connects with Lost Dog (got it) almost making me wish I had brought along my fleece.  But soon enough, it warmed up, the sun bright in the sky, the wind blocked by a mountain.  The vistas along this hike are some of the best and there are very few people on the trails early, though as we were ascending we did see more.  We can look for what seems like fifty miles, south mostly, beyond Phoenix and east beyond Mesa.  Just huge blocks of mountains, usually green or gray because of the shade, contrast with the vastness of the flat desert.  The trail was up hill most of the first half hour but not much of a grade, so it was easy going.  We love the way we wind up and down the sides of the mountain, into a gulch, usually rocky because of a dry stream, then back up a winding path, often one off in the distance, a half more or so, which looks daunting at the time we view it but soon enough, we are hiking easily.  We made it to the Taliesin Overview in just one and a half hours and it took us another one and a half to wind down, back to the 124th Street Access Trail Head.  We did take a off shoot of the Lost Dog, the Ascanzi Shoot, which made our hike a bit longer, as we wound around the Pavilion, coming in from the other side. It was our last hike here in Scottsdale for awhile but it was a good one.  Evie figured out we have hiked just about fifty miles in the past nine days, averaging 5.5 miles a hike.

 One of the volunteers at the Pavilion mentioned that they would be opening a new section of the Mc Dowell Sonoran Preserve to the public next September or October, when the Pavilion is done.  It will be more of a drive but fun to explore some new trails.  We got home about 11:00 and Claire and her daughter in law, Liz, and her baby, Grace, came over for a couple of hours.  So we sat around playing with the baby, Grace, fighting over who gets to hold her.  They stayed for lunch and left about 2:00.

Oma Claire

It was actually a cool day for Scottsdale, 75º at 3:30 in the afternoon, and I checked Chautauqua and it was almost as warm, 73º.  It's sounds like it's heating up next week in Scottsdale, getting colder at the lake.  Evie and I went off to REI since I was interested in seeing what kinds of hiking gear they had.  It was an amazing assortment of everything a camper, hiker, runner, or biker would need.  The only problem, everything was two or three times more  than I wanted to spend.  They even had men's yoga wear, a pair of shorts for fifty, a sleeveless tee (man, would I look good in that) for forty.  I passed.

We got home around 5:30 and Dot asked if we wanted to go out to dinner at George's the local Chinese Restaurant we always go to and asked Claire, Henry, their daughter in law and baby along.  We had a great meal, lots of good food and even Henry enjoyed it, despite having spent the past week in China, being stuffed with good food three times a day.  We got home around 8:00 and Evie and I packed for our trip tomorrow, and we then relaxed and watched the end of American Idol with Dot.  We were tired and went to bed around 9:30.

More Hiking, A Trail Gone Bad, and A Move (Quartz Trail to Taliesin Overlook)

View From Dot' Condo at 3:35

View at 6:25

Dry Stream Bed Trail

Quartz Trail

Quartz Trail Homes

It' 6:30 and Evie and I our both up, drinking our coffee, enjoying the morning sunrise.  The mountains  are still shrouded with shade, as the sun is not yet high enough to coat them with light, turning them green.  We take our last hike of our vacation in Scottsdale today and it looks like another sublime morning to do so, blue skies, no clouds, a high of 78º.  We hope to be off by 7:30, back by 10:30. walking a trail we walked last Saturday, up to the Dog Ditch Wash trail to the Taliesin Overlook,  then back on Dog Ditch Wash to Ringtail, and back down to the trail head.  I know these names mean nothing to most people but they will help us remember the trails for the next time we are here.  We would love to return in late September, for more hiking, perhaps heading north as well to the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Zion National Park, and Yellowstone.  At least, for now, that's our pipe dream.

Yesterday was our last day staying with Claire and Henry, so before we moved to Dot's Condo, we went on a hike in the Mc Dowell Mountain Preserve, where we had hike earlier in the week.  We wanted to find a loop, so we would be on a new trail.  We looked at the map and it appeared part of the Quartz Trail, which we walked on Sunday T-boned the West Ward Trail.j  If you went east/left, it ran into the Taliesin Trail, which climbed up to the perch where it met the Quartz Trail, and the it was an easy two mile walk to our car.  Well, to make a long story short, we followed what was the first part of the Quartz Trail, but were never able to find eastern leg of the Westward Trail, running into a golf course, then school, so we had to turn around, back track to our start and then take the same trail we had taken on Sunday, the Quartz Trail up to its connection with the Taliesin Trail.  It's a pleasant enough trail, following a dry bed bed between houses most of the way but I had lost my early morning mojo (I don't like back tracking), so it was arduous for us both, as we had to push ourselves to finish and perhaps because of our past two hikes in the cool Canyon woods of Sedona, we were really warm, both of us sweating a good part of the way.  We ended up, however, getting our six miles in, walking for two hours and forty five minutes. And since we had taken the walk on Sunday, we had few good pictures for the day, alas.

Inaccurate Signage

We got back to Claire's around 11:00, packed up our clothes, and were easily moved in to Dots by 12:30. She has a great condo, a marvelous view of the Mc Dowell Range,  and it's very comfortable.  Like most people I know her age, she does not like to use the air conditioner, preferring like us in the summer at the lake, to close up the house during the day, opening it up at night when it's cooler.  She rarely uses the air conditioner even in the summer, which I cannot imagine but it certainly saves on the electric bill.  We both are cold weather people, so we think it's warm but the first think Dot said when we arrived was how cold it was.  Go figure...like something out Seinfeld, where Mom likes it cool, Dad likes it warm.

We relaxed at Dot's most of the afternoon, while Dot spent her time cooking up a storm, never sitting down as usual.  She had a corned beef cooking in the crock pot and was cutting up veggies and chicken for our stir fry dinner.  I went out briefly to pick up  some bok choy but that was it for the day.  We ate our stir fry around 6:00 and sat around the table talking until 7:20.  Dot then did the dishes with some of Evie's help and we then watched TV together until about 10:00.

Dusk 7:25

Sedona and Then Back To Scottsdale (Boynton Canyon)

Boynton Trail Canyon, Sedona

Canyon, Early Morning

Relax in Dry Bed

Prickly Pear and Cairn

Fleece Time, Early Morning Hike

Evie and I both slept in this morning, till 6:10, as  light filled our room.  A crisp morning here in Scottsdale and it felt good to walk outside to the pool, see the sky with some clouds, unusual for here, get my coffee and sit down and relax.  We are hiking in the McDowell mountains this morning before moving all of our clothes over to Dot's, Evie's mother in law, for the next two days.  Claire has her granddaughter coming in this afternoon, and her husband, Henry, flies in from China this morning as well.

Yesterday, unfortunately, both Evie and I were up early in Sedona, perhaps because of the good time at dinner  and we went to bed rather early for us.  So we were both up by 5:00, to early to go have breakfast but not coffee.  I did go down and have breakfast at the Hampton lounge around 6:15 and was about the only one there.  Usually, it's filled with people up and ready to travel, not so in Sedona.   We left by 7:00, stopped to pick up our Red Rock pass at a gas station and drove about six miles to the  Boynton Canyon parking lot.  Not a car in the lot, as we were obviously the eager beavers, the first ones on the trail.  So, we started off at 7:30 and expected the hike to take about three hours.  The first part, in fact the first hour, is along the edge of a canyon on one side, and a development and resort on the other side.  We made our way along mostly red sand trails, along rocks, though the scrub, until we were beyond the houses and the canyon.  Then the trail opened up a bit, and we followed a dry stream, through mostly wooded areas.  In fact, either it was cloudy or we were in the shade of the trees most of our hike out to the end.  It not as picturesque, perhaps because it was a lot like the previous day's hike.  We met no hikers going out, since we were early, and it was cool, in the 50's, most of the way, fleece-like weather.  We never made it to the vista, even after walking over three miles on a supposedly 2.4 mile hike out,  but there really wasn't one according to other hikers, just more of a rocky, narrow trail along the side of the hill.  Our return was quite different, lots of hikers on their way out, in fact, one friendly group of about ten, stopped us, asked where we were from.  They call themselves the Tahoe Trampers, are about our age and go all over the States hiking...a cool group.  We made it back to the parking lot, now full,  in just over three hours, having hiked over six miles.  We were  disappointed somewhat since it was much like yesterday, a hike in a canyon, along a dry bed, with walls of red rock on either side, which you have to look up, though the trees to notice.  Not that I am complaining.  It's interesting how quickly you take this stupendous landscape for granted.

Wild Daisies

Mountain Fleurs

We went back to the hotel, showered, packed up and were on our way by 12:30.  We drove into downtown Sedona, parked, and after about twenty minutes, had enough of the touristy shops, the crowds, the turquoise, the Indian jewelry, what you seem to find almost everywhere in the Southwest. I think we missed the one really nice shopping area because we passed it on the way out of town.  Driving around Sedona is probably the most scenic way to see the area because all the mountains, the Red Rocks, are most easily seen and admired from a distance.  If you get up close, they end up just being walls of red and you don't get the whole picture.  Our last stop was the Chapel of the Holy Cross,  one of the four Vortex's in the area, a modernistic chapel, built by a philanthropist in 1956, up in the mountains, wedged in between the Red Rocks, with an amazing view of the entire Sedona area.  Even if you are not religious, it's worth going just to see the view.  The church is modernistic, rectangular box, with a huge bay window behind the altar looking out over the canyons.  It's small inside, seating perhaps a hundred at the most.

Chapel of the Holy Cross

Our drive home took just about two hours, arriving at Claire's just about 4:00.  I do like the drive between Phoenix and Scottsdale, the elevation and the wide open plains, so you can see for long distances both to the left and right, with hardly a house in sight, just open prairie or desert.  When you start getting closer to Phoenix, the Saguaro Cactus start to appear, peopling the landscape

When we got back, Claire was baking banana bread, for her boy, Scott, who will be here this weekend with his new daughter, Grace.  She had texted us yesterday to see if lamb chops would be all right for dinner.  I said mais oui...of course.  So, I grilled them outside, Claire made my favorite kind of of potatoes, hash browns, and with a salad and a glass of red wine, we had a feast.  We watched more of The Voice, had some of Claire's freshly baked banana bread for dessert and went to be around 10:00, both of us exhausted from the day's hike and ride home.

Another Morning In Sedona (West Fork Trail, Oak Creek Canyon)

Evie's Sister, Claire , Our Host, With Roses From Her Yard

Oak Creek

Red Rock Mountains

Cactus Growing Half way Up The Cliff

We Marked Our Trail, With A Cairn

Cliffs of Red Rock

Apple Orchards at Entrance to Creek

Taking Time Out

It's 5:15 in the Hampton Inn, and Evie's up already.  I have been down to the breakfast room, to get some coffee, but no breakfast till 6:00.  How uncivilized.  Right now it's 57º with a high today of 64º, so different from Scottsdale, 120 miles south of us.  The elevation here, however, is 5000 feet, towering above the Phoenix/Scottsdale deserts.  We hope to be off hiking by 7:30, to Boynton Canyon, a hike not quite as long as yesterday's but more challenging, as we climb 500 feet towards the end, to the viewing point.  We have, of course, been watching the news coverage of the horrific events yesterday in Boston.  I have to say with all the crazies in the US as well as the world, it's a wonder it does not happen more often.  In some parts of the world, like Iraq, it happens almost every week.  Are we any different? Any less vulnerable?  I doubt it...people are the same everywhere.  We have just been more fortunate.

Yesterday, we left Scottsdale around 7:15 and as expected it took us just about two hours to pull in to the Visitor's Center in Sedona.  We were told to go there first, for maps and information about hiking, and they were  great, all volunteers, with name tags telling what city in the U they originally were from.  The drive became really spectacular when we turned off of Interstate 17 on to @179 which headed towards Sedona.  That's when the red rock formations began, and as you got into Sedona, they hover over the city, its outskirts, all developed with the same kind of stone.  It's a dazzling display of nature at her best, sheer cliffs, bizarre rock formations, some like large cairns, with parts ready to topple.  The highways are great and we wondered at what it took to create a highway between these rock formations.  And I assume, they are always dealing with rocks falling on to the roads.

Four hours

We had read about the West Fork of Oak Creek Canyon and the rangers also said it was a great hike, also very popular.  We drove about ten miles north of Sedona, on 89A, and pulled of a turn into the crowded parking lot, paying a fee of nine dollars.  It was 10:30 when we started and it was quite cool, probably in the 50's, so different from the 80's of our previous desert hikes.  We actually put on fleeces and started on our way, a round trip of over six miles.  I figured about two hours each way and that's just about what it took, including stops, time for lunch, and the arduous crossing of the creek, thirteen times out and thirteen times back.  The trails followed the creek, crossing it obviously at various times, to allow us to continue walking.  When we  started, the land on either side of the creek was fairly wide but as we hiked farther along, it became more and more narrow, until the end, when it was quite narrow, with little land on either side of the creek, just sheer canyon wall.  We did meet lots of people coming and going, more than any of the other trails we have been on except for Pinnacle Peak.  The trail was mostly flat, often sandy, very shady as we walked mostly through pine forests, occasionally climbing up and down some rocky areas, but overall, it was a delightful walk in the park, except for the creek crossings, where you had to navigate across rocks and logs, trying not to slip or get a soaker.  The most stunning part of the walk was the vertical cliffs on either side of the creek, red rocks, sheer cliffs, huge boulders, three or four hundred feet if not more.  It got so you almost forgot they were there as you walked until you looked up in awe at their height and color.  We went as far as you could easily hike, about 3.1 miles.  From there, you were on your own, having to make your own trail.  Most people chose to return as did we.  I was surprised by a couple of things, the sheer verticality of the cliffs, the number of people hiking on a Monday, and the coolness of the weather.  We were rarely hot though we did take off our fleeces after the first half hour.  We both thought it was our favorite hike so far, lots of change, not the desert beauty, but the beauty of mountains, pines, creek, and the wind whistling through the leaves.  I forgot to mention there were fairly heavy winds all day, in the twenty or thirties.

We drove back to Sedona, stopped again in the Visitors Center to buy a Senior National Park pass for nine dollars.  It enables to enter any National Park free, for life...a real deal!  Obviously, around here you have to pay a parking fee, but any National Park, like Zion or Bryce, is free.  We checked into our Hampton, just outside of town at 3:30 and relaxed, showered, and read and got caught up on emails, until about 5:30.  Then we went out to look around, visit the shops, and have some dinner.

Around 6:00, we went off looking for a good place to eat.  We walked for perhaps a mile, stopping in and looking at two or three recommended places, none of which we liked.  The last place we stopped at, Picazzo's, an Italian  restaurant, ended up being a gem.  We were able to sit at the bar, at a marvelous organic pizza with mushrooms and turkey sausage and a huge Caesar salad, along with a brew or two.  We struck up a conversation with a couple from Seattle, who were really fun, here on a golf trip and like us, they go on to Scottsdale tomorrow.  And another couple stopped us, said they had seen us on the trail earlier in the day (we recognized them as well) and we both laughed at the coincidence of both of us hiking the same trail, eating at the same restaurant. And, by the way, all six of us loved our meals, would come back in a minute.  So, if you are in Sedona, want Italian and a great atmosphere, go to Picazzo's.  When we  left at  8:15, there was still a line of people waiting to be seated.

At Picazzo's in Sedona