CrossRoads Blog

Time sure does keep on passing….

It feels as if it was not too long ago that Michael and I would take Michael II out on day excursions and now Michael II and Antoinette are taking Michael III out on them. We were blessed to be able to take the whole MII family (MII, Antoinette and MIII) out to Lake Eufaula

while we were visiting the family in Oklahoma as part of our month long vacation. We packed a picnic lunch, played some Frisbee and cooled down in the lake. It was a very enjoyable outing. Michael III was his normal cute self, check out the photos (HERE). He enjoyed looking around and swimming with his mom, dad and grand dad then also enjoyed grandma wrapping him up in a nice warm towel. I miss snuggling that sweety. Near the end of the outing MI added a couple of new holes to his head while doing pull ups under the gazebo rafters on nails that were on the ceiling of it. Initially it looked much worse than it ended up being and he healed up quickly.

All in all, a great day at the Park-Lake with Family.

You didn’t think we would go our whole four weeks away from home without squeezing in a hike or two in Michigan and Oklahoma did ya’? And what better way to start off vacation than find a cool location and bring the Grandson on his first “real hike”. Yep, we plan on turning him into an outdoor man as much as possible. So we packed up M3 and Z1 (Zac of course ) (M2 was working), and headed out.

We had planned ahead and picked out Robber’s Cave as one of the hikes we would do when in Oklahoma. Antoinette had told us how cool it was last visit, but we couldn’t get to it because the day we wanted to go the weather did not cooperate. This time we were prepared. In fact, preparation started by us scooping up the coolest M3 present ‘backpack-5 point harness baby carrier-hiking-thingamabob from Sportsman’s. It’s this cool (and ultra safe) contraption that allows you to stick the youngin’ on your back and take a long hike knowing he is safe and protected. It even has a sunshade/rain shade if needed. Anyway enough on the pack … you’ll have to forgive, you know I get excited about backpack gear and add the fact that it’s for the Grandson… and there is some potential for me to ramble. Check it out in the picture.

So Robber’s Cave is a place where Jesse James and his gang would hide out back in the day. The cave areas are pretty cool, kind of arranged like hidden little rooms with some small ‘caves’ too. You can for sure see how it would make a great hideout. The Caves are though is just a small part of the park overall. It is an Oklahoma State Park and it’s setup pretty nice all around. The thing is huge, we drove for many miles it seems inside just to get to the cave area. It has a decent beach on the lake, several picnic areas, lots of campsites, a nature center, etc. – overall very nice and we will for sure be back when we get back to OK for another visit with everyone.

For the Hike we choose a trail close to the Caves. It was too be a fairly short trail as we were getting hungry already having hiked around the cave area for an hour or two (including Zac finding a lost girl). The trail turned out to be a little longer seeing we found two branches I think, but overall a nice hike with some decent variety – a hidden lake, lots of vegetation, frogs, and a whole mess of spiders. Speaking of which, when I say ‘a whole mess of’ think, every single step. Yep, for the most part, when we were hiking I would take a step and there would be a spider web across the trees that I had to walk through. You get used to it, but man did that get a little old. Plus I had to worry a little about one of them sticking to me then climbing onto M3 on my back. Check out the picture of one Kimberly spotted (above right), that one for perspective is about the side of my hand!

After a couple hours of hiking the trail we headed over toward the lake, checked out the Nature Center (Mikey loved the fish), and I got the grill fired up for some good old burgers on the grill. A great day, and what a vacation day should be! We hope that for M3 this will just be the first of a lifetime of hiking.

PICTURE HERE (In with the rest of the Oklahoma shots – but labeled as such)

We started out our first full day of vacation on quite a somber note. I suppose we knew a visit to the Oklahoma City National Memorial (the site of the bombing of the Alfred Murrah Federal Building in 1995) would not be uplifting, but we did think it would be much more ‘reflective’ versus mostly sad and depressing – the emotions we left with. That’s not to say we were not glad that we stopped by to reflect and pay respect, but it just wasn’t what I expected.

They built a very nice memorial for the 168 people (including 19 children) that passed on that horrific day. There is a reflecting pool that sits between two ‘granite walls’ that have the time on them of the attack and the minute after – representing how everything changed in those 2 minutes. There is also a chair for each person who died positioned in 8 rows that represent the floor of the building they were on. There is a Survivor Tree, and the site has still kept the fence with all the items left by visitors to the Memorial. A weeping Jesus (not part of the official Memorial) across the street is another tribute in the area.

Maybe it was just that day, maybe it was seeing the ‘little chairs’, maybe it was seeing all the items left, but this is still a very, very sad place. It will always be hallowed ground, but I think more time needs to pass before it can become a place for reflection. I hope this is not disrespectful, but truth told, I kind of wish we would not have stopped here.

By Kimberly

Saturday night was a much anticipated event: Pharos, for both me and my fellow belly dance troupe members. We had new costumes designed and made for the events. We had practiced our tail feathers off or at least our beads (yes, literally we lost many glass beads from our new costumes during dress rehearsal). I felt ready for the show. Pharos is a new event in Phoenix and there were several hiccups that come along with putting an event together for the first time but the evening was full of great dancing and drumming and The Desert Flowers accompanied by The White Claws Raked!

It was a great set for us and despite going on almost two hours past our stage time (past midnight) it felt like we really did a nice job. Funny thing is that as I look back at the pictures there are several shots with the majority of the dancers dancing with their eyes closed ,lol. I do not really think it was that we were “feeling the music” as much as we were just plain old TIRED! Still, fantastic night with my favorite fan (Michael of course) by my side and my dancing buddies around me.

In the wee hours this morning at exactly 12:07 AM June 8th, proud parents Tim and Stephanie Pickering gave birth to a beautiful and precious baby girl - Rachel Nicole Diana. Momma and baby are doing great. Little Rachel was 5 lbs 15 oz. and 19 inches and she was born at Arrowhead Hospital here in Glendale Arizona.

What a special day for everyone. We did have a chance to get up to see everyone early this morning and take a few pictures of course (click link following). Seeing we think of Stephanie as our Daughter I guess this means we have another wonderful Grandchild… man are we gettin’ old!

All our blessing to the new family and we will of course be adding much more over the years on little Rachel. In the meantime we look forward to watching her grow up and spoiling the heck outta’ her whenever we get the chance.

PICTURES HERE

What a cool spot we found for this last weekends Hike. We headed about 2 1/2 hours Northeast of Phoenix to the Fossil Springs Trail. The trail head is about 45 miles East on 260 after you hit Cottonwood on 1-17 with easy access about 5 miles outside of Strawberry AZ and in addition to the Spring for which the trial is named, there is also a pretty cool waterfall (damn) just a bit up from the Spring.

With the drive and the trail distance (9 miles or so total) it makes for a fairly long day hike if you want to spend any time at all hanging out at the Spring and Waterfall, so we got up early and hit the road. After a quick stop at Rock Springs Cafe (no pie this time) for breakfast, we were off again and were on the trail by 10:00 or so. It’s a decent condition trail, I think mostly because it gets fairly heavy traffic because of the Waterfall and it being an outstanding place to camp. We could tell when we hit the Canyon bottom that most people camp and do not make it a day trip - we will for sure do that next time as there are numerous spots along the creek to camp that are perfect with shade and fire pits, we even saw some chairs at one site made from the native rock. Anyway, it’s about 4 miles and 1200 ft decent until you hit the creek. Once there, the water is barely exsistant. A few pools here and there but nothing flowing this time of year for sure. At this point you take a left and in about 1/2 mile or so you come to the Springs (as you can here as you approach). There there is a great swing hole and abundant flowing water. A nice little spot for a snack. Follow the creek another 1/2 mile or so and you hit the Falls - which it where the majority of the folks are hanging out for obvious reasons.

We hung out at the falls for a couple of hours, took a little dip, checked out a cave you can swim into, and crossed the Damn Flume which was a little hairy (hence the sign warning against we only saw on the return back across trip leaving (see Kimberly Pic). We humped out in great time as we always do. the first mile heading back up the canyon has a couple of steep accents stretches that got the old hearts going for sure, but we are becoming old pro’s at this by now (our 13th hike this year as we later added up driving home).

We swung into Strawberry (well actually Pine 5 miles down the road) when we left to grab a well deserved Ice Cream, hopped back in Betsy (our hiking trail dirt road drivin’ machine) and were back home in time for a nice night in the pool with some good tunes, good libations, and good company.

If you are looking for water on a hot AZ Summer day - you could not do wrong with this hike. PICTURES HERE (including the snake eating the lizard!)