CrossRoads Blog

Last Night Barack Obama gave his acceptance speech for the Democratic nominee for President. As Kimberly and I watched it seemed with every passing moment a sense of history was being made. I mean, of course this was a historical night, but it felt ‘Historical’, even perhaps ‘Generation Defining’. Needless to say it was at a minimum a very inspiring and captivating 45 minutes of ‘Hope in Words and Emotion’.

I am now old enough to have seen a lot politicians talk-the-talk only to never walk-the-walk. They give us that glimmer of hope that this time it just isn’t bullshit rhetoric but true sincerity – yet we always end up with more of the same. But today, at least for this moment in time it feels right. So I will again drink (okay maybe ‘sip’ for now) the kool-aid of hope for change here. This man feels like he really could elevate the pride in our country, our trust that government can be for all Americans (and not for 3% of them), and most importantly he will make the decisions that drive us toward a world where I will worry far less for my Grandchildren.

I guess history will tell whether last night was the beginning of something special for our world….but at least right now, we have the hope.

Seems like I have talked a lot this year about ‘those moments’. A special day or few hours or even just a blink of an eye where you get a chance to say to yourself “it doesn’t get any better than this”. For me those moments can be bigger event type situations like getting to see a World Series Game live, or perhaps sitting on the balcony of your cruise ship as you pull into an amazing new location on the planet. But they can also be little blips in time like smelling your grandson’s hair while you hold him in your arms, or looking over at the love of your life sleeping right before you turn off the lights to fall asleep. For me, this is life – it’s those moments and those special times. Not that the rest is not great too, it’s just when we tend to look back, it’s not the day-to-day stuff that we can recall, it’s ‘those moments’. So for sure seems the key is to have as many of those experiences as you can cram into our way too brief lifetime.

All of the above it to say, had a ton of those again this last weekend. Kimberly and I shuffled up to the Grand Canyon National Park on Friday and had a near perfect little trip. It’s funny, the Canyon really is, as Kimberly mentioned just before we pulled in to the park about 3 ½ hour’s drive from home, “in our backyard”. This time we just camped out atop the South Rim at Mather Campground. Our campsite was a nice wooded area only about a 10 minute walk or so from the Canyon edge.

The whole weekend was great, but the “moments” included; a couple hours of running together along the Rim Trail where you have an ever changing view into the Canyon almost the whole time (Run Details and Map HERE), smores at the campfire (both nights!), the smell of pine and burgers cooking on real charcoal – and eating those burgers , checking out the new visitor center, sitting around a ‘campfire gathering’ and listening the Park Ranger talk about the trivia of the Grand Canyon, and many, many more including getting to see and experience an incredible sunrise over the Canyon at 5:50 am while holding Kimberly’s hand (of course after I got some cool pictures….. SEEN HERE).

By Kimberly

I set some resolutions in January of 2008 to run faster in both a 5K and a 10K. I tried to set my goals difficult enough to challenge me but not too hard as to be unobtainable by me. I may have underestimated myself because in April I ran a 5K in downtown Phoenix and beat my goal of 25 minutes by several seconds and just this last week I felt I was ready to run a fast 10K (on the treadmill) and meet my goal of 58 minutes. I was especially encouraged by a song by Kidd Rock called “Cocky” with the basic message to me of it is not bragging if you do it. I should add that hip hop is not the typical kind of music I listen to and in fact much of it is harsh and I question the language/terms much of it uses but while running the beat and SOME of the lyrics really get me going.

So Thursday I got on the treadmill and set the timer for 58 minutes, not giving myself any room for failure and ran. I paced myself and held back at some points knowing that as a 43 year old grandmother I needed to conserve some of my energy. I beat my goal and finished in 57:42. I was happy with my progress and happy that I have learned to pace myself and thrilled that I did not feel entirely spent afterward. Which speaks to my next goal. I am going to do the PF Chang Half Marathon in January of next year. I am setting a goal at this point of 2 hours and 10 minutes, just under 10 minute miles for 13.2 miles. It is much more of a challenge that the 10K (6.2 miles) but one I am willing to work for.

A hot one is was…. So we paid the price of waiting to decide where we would do our hike this week with a ‘nice and toasty’ hike in the nearby Spur Cross Conservation area. Seems like whenever we procrastinate in deciding where we will do the hike, we end up a closer to home - which of course this time of year means it’s gonna’ be a hot one.

We scooted over just North of Cave Creek (not too far from the Go John Trail we hiked earlier this year) to the Conservation area. It’s about 5-6 miles from Cave Creek and only an hour or so drive from the house. We planned to hike the Elephant Mountain Trail. Assumed we would have about a five miler because the trial itself was 2.1 each way. We ended up doing about 7 1/2 miles because the trailhead is well out, and you must do parts of a couple of other trails as part of the overall loop (Spur Cross being one of them and it is very well maintained).

Aside from being hot it was another great hike as always and we even trail ran some of it. Our little 15 minutes snack break just below the saddle by Elephant Mountain, where you got a great view of how it got its name - not the outline formation, but from an elephant in the rocks so-to-speak - it’s pretty cool, see the pictures.

We would recommend the hike for sure. In particular the Spur Cross trail looks like one of the far better maintained trails around. The Elephant Mountain Trail not so much, and for sure you need to be prepared for a good cardio workout on its portion of the loop. A few pictures HERE - though we did not take many (as a ‘feeling the heat; redhead was none too happy about pictures pauses on a 103 degree day hike with 7 plus miles and 2600 ft. of elevation gain…

Find our hike info from the GPS (maps, trail, speed, etc.) HERE

Kimberly and I love spending time together, and we seem to have a growing addiction to running. Though it has been tough to combine the two as Kimberly likes running the streets and the treadmill and my preference is for the trails and rocks. So, other than when we do the races, it’s been kind of a ‘something we both like that we do not do together much’ type situation. But while up in Michigan on our recent trip this all changed, and it couldn’t be cooler as we have now ‘found a new gig’.

When traveling it can be tough to find time (and a way) to exercise. Without a gym, running around wherever you are tends to be what you do. Being away from home this last month presented many such opportunities. I think the first time we ran together was around a hotel in Texas. We needed to get some runs in before the upcoming races so we thought what they heck might as well do it here. We put on the ipods, and just started running around the hotel area. It was pretty cool, even though we were both in our own music world and not talking (though sometimes we would) it was something we were doing together and we were really enjoying it. An unexpected part was how fun it felt that we were ‘seeing a different place’ on the run even though in this case is was just around a hotel in Amarillo. We did it again when we were in Oklahoma and then on the way to Michigan outside a hotel in Indiana.

Next thing you know, we start thinking, why not combine a nice run with anytime we check out a new city (small town, tourist town, beach area, whatever). It would give us a great way to see a ton of the town, maybe spot something we would not have noticed, and because we would have seen most of the place we might have a better idea of where we want to hang after the run. We did it in Michigan a couple more times (a great run around the beach town of Saugatuck included) and we now have added it to our weekend fun options and an alternative to hiking.

Which I guess finally brings us to the reason for this blog :-). This weekend we headed up to Jerome, a great little town about 100 miles north of Phoenix. Jerome calls itself a Ghost town, because at one time it was about dead (used to be a big copper mining area way back when), but it is a pretty lively little artsy community now. It is also essentially on the side of a hill, many of the houses are on stilts because the pitch is so steep. Anyway, we headed out early, got to Jerome, parked the car and did a great run around the town. Seeing it is fairly small, in the hour and five minutes we ran around we did a couple loops of most everything. This run was especially ‘fun’ in that you are either running downhill or uphill the whole time. Jerome has about zero flat land.

After the run, we walked around the shops, took some pictures (ask me about the ghost house in the one overlooking the valley – WEIRD). We then headed over to Prescott (up the mountain and down the other side) and walked around the festival they had and did some antique shops for the rest of the day. A perfect “Arizona Saturday”.

We are really looking forward to doing many more runs together as we explore many more new sites and towns. Some PICTURES HERE