CrossRoads Blog

The Lake Pleasant Good Dam Run is just one of those events that if we live here and are in town we will do every year. It’s not a big race, heck they don’t even give out medals, but it sure is a fun run. First off, it’s one of the few local events that actually is a trail run. Well it’s kind of a trail run or partly a trail run is better said. The first few miles are run along and in a Wash ducking trees and trying to avoid the water and the sand slosh as much as possible. You then run up and out of the Canyon (a nice climb for sure) and across the Earthen Lake Pleasant Dam they open for just this event.

I think the main reason we like it is it was one of our first organized runs, and best yet, every year friends Misty and Jim and their youngins’ are out there too. This is our third year to run and 4th or 5th I think for Jim and Misty. This year it the friend clan even got better because good friends James and Diosa where there too. They are fairly new to (at least to regular) running and we are so excited for them. This I think was the very first race for them. Adding to the whole gang Misty’s folks were there to do the run/walk with the Grand kiddos.

It was really a perfect weather day, even a little warm. We all got there early and hung for a bit taking some pictures and shooting the breeze before the start. With Kimberly still on the mend from the foot injury I was the only one of the group doing the 7 Mile Trail Run everyone else was running the 4 Mile non trail race. It’s really a small low key event and not really competitive, but Kimberly and I have always done well. Last year Kimberly for sure won her age group and was in the top overall and I came in second overall in the 7 Mile. I was hoping to beat my last year time and I was able to do that at 56:22 which was good enough to come in 1st place overall. I would claim some bragging rights, but like I said it’s small and I think some of the fast guys must have stayed at home. Way more cool news however was the ladies of our little gang. Kimberly sore foot and all came in second overall among the women in her race - and who came in front of her - Mrs. Diosa! Way cool women types! James I think was even in the top few men, and he just started running! Congrats to those guys for sure. I hope that just expands the addiction for them. Now we just need to get Misty and Jim and Robbie into some Saucony’s and running with us the “Running Belly Dancers Clan” can own the trails!

The Park by the way puts on a great event. The folks that work there you can tell really have a passion for what they do. They also do a great job with the raffle. They actually had way more prizes than they had runners. Everyone ended up with at least 2 prizes per person! So while the event grows every year, let’s hope next year there are so many people the prizes are hard to come by.

I got two things to say; first and foremost I will never hack on my sister again about her buying a timeshare. Second, we want to spend every Summer on Lake Tahoe! Man-o-man did we dig this place. It’s got the perfect vibe and a lifestyle that matches up exactly on how we like to spend Summer days.

Since the boys ‘left the nest’ for good, we have been of course contemplating the old ‘what’s next’ from a living type of perspective. Staying in a two story family oriented home sure doesn’t make sense. Seems we spend 99% of the time in one of three rooms – and that’s counting the backyard as a room. So one thought was to have a couple of smaller condo type places, one here in AZ and one somewhere the Summers are Monsoon free. For darn sure, the Lake Tahoe area just moved to number one on that Summer spot wish list. So will someone please buy our family house so we can have a place in Tahoe? I promise you can visit all you want

There was some work I had to do every day, but for the most part it was eight days of hikes, bikes, runs, beaches, sun, Blues festivals, Shakespeare, perfect weather, and even daily views of snow capped mountains! Having a kitchen in the timeshare made it even more perfect because we were able to do our own meals (yeah we have become such picky eaters this is a must).

I really could go on and on about the whole Lake Tahoe area, we truly enjoyed it that much. Instead I will just touch on a few of the highlights for us. Just do know, it was like a cruise in that you just could not come even close to getting to all of the enjoyable things you could do in this area in a week or so – heck, I’m not sure a month would do it.

We stayed in the town of South Lake Tahoe which is in California but right on the Nevada border (so yes Casino’s walking distance away too), but the whole Lake Tahoe area covers a fairly sizable area and you could pretty much stay anywhere. There are four major ski areas on the Lake; Heavenly (our timeshare was right at the base of the lift), Squaw Valley (site of the Winter Olympics in the 70’s), Incline (a very cool area of the lake), and Northstar – plus about 10-20 other areas. There is more weekly type resorts, hotels, cabins, camp sites, etc on the lake than I have seen about anywhere. There are a zillion hike and bike paths and trails to explore. So needless to say, more than anything this area is all about outdoor activities and being in nature. It sure makes sense, because as from a ‘beauty in nature’ perspective, it doesn’t really get much better – it just has it all.

Okay, before I sound too much like a Tahoe Visitor convention commercial, on to some of the things we enjoyed most. Without question it was the hikes and bike days. We even did one bike trail 2 days, though a little different track. For sure if you get there you have to do I guess you could call it the ‘SLT Bike Trail’. For the most part they have created a bike path that parallels the road in one of the cooler parts of the Lake. There are several great stopping and exploring stops along the path, or you can just make you own way and explore. For sure connect up with the guys at Anderson’s Bike Rental. They were just good guys who will give you the low down on what to hit, a map, and whatever else. By the way while I am at it, not only were the guys at Anderson’s like extremely friendly, so was everyone in this area. It was almost to a point of being weird. Everybody seems extra nice, friendly, courteous, etc. Even the dang teenagers where great. I guess living here does that for you? Or maybe it’s a California thing?

Anyway, back to the bike trip(s). Along the trail is several cool stops, each of which you could easily spend a whole day at. Camp Richardson is an old camping, campground, forest service type area. The Camp may have the best ice cream stop in all the US! It’s like this old school little shop that is perfectly matched to the area. We hit this place both days. Advice is to order the kids size and split it – the regular portion singles were like a half a carton I swear. Next along the trail you have a couple of historical areas that are pretty cool. Basically early settlers to the area in awesome homes, and outhousesright on the Lake (Tallec and another I can’t recall the name). There are two awesome beach stops (Pope, etc.) that are huge with full ‘whatever you want to do on the lake’ activities. We stopped for lunch one day , check out the duck with the cheetos on his face (no of course not from us!). Then there is an area called Taylor Creek Preserve which is very cool. Another couple of beaches, or you can cross the road over to the Fallen Leaf Lake area (we did this the second trip and had a great ride and lunch) or you could even head to the road and toward Emerald Bay. Anyway, a great place to do a bike ride for sure.

We have taken a lot of hikes in our time. And I have to say, perhaps other than the Grand Canyon inner trips, the Rubicon Trail through D.L. Bliss Park has to be my favorite. It’s like every 10 yards had views and images you wanted to stop and take pictures at. How do you beat walking a trail that follows a cove and then lake of emerald and blue waters that are so clear you can see 100 feet deep? You do this while hiking in a forest with giant Pines and Cedar Trees that have been there for ages. And you have these wild looking (I think) Sugar Pines, and cool rock formations framing the views of high majestic mountains with snow caps! It was most excellent. The hike starts, and ends for that matter as we did an out-and-back at a place called Vikingsholm Castle. Vikingsholm is a historic home right on Emerald Bay now owned by the CA Parks (thankfully so it is a preserve area). We did the tour after the hike and it was nice. Our tour guide who works for the Parks dept actually lived there when she was young. She was the first CA Park female ever hired and I think must be 70 years old and all still loving her job. She even wrote a book about the place. Very cool, check out the pictures we took.

One of our days consisted of doing a nice trail run up on the Northwest side of the Lake. Kimberly fell and got a little boo-boo but it didn’t distract from what a perfect spot for a run this was. Again, through a great forest following the lakeshore of Emerald beaches and coves. Which by the way, a few of them happen to be ‘clothing optional’. There is another story there too, but we will save that for the verbal version of our trip. That night, after a nice nap of course, we got to see a ton of great Blues and Soul Artists at the Lake Tahoe Blues Festival. The lineup included Elvin Bishop, three Chicago Blues legends: Lonnie Brooks (more Texas to me), Jimmy Johnson, and Eddie ‘the Chief’ Clearwater, and even the most excellent Ms. Mavis Staples who’s version of ‘Wade in the Water’ brought chills to my soul! It was a great show. Actually the one cooler night of the trip, but the Cabo Wabo’s and wine helped warm us up!

Another day we did a hike up top of Heavenly. You ride the gondola up to the ski area and essentially you can head anywhere from there. Even though that day we were at 11,000 feet or so, it was still a warm hike. But like most days, we found we were about the only ones on the trail and we just pulled up a big rock for the most excellent lunch location. We did a beach day one day at one of those perfect Emerald Coves secluded spots. That night we hit a Tahoe annual staple the Shakespeare Festival and saw an outstanding performance of ‘Measure for Measure’. Again, it may seem like I am repetitive but it was a perfect night. The venue is actually on the beach. You look at the stage with the Lake maybe 50 yards behind it. We brought our own cooler (as does everyone or you can get just about everything there too) with wine, cheese, veggies, etc. You just sit in the beach chairs with your feet in the sand, under a blanket with the one you love (it cools at night for sure), drinking the vino, munching the chocolate, and enjoying a great performance. Just another ‘it doesn’t get any better’ experience.

We of course also did a ton of running. You put in your headsets there and just run and enjoy the views. The elevation you get used too. Makes it a little tough, but everything else more than makes up for it. We hit the spa a couple of nights. We did one meal out and it was great, a place called Blue Water Bistro where the food matched the perfect sunset you get sitting on the outside patio tables right over the Water. We hit a little Art Festival where Kimberly helped one group of performers with some South Pacific dancing (I have video I’ll get on the site someday). Lastly we had a great little breakfast at this place in Incline Village after a long run one morning that we really enjoyed. It was a Sri Lankan place if you ever get there check it out.

I guess that’s about it. We obviously took a lot of pictures, which you can see HERE. Also did a decent amount of video but that won’t make it to the website until I get to last year’s videos. And again…. Please buy our home so we can get a place in Tahoe for the Summer.

They say there is a correlation between happiness and getting older. Seems the older you get the happier you get. I always thought that this was odd, why would you be happier the closer you get to the end of the party? But the older I get the more I understand it. I could say it’s because you truly learn that it’s all about family, friends and health and the rest is just minor nothings so why sweat it – and you don’t. Or we could say that getting comfortable with who you the older you get are plays a bigger role. Or maybe even there is some genetic thing? Well I have a different take. It may be all of those, but the BIGGEST reason you get happier the older you get – because your kids move out of the house!!! (I’m only half kidding here ).

But of course we love our kids, and when you they are gone you miss the heck out of them. So when Zac told us that he and Amanda had planned to vacation out Phoenix way we were thrilled. We wouldn’t get to be seeing the youngin’s as they are off doing their Summer thing, so Zac and Amanda would be by themselves this trip. Bummer no little ones, good news it means a couple of day’s Adult time in Vegas would be on the agenda!

We ended up having a great time. We got to really get to know Amanda a lot more (we really like her by the way ). The whole time they were here I think we were on the run, which is fine for the twenty something’s, but afterward we needed a vacation from their vacation.

The day after they arrived we were headed up Sedona way and hiking the West Fork. This is our ‘must do’ agenda item for every ‘out-of-towner’ that comes AZ way. We had a great hike, took lots of pictures and did our packed lunch on the creek. After walking the shops and scoring some Mackinaw recipe fudge, we were headed back home and sill had time for a nice night hanging in the pool and doing up some BBQ.

The next day we did the Scottsdale thing during the day as Zac and Amanda wanted to do a little shopping. We did one of my favorite local joints, Dos Gringos for lunch – hard to beat Margarita’s and fish Taco’s on the Patio in old town for lunch. That night the Robinson clan came over for dinner. We reminisced with some old Zac stories for Amanda and had a nice night. A short sleep later and we were off for Vegas (the other thing you do when visitors come to town..).

Vegas was the typical lots of walking and good food trip it always is, though a little check in issue at TheHotel was a little frustrating. We hit Sea Blue in MGM with Zac and Amanda and the next night we split up with Kimberly and I hitting up Rao’s and Payard again (man do I love that Chicken Cacciatore – and we both think Payards is the best chocolate on the planet). During the jaunt we also spent one whole day hanging at the Mandalay Pool. They redid the design some, and improved on what is still my favorite pool/beach in Vegas. They even have a nice ½ mile or so loop around the outside that Kimberly and I ran that morning.

All in all a great trip and so nice to spend the time with Zac and Amanda. And of course then back to that happiness after – we love you, great to see you, now time to go, momma and daddy be likin’ the empty house

PICS HERE

There are a lot of things that make the Lake Pleasant ‘Dam Good Run’ one of our favorite local running events. It is sponsored by, takes place in, and of course supports the Maricopa County Parks. Between Kimberly and myself we use “our local parks” multiple times every week and much appreciate having them. So to me when they get a chance to showcase (if you will) a Park it’s a great thing. Plus the fact that the Rangers and folks who work for the Parks are all really great people who do one of heck of a job with the resources they are given. This event is one of the places this is highlighted for sure and I love to see the passion they bring to what they do.

I also really like the course. It combines many way cool aspects that most local runs don’t share. The biggie for me being about 2 ½ or so miles of the 7 Mile course is Trail. And cool trail at that. Aside from the Cactus ChaCha, and a couple of long ones by the Arizona Road Racers there are just not that many organized local trail runs. You also get to run across (and back) the New Waddell Dam as part of the course, and it is the only day of the year that you can do this.

Kimberly and I got out to the Park about 8:00 to check in. The race did not start until 9:00 but they have a nice little setup and it’s always good to have a few minutes to check in and say hello to some of the folks you have come to know from other races (or friends in general – Hi there Coulson family ). They have a nice little setup for the races including some cool birds, snakes, and lizards which you know the young runners dig.

There are 2 courses, a 7 Mile and a 4 Mile. While the 4 Mile does get some runners, for the most part I think a lot of the Hikers do the 4 mile and Runners do the 7 Mile. Overall there seemed to be about the same amount of people as last year, maybe a little more. As a quick side, I think this year they would have gotten a ton more runners had it not been the same day as Emma’s Run, the Pioneer Days Run, the Havasu Half, and the Sabino Canyon Tucson event (see report from running friend Pat HERE).

We were running the 7 Mile course. The race started on time from the 10 Lane Boat Ramp Parking lot. You head out and almost immediately begin a fairly quick decent down toward the Morgan City Wash. While not a true ‘technical trail’ per se, with such a steep decent and the loose gravel, washes, etc you have to be pretty careful running down. When you get to the wash maybe 1/3 mile into the run the next 1/3 mile or so presents a good challenge on the ankles as you are essentially running in the dry river area and it’s that quick sand type of gravel where you sink in some. Good thing this lasts just a bit and soon you are running along water in a true Riparian area. It’s amazing how this seems to come from nowhere. If you drive around Lake Pleasant area you would never guess this type of topography could be there. It’s really nice for the next ¾ or mile or so as you duck branches, cross the creek a couple of times hopping on whatever to miss the water, squeeze between trees and the such. I wish the whole track could be this.

As soon as you head out of the Wash you begin an accent that lasts about 2 miles and 400 foot or so of elevation gain. For a bit of this you are still in the dirt before hitting the service road. While 400 feet may not seem like a lot, the steady, for the most part even, climb up sure makes you happy when you see the Dam finally and know the uphill muscles get a rest (1200 ft elevation gain and decent total for the race). Right before the Dam there is a paved quick drop, maybe 100 foot but you do it in about 10 seconds – so it is very steep (umm… nice to fly down carefully, but you know on the return you will have to climb it). You get to run across the Dam for what seems to be about a mile then return, a quick left off the service road and then a nice mostly even trail run for the last 2/3 mile or so.

The race is really non competitive, but they did do a ‘trial run’ this year for timing the folks who wanted timed. They also gave out medals for the Top 2 runners in each race (2 is odd I know?). This was nice however because I managed to weasel into 2nd Place overall in the 7 Miler this year. The medal was cool with a Lake Pleasant logo and the year customized it. Kimberly while unofficial I am sure was first among any females close to her age and about 12th overall. We also were lucky enough to win one of the better raffle prizes too - a whole basket of rubs and BBQ sauces from Famous Dave’s.

We of course will be back next year. I hope the timing lines up different with the other races though as we would have loved to do Emma’s run up in Anthem and hang around with family that live up there or even Havasu would be a riot.

We finished the day by heading over to the Glendale Blues and Jazz show for some good Blues, chair loungin’ and a really good caramel apple. That’s what I call a nice Saturday.

MY RUN INFO HERE

COURSE MAP HERE

It was going to be hard to top the first few days of Pat and Beth’s visit seeing it included Grand Canyon and Vegas, but we sure tried. We arrived back home early in the week and mostly chilled for a couple of days, though we did get a nice dinner in at Buca Di Beppo and Kimberly and Beth did a little shopping too.

Before you knew it the weekend was upon us. Halloween fell on a Friday this year. We did our normal Halloween night gig and setup all the decorations out front, made a bunch of crock pot food, took out some chairs and spent the night in the front yard saying hello to neighbors and trick or treaters. I think it had to be one of first times Pat and Beth could hang outside and be somewhat warm on Halloween (can get a bit nippy late October in Michigan).

The next morning we were off to Sedona with the Cousins. I just love showing family and friends Sedona when they come visit. It’s an amazing place – about as close as you can get to being in the Grand Canyon without doing it. Actually it’s really not Sedona as much as it is Oak Creek Canyon, but that’s another Blog.

Anyway, as we got into town we did a quick little stop at the Chapel of the Holy Cross. The church has such a beautiful location and has a great spiritual aura. We left the Church and headed up Oak Creek to our favorite hiking spot ‘The West Fork’. We really, really love the West Fork but I do have to say, there are times of year it is getting too crowded. We may have to find another spot to show family and friends – though it will be tough to match this place for sure. We had a nice hike out, after a few miles and several creek crossings we had a picnic lunch, took some pictures and then headed back into town for some tourist type shopping before driving home for the night.

On Pat and Beth’s last day we took them over to Cave Creek for the Art Festival. How perfect were they could get the ‘old Western vibe’ of Cave Creek (and a great lunch spot) and also all the ‘upscale side artistry’ that you have at the festival.

We left the festival mid afternoon and headed over to Kerry and Mike’s for dinner and fun. I want to in particular point out the picture here that shows everyone getting a good grin except for me. In my picture in case you do not notice, let’s just say I am ‘waving with one finger’. It’s a long story and it includes a weird orange substance, 2 shirts, Kimberly getting some stuff on me, and everyone in on a joke that I only figured out seconds before these pictures were taken - hence the laughter for all but me . It was all in fun of course as was the rest of the night. It was nice for the Cousins to spend some time with Mike, Kerry and Josh too.

The next day they were off back to Michigan. I hope they enjoyed the visit as much as we enjoyed having them. And we all hope it won’t be long before we get to see them again!

SEDONA PICS HERE

What a truly enjoyable couple of weeks we were able to spend with family. It is times like this that really emphasize how blessed we are to be flexible enough to take some days and really enjoy when family visits. We had such occasion again when Cousin Pat and his wife Beth Dhooghe from Michigan came down for a visit.

Pat and Beth for sure wanted to get up to the Grand Canyon and the rest of the visit would fall around that. Without a doubt, the Canyon is ‘the’ place but we wanted to make sure they got the full ‘Arizona Experience’ so we mapped out quite a run around agenda while they were here.

After hanging around the homestead for a day of rest after arriving, we were off to the Canyon. We headed out early enough to make sure we would have time to get to the South Rim, walk around the main village area for a bit, get back to check into the The Grand Hotel lodge (we were staying outside the Park entrance in Tusayan) , and still get back over to the park for the Sunset. Making sure Pat and Beth caught a Grand Canyon Sunset and Sunrise was something I had been focused on from the time I heard they were coming.

We arrived at the Park by lunch. Having planned ahead we had packed the cooler with some sandwiches so we could experience a ‘lunch table’ like no other. We all pulled up a rock and just stared out in amazement at the incredible views of the Grand Canyon. Pat and Beth were of course in awe – but so were we. I don’t care how many times you see this place, it was Pat and Beth’s first and Kimberly and my fourth or so just this year – it’s still the same, it is just utterly stunning.

After lunch we walked around the village, Pat and I even headed down the Bright Angel Trail a bit below the Rim and of course enjoyed the nice climb back out. We then left out the Park to check into the lodge and get a quick little rest before heading back over to the Park to catch the Sunset. Just before we got to our view stop, we spotted a whole herd of Elk. They were right there in front of us, so we stopped the car, grabbed the cameras and started following them along the woods. How cool it was to see these great creatures up close in the wild like that. Pat is a HUGE Elk fan and was just so tickled that he got a chance to see the herd. I think before we left we had seen just about all the Arizona animals.

After a nice dinner that night at the country themed restaurant with a live singer, we hit the bed early. The plan was to leave over to the Park at about 5:10 the next morning to make sure we caught the 6:20 Sunrise. Like most good spots at the Grand Canyon, you will have some hiking to do after you park the car. So while the drive from lodge to parking was only 15 minutes or so, the hike to our spot was a good 25 plus. Anyway, the sunrise experience was of course incredible. While this time of year it does not rise in the perfect spot, it still is something special to see the Canyon come alive like that. It was a cold one, it required some good hiking, but it was more than worth it of course. After watching the Sunrise, Kimberly and I dropped off Pat and Beth at the village for some breakfast and we had a chance to do another run along the Rim. We did 8 miles again along the S. Rim trail and it again confirmed to me there is no better place in the world for a morning run.

After we left the Grand Canyon with Cousins Pat and Beth we headed up to Las Vegas for a couple of nights. I like to say, kind of like going from one of the God’s most amazing creations to one of Mans most amazing. It was the typical Vegas experience: lots of walking, little rest, great food and entertainment. We hit Lawry’sfor the Prime Rib, we walked Venetian and Caesar’s, and Pat and Beth got a chance to see the Cirque De Solis show Mystere that night.

The whole Canyon-Vegas loop was such a great time with the Cousins. Even all the hours in the car seemed to pass quickly as we got to catch up on so many great old times. I sure hope it’s not too long before we get to do this again with them…

GRAND CANYON PICS HERE
VEGAS PICS HERE

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).

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

We needed to be in Traverse City sometime late afternoon Friday as we wanted time to settle in at the hotel, we needed to pick up our race packet (for the Cherry Festival 5K first thing Saturday Morning), and for sure would need some wind down time. So doing some working back math, we figured we could squeeze in a said trip to old Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes on the way to Traverse. So we headed out for ‘The Dunes’ first thing in the morning – leaving from Grand Rapids. Figuring it was about three hours or so to get there, and then only an hour from there up to Traverse City, we would have a decent amount of time to hang out. We planned to get there, maybe have a picnic lunch, do a little hike, climb a little Dune maybe and then scoot out over to Traverse by 4:00 or so.

Sleeping Bear is one of those ‘Michigan Memory” places. Not quite Mackinaw but a place you remember going as a kid that was way cool. You could grab a cutup box and slide down a big dune, just like sledding only with sand – awesome stuff. Course as an adult you actually think about in order to do that, you also have to CLIMB up the sand in order to get to slide down

The drive up to Sleeping Bear (which is actually a National Park) may not be half the fun, but it’s a great classic Michigan drive with some scenic areas and towns that remind you of why you loved growing up in this state. We arrived outside the Park area about 11:00 or so and stopped by the information/ranger office. The Park is pretty big, I think it covers about 40 miles of the Lakeshore at least, so here you grab your permit, a souvenir (we got a backpack pin) and head out.

After reviewing all the info we planned on doing the Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive and one of the smaller hikes (Cottonwood) that takes you a nice little loop around some of the Dunes. First we stopped off at a local market grabbed some turkey, wraps and chips. Upon entering the scenic drive within 30 seconds it seemed the drive name proved true – there was a doe and a pretty little fawn right outside our car window – it was cool. We drove in the Park a little more and found a spot to have lunch by one of the view locations that look out over the Dunes and Lake Michigan.

After lunch we did take that hike, the weather was perfect if not a bit warm. Then we went over to another lookout spot where you are high above the Lake on a Dune. It is a famous spot to ‘head down to the Lake’ if you are so inclined. I had remembered this place from when I was young – so I had to give it a shot again (though I am not sure I went to the lake before). I grabbed the video camera, turned it on and headed down the 500 ft. elevation decent (in maybe a 1/3 mile) to the Lake. I will eventually have the clip HERE, but I think it took maybe 2 minutes to run down – the trip back up about 10 times that! Wowzer, climbing sand is like trying to fill a bucket with holes in it – you just do not get anywhere fast – it was brutal.

After getting back up we headed over to another spot to grab some Lake Michigan Dune Sand for Kimberly’s friend who collects sand from around the world and headed off to Traverse City. We still had a ton more that would be packed into this day (my second favorite of the whole trip) but that’s another story…. or another Blog as it were…

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)

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!)

Seems when Kimberly and I get out on a Saturday or Sunday for a great hike I seem to enjoy it more, and get more addicted to hiking each and every time. This feeling continued yesterday when we spent a near perfect day out East of Phoenix in the Superstition Mountains on the Boulder Canyon Trail (103) (close by Canyon Lake). After the hike we also enjoyed the rest of the day in the area by scooting over to Tortilla Flats for an ice cream, and hitting Goldfield Ghost Town for a wake up coffee then a chill-out libation with some live country tunes at the ‘local’ saloon.

Talk about getting lucky, we had long figured our nearby ‘Desert Hikes’ were over until late Fall comes around. But a system brought in a huge weather aberration and near perfect hiking temps. Last week we had 110 degrees in the shade, yesterday was 75 as a high - amazing. There were slight sprinkles but nothing major, and being a relatively tough hike, we appreciated the cool temps heading uphill where this old man was sweating away even at 70 degrees.

The Boulder Canyon Trail is one of the first hikes we ever did in Arizona. In 1995 we took the (then 3rd and 4th grade) sons of ours out and hit the same trail. We did about 5 miles worth that day and due to crazy hot temperatures, lots of elevation and poor drinking water planning (hey we were new to Phoenix) we never did make our goal of hitting the creek. So this was our ‘make up’ hike. Aside from the water bit that old hike had another experience that taught us about desert hiking (just ask now 24 yr old Mike about tripping near ugly sword like cactus).

All told we did only about 8 miles total, but with a little exploration of one of the creeks, checking out the abandoned Indian Paint Mine, taking pictures, and enjoying a nice lunch with a beautiful view again, it was more than enough. Five hours total and another 4,000 Net elevation gain. This hike also had a little drama and the Mrs. had a brief period of non enjoyment following a particularly deep growl from a nearby location. Yes, there are some, shall we call them “kitty-cats” out there. I’m okay with the Cats, it’s more the Mama Bears that I don’t want to run into. By the way, the growl was more that of a Mountain Lion (AZ variety pic here) than a Bobcat, but I told Kimberly it was likely just a small little Bobcat - so let’s keep that our secret okay?

We had gotten to the trailhead by about 8:50 or so (up at 5:15) so we were off by 2:00. Seeing Tortilla Flats is only a short 2 miles from Canyon Lake and the trail, and wanting to fully replicate that day 10 years ago, we just HAD to go over there and have some ice cream. Grabbed some Pecan Praline and pulled up a rock on the creek….life is good. We then left Tortilla Flats, and stopped by Goldfield on our way back trough Apache Junction. That place is growing, a little touristy, but hey, sometimes that funky kitschy old west vibe goes good with a beer and a burger… Speaking of which we passed on there and came home and grilled up a couple of nice ones to close out the day.

Wonder how other folks spend their Saturdays?!! PICTURES HERE

The adventure began with me doing some sales job on best bud and Business Partner Clay. Something about “this will be a weekend you can tell your Grandkids about, and one you will remember for life, and how many weekends can you say you will remember forever….” or some such. It progressed with me getting lucky enough to get a backcountry permit, and next think you knew Clay and I were headed off to the Grand Canyon to attempt and experience something few on this planet will ever get to do – A Rim to Rim to Rim Hike. Basically a trek that takes you from the trailhead at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon down to the Colorado, then up to the North Rim and then all the way back to the South Rim from whence you started.

Ever since March when Kimberly and I got to experience the Canyon up close for our Anniversary and spend some time at Bright Angel Campground and Phantom Ranch I had been thinking about this trip. I knew it would be an amazing challenge and an amazing experience. Man it did not disappoint!

I wrote a real long trip report for a website called Grand Canyon Hikers, so I will not repeat the whole saga. If you want to read that just click on the line at the end that says “READ THE REST OF THIS STORY” following this post. It’s a little more formal as it was not written for friends and family and more for information for the other nut cases who want to make the trek – but it does give very detailed info on our trip.

We took a decent amount of pictures (whenever we had time) that can be seen HERE. We also took a lot of video and put it HERE.

The Stats from the Trip:
1. 50 Miles
2. 50 Hours
3. 20,000 feet or so net elevation gains (and drops of course)
4. Animals seen – A pink Rattler I about stepped on (you will see in the video), a huge scorpion that joined me in the Portapot, a zillion lizards, mosquitoes at the top of the North Rim, a ‘mutant squirrel (as Clay called it) with a white tail, a ton of birds, and just about every other insect you can think of
5. 2 Blisters (Clay’s was getting ugly toward the end)
6. Very Little Sleep
7. 5 Bags of Dehydrated Food and a lot of Protein Bars
8. Trails completed – The S Kaibab, the Bright Angel, the North Kaibab, and a Ribbon Falls side trip

For the whole story click the Link following

(more…)

Good friends Allan and Ena Corupe invited us down to El Golfo De Santa Clara, Mexico for a great weekend of Sun, Sand, Beach, and Dune riding recently. What a great place and good time we had.

El Golfo (as it’s better known) is about an hour and a half south of Yuma on the Sea of Cortez. This is the first time we have headed that direction as normally we venture on down Rocky Point way when we are looking for that nearby ‘Laid back Mexico vibe’. It seems to be an up and coming location, but still very sparsely populated and really all about the Dunes (for ATV, Rhino and dirt bike riding) and the Beach as the won is nothing more than a few shops and lot’s of compressed air tanks (more on this).

Allan and Ena’s got a place right on the beach where they can plop the Toy Hauler (more of a mini-resort really) their Rhino, and the rest of the beach bound toys. The beach is still mostly unspoiled and butts up against sand dunes and hills that are just perfect for all the Dunes toys one may have. Alan and Ena have a Rhino to play with there, and their friends who had joined them with their Motor home also had a Rhino and a neat little sand rail type machine that looked fun as heck to tool around the beach and hills on.

The weekend was filled with all kinds of fun including a nighttime Dune ride on the toys (lot’s of sand in the eye’s – next time wear the goggles), sitting around the fire at night doing some grilling and sipping tequila (yeah man!), a nice hike on the beach, and enjoying the company. We also had one full day at the beach where we tooled up the beach an nice secluded spot to setup. This was quit the interesting trip. Seeing we had 9 of us and a couple of dogs, plus all the food and fun stuff for the day we wanted to take, I decided to drive the old Durango to the spot. The two Rhino’s and the rail were all pretty full. Well at the time of day we were heading to find a spot it was about as high as the tide gets. This area, like Rocky Point has a huge tidal change. Within hours the tide can be in our out hundreds of yards. Anyway, so we start to drive up the beach. After about only a half mile or so, the tide is up so high there is really no way to take the truck down the beach anymore so that means heading into the Dunes a little and finding a new route. I’ll skip the long story but let’s just say there was one hill it took 4 attempts and lowering my air in the tires (hence the cities many air compressors) down to well less than half full, and another spot that without a nice pitch and fishtail move by yours truly we would still be stuck in a wash in the middle of the Mexican Senoran desert. Fun stuff… being young and crazy like that. Course it helps that the truck is about 10 years old now and I really never have had much chance to use 4WD :-).

We are looking forward to heading back again soon as the Corupe’s are down there for 2 weeks over Memorial Day time frame – it’s just hard to beat spectacular beach, good food, good company and free digs at Casa Corupe’s.

CHECK OUT THE PICS HERE (and that sunset….wow)

Perspective…..

Kimberly and I ran in the Walk to End Domestic Violence 5K run today. Early this morning seems my mind was filled with thoughts like “we got up at 4:50 am and I barely slept”, “we have to make sure we get some carbs so the pancakes are great”, “let’s try to beat our best time”, “the sore on my toe feels half way okay”, etc., etc. Well… that changed at about 6:30 when we got to the event. One of the first things I see is two young ladies pulling hand held signs out of their car and one of them says “1 in 4 Girls/Women and 1 in 7 Boys”.

Wow… that’s right, we are here to run a 5K and have fun doing it, but the Race is all about Domestic Violence. One in Four! Ya’ know domestic violence is out there, we have heard the stories before when we looked to adopt so long ago, and of course with Kimberly doing mentoring, our personal experiences, but ONE IN FOUR! What the frick is wrong with people? Well, in any event, thoughts about having my Nano playlist all ready for the run seemed a little less relevant…

We did a little walking around the event, which does really good to support the cause here locally. I’m not sure of the totals but I know they set a goal to raise $400K, so if you got a couple bucks you know the skinny – lots of causes, but this surely qualifies. One of the ‘displays’ was silhouetted people that had the story of the woman it represented and how she passed. Most all were of course some piece of #$@& man who had brutally and continually abused her until she was no more. There was even one for a seven year old…geesh, seven.

In addition to the perspective gain we had a great time. We ran as part of team called “Call Centers Care”. The group is local folks in the industry, some of who we have known for years. We were over 100 strong I heard and the largest fund raising team there someone said – pretty cool stuff.

While not necessarily something to joke or make light of, we did have one moment of quite funny brevity when Kimberly commented that she needed to put her iPhone on airplane mode (she uses it as her music player when running and in that mode it will not ring as a phone). This was relevant because she was perhaps expecting a call from my Mother this morning – we both joked that if she got the call when running the race, and she tried to communicate something like “can’t talk now running-domestic violence”, that between the hard breadth that could come out a little different than intended

We both did really well and beat our goal times (and Kimberly did so having had Surgery less than 72 hours before!!). We seem to keep lowering our finish times every new event - nice but thing is, we are coming to expect it almost and sometime it is going to have to end. Well, until then, we will be here – me huffin’ and puffin’, Kimberly looking good in a running shirt.

As the weather warms up here in the desert our nearby hiking options are thinning out. Thinking this may be our last weekend to get a local hike without dealing with the 100 plus degree temperatures, we headed over the South Mountain Park here in Phoenix for a nice hike this last Sunday. For those not familiar, South Mountain is the ‘Worlds Largest City Park’ covering a whole lot of acres of land and a couple of nice size ranges. The Park also has a portion of the US National Trail in it. There are many hikes and trails within the park but we wanted something around 4 hours, with some nice elevation gains (get the heart working) and we also wanted to make sure we did at least of the National Trail, and ‘bagged’ another peak. So this left us with a loop hike that covered three trails. We did the full Alta Trail, a piece of the National Trail and finished on the Bajada Trail for a decent 10 mile or so loop hike back to the car. The weather was a little hot but not too drastic. Though we both did have a little redness to show for it even though we were done with the hike by early afternoon.

So this will be the last ‘Desert Hike’ for the coming months and we ill just have to head out a little earlier and drive a little farther. Looking forward to hikes in Sedona, Monument Valley, the NE Reservation lands, and down on Geronimo camp area this year (plus of course my Rim-to-Rim-to Rim hike with the buddies. Until next time, we will be here with our water bottles, protein bars and sun screen  SEE PICTURES HERE