East Coast Trip Part 1

I am almost done my now annual summer east coast trip and I have some pictures so I thought I'd update the blog...
I flew into BWI late Tuesday night (June 16th). Wednesday was spent going up to Scranton, PA with my mom and Grandmom (taking my grandmom to her 60th? high school reunion). My mom and I got to visit with my two great aunts that live up there (I hadn't seen them in YEARS). I was amazed at the cool weather that whole week. It was rainy and I wore jeans!!! Love it!!! I spent the night with J & A and the little BB while Mom and Grandmom headed home. Thursday I had to do a treadmill run because of the rain and then J, BB, and I headed back to York. Friday we had dinner at my Grandparents' house in Hanover, PA (chicken pot pie!). Their property is bordered by a farm and these huge long-horn cows make their way around the fencing every afternoon so I took some pictures. That weekend was spent relaxing (and running)and getting ready for our trip to the beach in NC!!!

Update (with much more later)

Summer Update #1:
I have been out of school for about 4 weeks now. I am coaching summer running with the cross country kids. We run at 6am Monday-Friday. This means I am up at 5am. Training is now in full swing with hill days, long run days, 2 days a week in the weightroom after running and 3 days a week of core workouts after running. We ran a 5k a few Sundays ago with the kids and I PR'd!!! I love the fact that I'm getting older but training smarter (with the kids) and actually running less miles per week than I have in the past and am getting faster! It will be interesting to race again in the fall after we start doing speed workouts again...

I didn't want to blog about this but I had to throw it out for those of you who didn't know...we had to say goodbye to our girl, Chloe, 3 weeks ago. It was a very difficult situation (one that I don't wish on anyone, EVER) and we are missing her like crazy. We did all we could and gave her a great home the past 2 years but sometimes it's just not enough...

I am on the east coast for my (now annual) summer trip. I am without my camera (see funky pictures in my last post!). Cannon's customer service was FABULOUS and offered to fix our camera for free but we had to send it back to their repair facility and are waiting for it to be returned (hopefully before our Colorado trip!) I am relying on pictures from Mom & Jen so once I get them uploaded I will blog more (with pictures). So far I have been visiting family and even made it down to the Outer Banks last week....Keeper is joining me in PA for a long weekend this weekend so I am excited to see him!!!

Florida!

A few months ago, Keeper and I decided since we hadn't been to Florida to see his family since December of 2007, we should spend a long weekend there. Unfortunately I wasn't able to go along with Keeper on his trips this spring, but we'd had THIS weekend planned for awhile, so we were both ready to get away for a few days. We didn't get in to Tampa until late Friday night due to the airlines changing our itinerary. Saturday was spent on the beach (my favorite thing to do, EVER). The water was perfect, the weather was perfect....so relaxing. Keeper's family came over for dinner and we had a nice visit (and watched some baseball!). Sunday morning we went to the BodyWorks exhibit at MOSI (Museum of Science & Industry). Keeper's mom had seen a similar exhibit before, and Keeper knows first hand from cadaver lab what things would look like so I was the one in for a treat. Surprisingly, I was not grossed out at all (except for the body with some skin still on it-- that was disgusting!). We read every card, poster, and looked at every display and I thought it was awesome. We had a nice sushi lunch with Gayle at Channelside and then Keeper and I headed back to the beach for a little while.We then had to go over to Aunt Karen & Uncle Allen's to play their new Wii with Kyle and Erica. We had a blast bowling and making "mi's" for everyone although no one tops our "Derk" we made over Christmas.

Monday morning I knew I wanted to get a run in and yet still couldn't get my butt out of bed early. I ended up going late morning, despite Gayle's warning that it would be too hot. I thought "I run in the desert in 100 degree weather all the time...." but now it's confirmed that 80s-90s with high humidity is just as bad as the desert in the 100s (or even a little worse). I did run a little over 6 miles but it certainly did not feel great. We got in another quick family visit and then headed back to sunny Phoenix. It was a great little visit and we wish it could have been longer!

Quick note on the pictures: no idea who the little boy is chasing the bird but I thought it was a cool picture, same goes for the lady in the beach chair in the first picture--no idea who it is yet the sky was so amazing. Some of our outdoor pictures look "stripey" and I have no idea why. Our camera very well could be on the fritz....

That 10-Miler

It DID happen this weekend. Since Keeper was traveling to Florida for his grandfather's funeral and I wasn't able to go due to coaching obligations and plane ticket prices, I decided to get up early Saturday morning and go for a long run by myself. I went on my old route along the Scottsdale Canal and it felt great. First run in MONTHS completely by myself. No kids, no treadmill, not even Keeper and Chloe to keep me company. I just took my Ipod and went. I will say it again, it felt great. As much as I like running in groups (small groups) it was nice to go my own pace with my own music and just take the morning to chill out. Alone. And then I went to coach the last few girls on our team that made it to the state track finals last night. And we didn't get home until after midnight.

I didn't log my miles...

I think I need new running shoes. Mine are getting worn out so I thought back to when I bought them. I wear two pairs, alternating every other day; mizunos & saucony. I bought both of these pairs in mid-January, when I was injured due to a couple factors, one being running in worn-out shoes. Then I realized I had no idea how many miles are on these shoes. None. I haven't logged (as in, written down exact miles) a run in MONTHS. I was so consumed with logging everything about running ever since I started a few years ago and that all went out the window when I started coaching track. I have been running 5-6 days per week since mid-January but I have no idea how many miles each pair of shoes has. It feels kind of liberating. There is no weekly mileage I have to attain. That 10-miler I wanted to run this weekend? Didn't happen; I slept in instead. And it felt good. And I think I'm faster now, anyway. Go figure.

Mystery Castle and some other stuff

I could think of no other title that encompassed our weekend visit with dad and Cookie. Sunday morning we were deciding what to do before heading to the DBacks game, so we check the NYT online and see what it would do if it were in Phoenix. The only time-appropriate option was the Mystery Castle, a supposed gem in South Phoenix. We head on down, pay our $5 and are treated to a very interesting stone house built in the 40s and 50s that is covered in wall-to-wall junk. Cat calendars from years gone by, broken hide-away beds, discarded replica suits of armor, and yes, filthy teddy bears as far as the eye could see. The builder of the house lived in Seattle, got TB in 1939, moved to Arizona in a covered wagon (still laying around of course), built this monstrosity, went crazy, collected a bunch of crap, didn't tell his family he was still alive (from what we could gather) then willed the "castle" to his daughter. His daughter, now in her 80s, resides upstairs and apparently followed in her daddy's muffin-basket crazy footsteps.

It was a very enjoyable visit all around. Played some golf, badly, but decided I wouldn't let my game ruin a perfectly great day in Anthem. We hit the aforementioned DBacks game, which they won in 12 innings. We did not, however, stick it out for 4+ hours. Living 10 minutes from the ballpark means you only miss at most an inning and can catch the end on the TeeVee.

Yes, I have trimmed the playoff (finals) beard since that picture was taken.

Grand Canyon Trip

We had our 2nd group of visitors last week: Mom & Dad. They decided to come out in spring instead of winter this year and we picked Easter weekend because I had a 4-day weekend. We actually planned this trip back in December (when Keeper and I were on the east coast for Christmas). Dad had never been to the Grand Canyon (neither had Keeper) and Mom hadn't been since she was a teenager. So we booked our rooms at the Yavapai Lodge in December and were hoping to get some awesome hiking and great photo ops in.... we were not expecting a SNOWSTORM!!!!

Keeper left school early on Friday ( I had track practice in the morning anyway) and we headed north. We stopped at Mather Point (at my pestering) right when we got inside the park and we were glad to get some great late afternoon pictures in. Keeper was a little sketched out by heights and the sheer drops but he was a good sport about the pictures and ventured out farther and farther at each new lookout point. We got to our "lodge" and realized it was....a motel...and the rooms were like dorm rooms from the 1970's. Definitely NOT worth the Xanterra Resorts price tag. Luckily our rooms had a adjoining doors so we could hang out in either room whenever we wanted. We ate dinner in the Canyon Cafe (pretty mediocre) and went to bed.

We woke up to a winter wonderland! Honestly the snow was so pretty and Keeper and I hadn't seen weather like that since before we moved! We took a bunch of pictures on the way to the general store where we picked up some coffee and headed up the Rim Trail. Our mood was dampened when we realized the forecast wasn't just an overnight "dusting" but an all day affair consisting of wet, pelting, snow/ice/rain mix that left us (after hiking the Rim Trail for a few hours) completely soaked and freezing. We did catch some awesome snowy canyon views but ended up catching the bus to Hermit's Rest where we warmed up by the blazing fire and ate our picnic lunch. We really hoped to hike some of the Bright Angel Trail but when we reached the trailhead, noticed it was a mud/slush-fest and thought better of sliding our way down the canyon... We finally gave up on the hiking after lunch and headed back to our dorm rooms (I mean hotel) and played some cards and lounged around. We headed out to the Bright Angel Lodge for dinner (mmmm...steak!) and the weather had cleared up a bit for some pictures. On the way back to our rooms we saw elk feeding in the woods! I had never seen a live elk before (only Elky's head, mounted in Uncle Dale's basement) so I was pretty psyched. Keeper pulled over and Mom and I jumped out to take some pictures. We took a few and chatted with some other people doing the same thing and then a park ranger chased us out of the woods saying "this is WILDLIFE...you can't just walk up to them!". But we could, in fact, just walk up to them as they were eating and they could care less we were so close.

We went to bed and woke up Easter morning with great weather and clear views. We opted out of a sunrise Easter service outside (we probably would've froze to death!), had a nice hot breakfast in the lodge, checked out of the "hotel" and headed back up the Rim Trail to Yavapai Point. We took some great pictures, then drove out to Desert View Tower, ate our lunch and headed back down to Phoenix. We were definitely disappointed in our hiking but we had a fun trip nevertheless.

Keeper and Dad were happy to be back to civilization (baseball on TV) Sunday night. Monday morning was track practice (which ended up taking all morning) and Keeper was back to school. Mom, Dad, and I tried a new lunch spot in central Phoenix and then Mom and I bargained shopped the afternoon away (Keeper and Dad were happy to not be included). Mom made us dinner Monday night and we were sorry to see them leave Tuesday morning.