Europe for the summer

 

a narrow street of Caceres. 

When we arrived in Lisbon we had few plans but a place to stay for several days. We mainly just walked around near our place and ate some good food, including the bathed in garlic sauce steak topped with an egg at Portugalia. From there we took a bus to Elvas which is a perfect small little walled town in Portugal, just near the border with Spain. It was mostly quiet, a few tourists but not too many, and easy to walk the whole town in a day, but we split it up over several. One night I heard live music wafting to our open windows from what seemed to be the town plaza. So out we went to investigate. 

It turned out to be an international festival where we caught stage performances of dance and music from a couple countries before the mayor gave a lengthy speech. We arrived at 10 and it went until midnight. People here like to eat dinner very late, often 9 or 10 pm, so this wasn't as late as it seemed to me. Also despite being mid August, it was a strangely chilly night and I shivered in  my seat through the show. It was the coldest it would be for our entire trip. Despite the temps, I enjoy just this sort of spontaneous magic. 

From Elvas we took advantage of our very compact way of traveling to walk to the nearby train station for a 2 Euro ride over into Spain. This took us over to Badajoz, where we spent just one night and had a nice riverside dinner, before catching the train north to Caceres for a week. This is another walled city, this one quite a lot larger and grander than Elvas. and filled with many more tourists as well, especially by day. They even have a little Tuk Tuk tour called Tuk y Go that goes around town. At first I laughed at it, but by the end of the week I myself took a little ride. I would say it is really only worth it for those who would have trouble getting around. It's better to walk to things if you want to go inside. 

This whole week was amazingly hot, and the stone reflected the 95 plus degrees back at you during the day. But we got out often enough in the morning or evening and at night. It's a beautiful city. 

From here we took another train, this time to Madrid. Madrid is a very large city. Probably the largest the two of us have spent any amount of time in. And the place we found to stay was really lovely, right down on a street that is effectively New York's Broadway, and we had a rooftop balcony where I loved to stare down at the busy street at night. 

We visited the extensive Prado art museum, spent time wandering the gardens in the area, and walked the town at night. We took the time to eat some churros with chocolate sauce, the traditional way in Spain, at the traditional spot, San Gines. It's a restaurant over 100 years old that claims to have served nearly a billion of the sweet treat. Much like donuts it's considered a staple breakfast food, but it's an anytime treat. 

As we plotted our next move, we decided we'd take two weeks for more of a traditional vacation. Up until then, we had been more "living" in Europe. spending time in the apartments we found, reading, relaxing, and doing simpler things around town, mainly walking about. With a few of the big must see items scattered in. But this trip wasn't just a wind down from hiking the Appalachian Trail for five months, it was also our 25th anniversary. the "real one" from when we first started dating in high school. So we opted for a cheap flight to Crete Greece. We had been thinking of using trains to get to France and then eventually Barcelona, but this plan we scrapped as Greece was much cheaper, and we'd be able to rent a car and explore a new to us part of the country. A part we had long wished to visit for it's older than Greek civilization, the Minoans. 

So we booked tickets and took ourselves on a very long walk to the airport. We walked through the city some distance, had a lovely lunch at a restaurant which turned out to serve burgers, not the Pizza! that was advertised on the tables, but were good anyway. I love Europe most for it's outdoor dining along streets and courtyards. From there we took the metro to the closest stop to Parque Juan Carlos. This is a vast park, filled with large open spaces, sparsely planted trees along the many wide carriage lanes, and lots of small hidden surprises tucked inside. It was almost completely empty, feeling like the apocalypse on an odd weekday. Thankfully the heat had abated this day, and it was a bit overcast which really made a perfect day for us to take advantage of our distance hiking skills and still have plenty of time to take breaks and enjoy the park. Finally exiting through another quaint neighborhood, one we'd visit on our return. We managed to navigate the no man's land that was the outlying parking lots, and found ourselves at the terminal and ready for our adventure within an adventure.  

More on that next time! 

After Leaving the Appalacian Trail

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What to do with myself after admitting I was through with my thru was a wide open question.  But since we had the car in Maine we decided, for starters to explore a bit as we slowly returned homeward. We visited parks and lighthouses and Steven King's home. From there we wandered home. We visited an art museum, rode a carousel and explored some gardens. Visited one place that had become a Wildlife Refuge with a place called Salt Meadow House two women lived in, and Eleanor Roosevelt visited. There is still an old stone picnic table there where she is photographed sitting. Of course the refuge is named after a man. We briefly stopped over in Baltimore to see the city park there, and then went home. 

By then we still hadn't figured out what we were doing with the rest of our lives. Not only was our house rented until the end of summer 2023, but we were also both FIRE retired now. We could go back to work, but we didn't have to. Not having anywhere to be and no plans, we bought tickets to Portutal for 2 months. We would go live and travel there, and try to stay on our "retirement" budget, with a small boost to monthly housing thanks to what we cleared from renting our house. But before leaving we made a list of the things we wanted to while at home. 

This involved driving by the house a million times to check on it, and wandering bookstores and world market. We saw a few friends, family. Got our hiking stuff packed away and realized we both felt like we needed next to nothing to travel now. after 6 months of depending on a single change of clothes and little else, We can fit all the necessities in a single schoolbag. and a smaller day hiking pack we threw kindles for reading and other nonessentials. 

We found out last minute it was the last days of a nearby county fair, so we went. We even rode rides which I haven't done in a long time. It was a real boon because we thought we'd miss our local county fair being on trail. Then when we went to Maine we thought we'd finish Katadhin in time to do to a fair up there. Then when we quit early and came home, we found ourself missing that one, and much to early for my old hometown fair. So stumbling upon one we could go to felt like such luck!

After all was said and done, I felt ready for our flight. Although I was definitely feeling the common post trail depression, I planned to get in lots of walking and exercise, in Europe, and we were going to get rooms with kitchens so we could get back to cooking for ourselves. I hadn't really lost weight on trail. Only about 5lbs in the end though plenty of muscle gained. So I had quickly gained that back plus a little. Not feeling the best. The exntended heat in the US and the costliness of hotels really drove us to Europe. There were better short term housing options for less money, much more walkable. So at the begining of August, off we went. First to Lisbon. 

It's been nearly two months now and it's near time to head home. It's been wonderful here and we've seen so much and rested a lot. I will share more about that soon. Probably once I am back stateside. 

Still, we only have a tenative plan to get us to New Years and then I still don't know what we are doing. I am open to suggestions from practical life goals to more irresponsible travel and decision making avoidance. Please send. 

 

The First Half of 2022

Me on the AT

 It's hard to believe it's nearly September. This year has been filled with so much adventure and so much unknown. January began with two unusually hearty snows for us in Tennessee as we finished up house projects and moving everything to storage so our home could be rented while we hiked the Appalachian Trail. 

I enjoyed the snow, and also seeing our long project list get shorter and shorter. In the end we didn't get quite everything done, but enough to count. The joys of being a satisficer. we took the end of the month to take a trip to the Florida Keys to absorb some warmth and relaxation before hiking. 

February I headed out solo to hike the 4 day section of trail that had been intended for January's long weekends, the weekends the snow came. It felt really good to be out on my own, and and very achievable, even though I was carrying more weight than I would have with Jake with me, and too much food. We still laugh about the dried coconut that lasted for a month on trail... 

That weather was fine, despite it being early February, a gift. we took a week see my parents, my mom I hadn't seen since 2019, and to finish up every logistical thing we could think of before heading on to trail together. that same weekend, our house rented, perfect timing! but instead of the 12 month lease we hoped for, they wound up signing one for 18. So we are really going to have to figure out our lives as "homeless" well beyond the trail. 

From mid February to the end of June, we covered about 1050 miles. skipping 99 in Virginia we might make up in fall. It was wonderful. Everything I wanted from the experience, and not as physically hard as I had worried. I never had back pain (except from a hostel bed!) and though my leg muscles ached at night,  the more chronic pain in my ankle and knee and hands improved. I was taking 1-2 aleve most dayst. I did have problems with my petellar tendons and had to work through that, and I did develop some carpal tunnel numbness in one hand, which I could only partially resolve on trail, and still hasn't quite completely gone away. 

But in the end, even after fighting through the "Virginia Blues" and making it into the easy part of PA, I lost interest. just when my legs were at their best they had been. I think it was mainly the heat that got to me, and the mindset of needing to go go. I'm not a fast hiker, starting at 1 mph and eventually getting up to 2mph, I was disheartened everytime another thru hiker blew past me. I loved watching other hiker's journey on Instagram, but it was also hard to see my classmates start in April and catch up to me. It was hard to watch people I knew early on get so far ahead. It was also hard to watch people I liked, or felt were more my speed, leave trail. 

In the end, I could have my best day on trail and  still feel like a failure. I could push hard for 15 miles, which many others do 20 regurlarly and even 30 sometimes, and feel like I had no time in my day to enjoy anything. I had had so much euphoria with burgeoning spring, summer felt like too much. 

So we took a break from trail to do more fun car camping, and also went to tropical paradise in Aruba, and I loved it. When we got home we drove our car all the way to Maine to try and continue on up there, hopefully away from heat, but honestly, it was hot even there. and I had 1.5 great days but felt my mind turn off in the same way to all of this. The outdoors are the love of my life. I grew up wild a little like Huck Finn, and as an adult am a naturalist and hike nearly every weekend. So this was a weird and confusing feeling for me, but I had to admit that I had possibly gotten my fill. That I was actually content and ready to do something else. It still feels like failure. and it's still hard to read others comments about their own hikes. "I'm not a quiter" "I'm strong enough to keep going" as personal digs. It's kind of stupid I know. I never even cared about be a certified "thru hiker" as an acolade. But when you get 500 miles in it does sort of get into your mind. So quiting was hard but also right. I hope I get out there and do another 1000, or more. but not this year. 

So after all that we still had someone living in our house for another year! what to do with ourselves? We'll find out more about that next week. 

Reminiscence Monday Labor Day Edition: Rafting the New

 

It's Monday (ok, actually it's Tuesday, happy Labor Day!) So here is a flashback to my old blog, as I move those old pieces onto this blog. Here I am talking about rafting the New River.  Have you been? how did it compare? Enjoy your week!

In Summer 2004 my husband and I went to Pennsylvania and West Virginia for vacation. On our last day before heading back home we went white water rafting on the Lower New river and had a great time. Before this we had only gone rafting on the Ocoee, which is fun, but not as wild as the New.

The company we went with was Rivers Resort. While I'm sure most companies offer a similar experience, that is the one we went with and the guides were very good. This is very physical, but also very fun. You should be a confident swimmer, but you will of course have a life jacket. The river offers from class II - V rapids, and they are mostly one after another, which is what makes it so difficult. The highlights of the ride were stopping to jump off a tall boulder into the water, and flipping the raft, more or less on purpose. Let me explain: after going over a particular rapid, all the rafts pull over to the side and wait their turn to "surf" the rapid. You come at the rapid from the side, and then paddle like crazy to get into the current between where the water goes down and the white water churns up. When you get there you can stop paddling and stay in the middle of the current. After a few moments the current spits you out, and sometimes that involves flipping the raft. So, we did this twice, pretty good, no flips, and were laughing at all the people who had flipped, but then karma kicked in I suppose. It flipped our raft, and I did bump my temple on a rock, despite my helmet. When I resurfaced it took me a while to realize I needed to swim to the side if I didn't want to go downstream alone. I swam sideways, until I was in the current that circles back up into the rapid. This is where all the rafts are floating and waiting for their turn. Well, the rules are supposed to be, if some one's in the water, pull them out, even if they're not with your group/guide company. so I get sucked up to the first raft and I'm like "hi" and they just look at me blankly and don't help me. At this point, I can feel my legs being pulled under the raft, and I really do not want to go under, because on the other side of them is another raft, and another, and another... I wouldn't be able to get back to the top... so I push off from them and try to make it to one of the Rivers rafts which, after being squished a little between some other rafts waiting for their turn, I finally manage to do. We get reorganized, I get back in a raft with my husband (who has lost his paddle) and the others from our raft, and we're on our way again.

Thankfully, we stopped shortly after that for a riverside meal, and we were all able to compare our scrapes and bruises. The meal consisted of sandwiches you make your self from huge piles of deli meat/cheese and etc., chips, and some Oreo Refrigerate-to-make type desert. By the way, have you tried separating pieces of cheese with a plastic spork? After the end of the ride, we went back to the saloon which is run by Rivers at their campsite. Everyone was given two free drinks, and we all watched the video, which had been shot along the way, on a big screen. So, of course, we bought the video for maybe a little too much, but how could we resist? Recorded on the video, in all it's splendid glory, is our flip. I'm proud of my husband because instead of going into the water in a jumble like the rest of us, he held on to the top of the raft until the very last. The drinks after were nice bonus, even though I was limited to soda, it being a few months before my 21st birthday.

This is definitely worth doing if you like rafting, but this probably shouldn't be your first trip. The upper New is milder. The Ocoee, in South East Tennessee is good, and I'm sure there are many others.

Some advice: make sure you bring extra clothes, and make sure you eat a good breakfast. I'll give this an A, and I'd do it again, brain damage and all.

Reminiscence Monday: Incredible Aquarium

Mondays around here we're going to be revisiting some old blogs from my prior site. In this one I talk about the Georgia Aquarium when it was still relatively new. These days they also have manta rays and a new shark exhibit.  Read and enjoy!

Originally posted April 2007

My husband and I were first drawn to the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta shortly after its opening in late 2005. On that visit, we were astounded by the Whale Sharks most of all, but also impressed by the quality of the many other exhibits, and so we returned in January of 2007 to introduce some friends, who, though local, had yet to visit. And while the dynamics have changed as the tanks have matured somewhat, the Georgia aquarium remained an incredible experience. It is hard to believe I have not yet made it back in all these years. 

The aquarium has several touch tanks, with sharks, rays, sea urchins, starfish, and anemones, and the best part is everything feels you back! They have a wide variety of animals, including a sea otter that seems to have a bad habit of sucking his thumb. Even the fresh water tanks are enjoyable, though I have seen a lot of them.

There are a few major areas: the cold water exhibits house the belugas, sea otters, urchin touch tanks, penguins and more. The fresh water tanks have exhibits from around the world. There is a also tropical exhibit and the whale shark exhibit, which I discuss below, and there is even a kid's play area.

This isn't just a bunch of fish tanks. This aquarium is designed with a real theatrical flare. Each of the main areas of the aquarium has a passage that you follow in a loop, which leaves and returns to a main lobby. The lobby has a soaring ceiling, and a snack bar, which has prices to match the ceiling.

When you enter the tropical exhibit, you walk into a dark and narrow hallway, drawing attention to the many tanks filled with brightly colored fish and sea creatures. Then, you walk around a corner and suddenly, you find yourself standing fifteen feet under the ocean looking at a beautiful tropical coral reef. Magical music floats through the air, and you are faintly mesmerized. Just as you are almost over the initial awe, the surf crashes onto the beach which is just out of sight above and behind you. You'll just have to see it for yourself to understand. At least, that was my experience the first time. The second time the wave machine had been turned off and there was a largish fellow in a wet suit dusting the muck off the corals. A somewhat less magical experience.

But the tropical exhibit is nothing compared to the whale shark exhibit. The pathway for this exhibit simply loops around a single massive tank. A tank with 100,000 fish. A tank with currently 3 whale sharks, hammerheads, leopard sharks, groupers, and schools of rays. It is fantastic. This display is as well directed as the reef exhibit. You walk around the tank, at first being given only small windows to peer through, that mask the tank's true size. Then you come to the tunnel, which is truly impressive. the light shines down through the water like a dozen suns, the school of rays soar overhead like graceful birds, and a grouper, with an entourage of yellow fish surrounding him goes by. After this, there are more windows, of many shapes and sizes, all giving limited views of the tank. Finally, you arrive at the main attraction: A single huge window. It is larger than a movie theater screen. Just as with the coral reefs you are suddenly actually there, underwater, gazing at the fish from the ocean floor, only now you are much further under the surface. .

I wish I was still sitting on the floor my face practically pressed to the very thick acrylic and just watching ocean life play out right in front of me. On my first visit the tank a single school of fish was the most dominant feature. They were yellow and smallish, about the size of your hand or smaller, and they were REALLY schooling. They were like a whirling tornado, spinning and swimming, and turning as one entity. The whale sharks circle the tank, which is so large they sometimes disappear into the depths as they reach the other side. If one of the sharks swims through the school, they feed on its back, and as the shark emerges it pulls a golden finger of the fish away from the main school with it. The rays go by like birds migrating, and the smaller sharks circle the tank, or lay on the sandy ocean floor. The dynamics of the tank had changed when I visited in January. The yellow fish are mostly gone, and there are more large fish about. There is music here also, which could not be more perfectly epic. This is worth the trip, and the cost. Plan to pay for parking and tickets for adults are $37 per person w/tax. I only have 3 suggestions: bring a camera; you'll be sorry if you don't, as I was the first time I went. Eat before you go, you can't bring food in, and it's really too much inside, though the deserts are tempting. And finally, if you live within range to visit more than 2 times a year, buy a pass, you'll be wanting to go back every day. 

Do What You Can

We had  hoped that November seventh and eighth would be the days we hiked the remaining miles of the Maryland section, giving us our first completed state. But with Jake's hip hurting, we didn't want to get 5 miles in to a 10 mile hike and realize he couldn't make the remaining distance. Fortunately some of the next section was crisscrossed by several roads making a few short sections we thought we could tackle during the work week. 

Since Jake is working remote right now, and I'm reserving some time off from dogsitting to make this possible, we were able to spend the week in the area. After a full day of rest, we headed out on Tuesday to try our first tiny section: an almost half a mile, up from a small side road to the parking lot of the Maryland's Washington Monument. This monument actually predates the DC version, although it's not nearly so tall. Since that went well with no pain, we followed up with a one mile lunchtime section that connected with the portion we had hiked on Sunday. Then he took a couple more days off to heal before the weekend. 

On Saturday we filled in some gaps and hiked a total of 5.1 miles over 3 small sections, repositioning our cars in between. This was to make sure we had to opportunity to stop if things were hurting, and meant we didn't have to carry much with us. The longest section was the 2.5 miles from the Washington Monument up to Boonesboro road, which connected the two midweek hikes. 

While moving the cars we had to use earplugs riding in Jakes car, because one night the preceding week we had left it for several hours in a Walmart parking lot and gone to a nearby McDonald's to stress eat fast food and distract ourselves from the election by streaming some shows using their wifi. During that time, someone came to Jake's car, and, despite the fact that it was parked near the busy grocery entrance, they got under his car and stole the catalytic converter. This meant that our exhaust was disconnected from the muffler, making the car exceptionally loud. Luckily, this wasn't something that affected our ability to drive the car, so we resolved to wait to fix it until we were back home, away from the area. 

The other two sections we did connected farther south, although we hiked everything in a northbound direction. I still generally want to get the NOBO experience, and don't want to find myself avoiding hard climbs by switching up directions. The other two pieces we hiked Saturday connected from the Reno Monument up to the half mile we did just below the Washington Monument. 

Yes it was quite a bit of hopping around. I will write more about the thru hike options and names (NOBO, SOBO, flip flop, leap frog) another day, but I think our sort of random but generally nobo sections should be called Quantum Leap. 

Jake was feeling good, but the next section of trail was over 6 miles road to road, and a lot of elevation gain. We both thought a flat section would be a better idea, and since we weren't camping, we could drive closer to home at night, and split up the return trip a little. So we chose a section along a ridge that ran beside the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia. We covered the 6 miles of trail easily in terrain that looked dramatic with brilliant sassafras leaves in the clearings and full fall colors in the valleys below, but was warm enough for t-shirt and shorts, and gently rolling land. We went really slow, took a long lunch and paused in the middle of the second half for a sun induced nap among the leaves. 

Overall a lovely weekend, but one that left us with 16 miles yet to do in Maryland, and one very loud car.  

Halloween on the Appalachian Trail

At the end of October, we headed to Maryland for two weekends of hiking, hoping that we could complete the 40 miles of trail there over four days. On the first day, Halloween, we headed out from Wolfsville Road and hiked up to Pen Mar, just below the Pennsylvania state line, where I had hiked north from in September. We traveled up with two cars so we would not need a shuttle, and left one parked at Pen Mar before heading down to Wolfsville and heading out. It was a beautiful, relatively warm day. There was still a broad mix of leaves on the trees, with some turned deep red, and yellow, while others were still mostly green. We spotted some interesting fungus and kept up a good pace. 

The trail had a couple good rises to climb, but the trail was mostly rock free and easy walking except a portion coming down from the High Rock overlook, where it was mostly loose rock and picking our way over the rubble pile. But compared to what we had done earlier in Pennsylvania for miles and miles, I barely remembered it by the next day. The weather was clear, bright, and warm, promising summer rather than winter. We started later than I would have liked, because I prefer to allow myself the option of going a mile an hour, and finishing before dark. I am usually faster though, so we were able to keep up the pace and only had to pull out the headlamp for the last twenty minutes on trail. Fortunately by that time, we had reached a wide carriage lane, or old logging road, and the trail was level and clear of any major tripping obstacles. 

It was lovely since it wasn't too cold, to finish Halloween walking pleasantly along and having the full moon come up. As we came up to the park, there is a large covered shelter that overlooks the valley below, and we went up to look at the view, and spooked a couple of cats relaxing there. Then I turned off the headlamp and let the moon light us along the paved pathway to the parking lot where our car was waiting. A good hike, 10.78 miles.  

The next day we hopscotched south and hiked north to Wolfsville road from the Annapolis Rocks trailhead near I-70. This was an uphill climb into heavy fog and sporadic, light rain. All flat and easy along the ridgetop except for a brief Rocksylvania type section. It was a set taken directly from Sleepy Hollow, and spoke Halloween in every way that Saturday's sunny hike had not. It was silent and wonderful. Not a world or weather I would want to live in, but dream like to wander for a day. Along the trail we met a pair of women with wet hair and damp clothes, disoriented from missing a trail turn off. The weather was 50F, but in those conditions risky. We helped, along with another hiker, point them on the way to a trail out. They were in phone contact with a family memeber who was driving to pick them up, and although we offered some food and a hot hands said they were good and comfortable to hike the extra miles. A friendly reminder to bring a map, and some emergency weather gear. We are hiking with guthooks on one phone and Alltrails on the other. a compact rain jacket or an emergency blanket can be life saving in what might seem like mild weather. After that, our day was uneventful, and the fog finally cleared towards the end of our hike was we climbed through a small rocky pass and started the descent to the road where the extra car was parked. This is where Jake's hip started to hurt him with every step. So we had to go slowly, and tried some side stepping and backwards walking where flat to ease the strain. It seems he likely has some bursitis in his hip, so we'll have to give it rest for it to heal, and also work on better stretching and strength training at home. The last half mile took us an hour, and I am so glad he made it through most of the hike first. 9.7 miles total.