Get on your bikes and RIDE

Sedona! Where should I start. You are an amazing tiny little town with outstanding food, and views to take the breathe away. There are plenty of hiking trails that you can link together to make a good day of it, but that wasn't our goal. My husband, brother and I were there to Ride!

The Beast was happy to get her wheels dirty

Day 1: Start off easy to shake off the dust from not riding this winter. 

It's hard to get out on the trails of Ohio, when there are several inches on snow on it!  This ride was great, just long enough to wear us out, but not beat us up. The problem was... too many hikers! They were everywhere clogging up the trails. 

Day 2: AKA Harder and Higher. Find a trail that is steep, hard to walk on, and with exposed drop offs...then Ride it. Welcome to the Highline. 

I don't have very many pictures of this because I was too busy riding, falling, or walking. Not always in that order.  The challenge with this type of trail is that it isn't wide enough to walk, so it's usually better to stay in the saddle and tough it out. I even carried my bike through some of it.

View from Soldier's Pass Descent

Day 3: Quick and Dirty. 

It was cold on day three, we even had snow flurries as we got our bikes and gear out of the car. WTH! This was our last day and we had to pack up the bikes and drive to Phoenix that night. So we rode some trails that were right down the street from our hotel, and it was Outstanding. A great mix of flowing trail and a little bit of challenging terrain. Perfect for the last day, as my out of shape backside can only stand so much abuse!

                           

Throughout the weekend, it was interesting how many people were shocked as I came upon them, trying my best to keep up with the boys. My ponytail flying behind me as I rounded the bend. (Alright, it was Not flying. It was plastered with sweat against my neck, as I ground along at a Slightly faster pace than the hikers)

I heard lots of,  "You go girl"and "I would never do that".  But, the one that struck the hardest chord for me was from a girl in her twenties, "I want to try that some day".  She sounded so wistful as she moved aside to let me pass. There is nothing holding you back but yourself. Just like any sport it takes time and will, and for me....lots of padding.

Flat Stanley Visit

Dear Abigayle,

       Thanks so much for letting me visit your friend Kelleigh. We had a great time. She travels alot for work so first we took a trip to Washington , D.C.

This is me in front of the Washington Monument. There was an earthquake about a year ago, and so they have to fix the monument. Otherwise, I would have tried to climb to the top!

Next I took a swim in the reflecting pool. At the end of the pool is the Lincoln Memorial.You see people in movies stomping around in here, but it turns out. You're not allowed to swim here!

I got a good scolding from the Ranger for it. He explained that the pool was for decoration, and not for swimming in!

 Next, we stopped in to see the Lincoln Memorial. He's really really tall, and he was super smart. He also had some really cool speeches that were on the wall, one of them was the Gettysburg Address. 

 Our next trip took us to San Antonio, Texas. It's quite famous for it's Riverfront walkway and there are alot of ducks here, so we took a chance and fed some. 

They were pretty excited and started to eat me along with the chips! It tickled when he pecked at my head. 

Next we went to the Alamo. It looks big in the movies, but it was kinda small. I also couldn't find a basement anywhere in that place. 

But I did see a really cool cannon.

And a tough looking officer. He wouldn't take a picture with me, so I photo bombed him :-)

Finally we stopped at the Mission San Jose,

A really nice volunteer showed us how to mill corn

He also taught me how the Native American's would make fire!

Here is how it was done. Thanks again for sending me on this fun trip, let me know if you have any questions about the really fun things that I got to do.

Sincerely, Your friend and creation,
      Stanley

PVC Bow and Arrows

I spent the weekend with my family, and we went to a local street fair at the park. Every kid in attendance was carrying around these simple bow and arrows. My nephew asked me, "if I promise to pay you back, will you buy one for me." I told him I would consider it, but then quickly realized that I couldn't purchase for just one, I would need 4 of them to keep all of the kids happy. We approached the booth that had the wares, and my brother got a mischievous grin on his face. "Let's make them ourselves, it'll be more fun!" The kids were doubters at first, but after we bought the supplies, they were ready to help out. To top it all off, we spent 1/3 less money, and our arrows worked better than those at the fair!

Here is how it happened:

Shopping list:

1/2" PVC Pipe

Pipe Insulation

Styrofoam balls 3"

Dow rods 1/4"

Nylon Twine

Fabric Squares

Glue Gun

Hand Saw(hack saw)

The PVC Pipe came in 10ft lengths, so we cut them down to 4ft pieces. If your kids are smaller you can make them smaller, or keep them at 5 ft for a larger bow. Then, we slid a 5-6" piece of pipe insulation onto the pipe and taped it into the center with red duct tape. Making the hand grip.

Next we cut notches in the two ends, about a 1/2" deep. Then wex knotted the twine on one side, bowed the plastic, and then tied the knot at the other end, and slid that into place. Voila...you have your bow. 

Now onto the arrows. I simply made a hole that went halfway into the Styrofoam balls with the dow rod, added some hot glue and then placed the rod into the ball. Then you place the fabric over the ball, and tie it into place. The last step, is to saw a notch into the back of the arrow, so you can line it up with the bow string when you shoot it! Finally, you can slide the "arrows" onto the ends of the bow, for storage as seen in the photos.

Enjoy!

Letter of Reccomendation

I believe that everyone should petition their friends and colleagues to write a Letter of Recommendation for them about every 5 years. I honestly, have never had or needed a Letter of Recommendation until recently. Within the performing arts world, you audition, you network, and on occasion, for a survival job, you rope one of your friends into being the number to call for a reference. They then tout your skills, while you stand there eavesdropping on the call and sniggering at that fact that you just bamboozled someone into giving you a job.

Recently, I roped three of my friends who have actually worked with me into writing my Letters of Recommendation, and the result had me staggered. Yes, they all contained the usual laudatory language that you would expect in such a letter, but what had me reeling was the sense of love and respect that they contained. The subtle subtext that said, not only would I recommend this person, but I respect and care for this person. I truly enjoy working with this person. Seeing this on paper, as an official letter, a declaration, moved me.

As I read each one, I thought to myself, wow,that's me?! This letter is about me. I even had a moment where I felt a bit lighter, and a few inches taller. Everyone needs to have that feeling every once in awhile. It is a reminder to cherish the people that I have in my life, the people who would write such things. Thank you guys!

Lions and TIgers and .....

OH MY!
So I wrote part of this yesterday, and my internet connection pooped and I hadn’t saved it. Sorry! But my story got better this morning, and here it goes:
We arrived last night in Katmai National Park, home to some 3,000 grizzly bears. In fact this is where the famous Grizzly Man film, with Timothy Treadwell was made. But enough about him, because if you haven’t seen the movie, he was a total nutter!
So we get into the zodiac for low tide, when the bears come to the beach and feed on clams. Luckily, the production company had to pay booku bucks to have a filming permit for this park, but the upside was that they provided a Ranger to accompany us in our boat. She was awesome! He name is Wendy, and she has been a national parks ranger since 1985, serving in just about every park that we have in this vast country and she had the stories to prove it. She directed us to all the right places last night and we saw 4 different bear. Things got even better this morning. I woke up feeling horrible, because I have acquired a wretched cold, and our producer told me, that if I wasn't feeling well, I should stay behind and they would just get footage of the bears.
I am soooo glad that I didn’t. We picked up Wendy in the ranger hut, zoomed past the other passengers that were out in their zodiacs already and found a mama bear and her 2-3 year old cub down on the beach. They were the same cute pair that we had seen the night before. So we cut the engine, and we pulled out the oars and started to row the boat in. We ended up being 10 Feet from them! Now, the best way to put this in perspective is the fact that you are supposed to be 50 feet from the bears, but since we were on the water, and the bears were not even acknowledging our presence, Wendy let up creep all the way in. The water was getting pretty shallow, and the mom could easily have reached us within 10 seconds. It was AMAZING. We stayed there for awhile filming and watching and just feeling in awe of the moment. We then cruised on to find another guy down at the beach, and he was so animated. He would dig up the clams, and then pounce on them to crack them open. Imagine weighing enough to crack a clam with you hands just by landing on it. Wow

Time to make the donuts

Time to make the donuts
Yesterday, the captain and our pilot decided that they had a hankering for donuts. So unbeknownst to us, the rerouted the ship early in the morning, put out a phone call and ordered for the entire ship! We weighed anchor, and lucky for us the film crew was privy to the plan so the went ashore to get the donuts, which were being made fresh by a woman, and her two daughters who come up to Alaska every summer to make donuts and coffee for the fisherman….let me just say that I have never had a yummier donut. And if that wasn’t enough, last night for dinner we had halibut. Halibut that the captain, the pilot, and one of our philipino staff guys went out and caught themselves. 70 lbs of it. I will never believe another “fresh fish” sign again because it doesn’t get any fresher than this! Oh, and to finish it all out, we stopped by a salmon processing boat, and we are having fresh salmon at an on deck BBQ tonight. Yum!

Whale Tail

A Whale Tail
I really can’t go on enough about whales right now. Yesterday, I saw about 7 humpback whales, as well as a fin whale, and some Dall porpoise. One of the humpbacks was up to some shenanigans, and entertained us for about a half hour, by Tail Lobbing. Basically, he was hanging out at the surface, blowing air, and taking over half of his backside out of the water and thrumming the surface with it. I can’t even fathom how they do this because anytime I get both hands up out of the water I sink. But , He or it could have been a she, I can’t really tell! He hit the water over and over with his tail, did a half belly flop, and then began to smack the surface with his fin. We were so close to all of this that we could hear him hitting the water. Nobody knows why they do this, but they think that maybe it’s a form of communication, or the whale is just having a bit of fun. Whatever it was, it was definitely one of the coolest things I’ve seen!