Author Archives: dkrashb

Re-Hike

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Sunday has become unofficial hiking day.  Of late, I seem to have fallen into a new routine.  Saturday, I recover from the previous 5 days of hiking, biking, rowing, and yoga.  I do this mostly by laying on the couch with the occasional interruption of taking Tisen for walks.

But Sunday, Sunday I hike.  And this past Sunday, Pat needed to work, so it was the perfect opportunity to make my second attempt at Edward Point.  This time, Tisen and I would start at 10:30 in the morning instead of 4:30 in the evening.  We were mentally prepared for a rather challenging 6 mile hike, up and down Signal Mountain, scrambling over rocks.

This was our fourth trip to the Signal Point overlook.  It’s an easy walk down a paved trail from the parking lot.  We spent 20 minutes covering the 100 yards from the parking lot to the overlook–there were lots of places to sniff.

But the overlook is it for the suburban park setting.  After stopping for a couple of quick shots, we headed to the Cumberland Trail.  Even with its manmade steps, it’s not an easy trail.  Many people make it the first half mile to a “natural” overlook point over the gully that our trail would wind its way around.  But it involves clamoring down steep and big steps, jumping onto rocks, and stepping carefully.  Tisen did an amazing job navigating all the obstacles.

Every time we go on a hike that starts out with an accessible view, I notice the drop off in population as you get further from the parking lot.  We were still on the most traveled part of the trail, but already we were down to only 2 other people who we didn’t see until we made it to the overlook point.

Before we’d rounded the first blind turn, a Pileated Woodpecker called from so close to where we were standing that I was sure I would look up and see it clinging to a tree.  As I searched for the shape of this giant woodpecker, it called again, sounding slightly further away.  I searched frantically, watching for shadows against the dark forest floor.  When it called a third time, the Doppler effect kicked in–I could hear it moving away from us as it called.  I was bummed.  I haven’t seen a Pileated Woodpecker in quite a while–I would have loved to have gotten a shot of it.

We continued our hike possibly in greater safety now that the woodpecker was gone–I have a tendency to forget I’m walking on the edge of a cliff when I’m searching for a bird.

When we stopped at the first natural overlook, Tisen was already panting hard.  I got out his portable water bowl and tried to coax him into drinking water.  Tisen stuck his elbow in the collapsible water bowl and stared at me, pink tongue lolling from his black-and-white mouth.

Why I Don’t Cook

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When I returned from my recent adventure in Vermont, I was feeling motivated to eat as healthy as possible.  I also triggered an addiction to lobster, having stopped in Boston on both the way there and the way back, indulging in lobster rolls in both directions.

As such, I got out my favorite cookbook, “The Ultra-Metabolism Cookbook” and found myself drooling over the Lobster Fra Diavalo recipe.

By luck, my noon meeting cancelled and I managed to spend lunch at the grocery store.  I bought the provisions necessary for a 3-course meal–salad, entree, and dessert.

When my day had mostly wrapped up (I did have one evening conference call with some folks in Australia, but it didn’t last long), I started cooking.

Now, this is a rather rare phenomenon.  Finding me in the kitchen usually means I’m making coffee, eating yogurt straight out of the carton, or perhaps doing something as creative as making a smoothie.  But on this night, I was undertaking making 3 courses all for the same meal.

I started thawing the lobster tails for the Lobster Fra Diavalo.  I made pomegranate salad dressing and prepped the salad.  I put on wild rice to cook without fully reading the instructions (quite the risk taker).  I served the salad around 8PM, right after my conference call was over.  Not bad if you ignore the fact I’d started prepping around 5:30PM.

I thought I’d started the rice too late, but then I realized the sauce for the lobster had to cook down, so then my rice was going to be done too early.  I turned up the heat on the diavalo sauce in the hope of reducing it faster.  While it cooked, I made up some chocolate sauce from a New Life Hiking Spa recipe available on their website.  I was going to serve banana “ice cream” and chocolate sauce for dessert.

Note the time in the photo of the lobster cooking on the stove.  At 9:17, I was still trying to reduce the sauce.  We ate our lobster at 9:30.  It was actually quite good, if I do say so myself.  But, can lobster ever really taste bad?

Next, I took frozen bananas out of the freezer only to discover they weren’t really frozen all the way.  I decided to try to make the dessert anyway.  I put them in the blender and tried to puree them into an ice cream consistency.  Between their unfrozen state and my crappy blender, they came out more of a pudding consistency.  I enjoyed it anyway.  My husband wasn’t so keen on the dessert.  The chocolate sauce was tasty, but sweetened with maple syrup (not from Vermont), it was a little too mapley for him.

All in all, I invested about 5 hours of my time between planning, shopping, cooking, eating, and cleaning up for this one healthy meal.  I texted my friend that I now understand why I have time to workout–I don’t cook.

Bluff Trail

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Having made it to Sunset Rock, instead of going back the way we came, we looked for the more popular trail back to Craven’s House, Bluff Trail.  However, the map was a bit confusing as to whether we had to go back down the trail we’d come up to get to Bluff Trail or if it was at the same elevation as Sunset Rock.

There was a trail leading in the correct direction from Sunset Rock, so we decided it must be the trail we were looking for and headed on a treacherous route along the cliff.  It ended about 100 yards beyond Sunset Rock and we were forced to double back.  When we returned to Sunset Rock, a man with a young daughter was there.  There were two choices:  go up or go down.  I decided to ask the man which direction they’d come from.  They’d come down the trail we were eye-balling.  Turns out, we could have gotten to Sunset Rock by driving o the top of the staircase and walking about 1500 feet.  We walked over 2 miles to get to the same place that the man and his daughter had walked about 500 yards to.  It’s almost depressing, but we really enjoyed the walk.

In any case, we deduced that back down was our only option.  We climbed the “stairs” back down to another junction and then headed parallel to the bluff.  We were treated to occasional glimpse between the trees of a view of the valley.

Tisen liked this trail a lot.  He came into his own trotting along, right next to a cliff.  I was more worried than he was. Any time I started to freak out that he might fall over the edge, I’d call him and he’d look up at me with an expression that clearly said, “you’re not good at math.”  Maybe he’s right–he never did slip over the edge.

The rock formations on Lookout Mountain are pretty amazing.  Giant Rocks have fallen into unexpected places, decorating the landscape in places where it seems they must have been air-lifted in by helicopter.

The rock formations are a  beautiful.  They are sandstone, with intense layers that create interesting caves or have splits and vines and/or moss, all depending on where you see these giant reminders of a time long gone.

I don’t know what exactly is so attractive about these giant boulders.  Perhaps it’s because where each one appears, it’s as if time has stood still for centuries.

Tisen was less impressed with formations and more concerned about ensuring he had a way out.

Perhaps this is why Tisen had a magical ability to always end up in my frame?  His obsession with being in front led him to pass me whenever I stopped to shoot.  I’m not sure what was driving him to always be in front, but he ended up walking into my frame almost every time I stopped to get a shot.

Sunset Rock

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Lookout Mountain is both a backdrop and a center piece for Chattanooga.  It’s full of tourist destinations and local favorites; quiet neighborhoods and busy streets; civil war history and quiet countryside.  It offers fantastic views and shaded woods.  It all just depends on where on Lookout Mountain you go.

This past weekend, when we were trying to decide where we wanted to hike, my husband’s criteria was that he wanted to spend less than an hour driving round-trip and he didn’t want to hike more than 5 miles.  My criteria was that I wanted there to be a view and I wanted the trail to be doable in my fivefingers shoes.  Lookout Mountain was our perfect compromise.

We’ve gone up to Point Park on Lookout Mountain many times.  We’ve walked the paved trail down to the overlook at the point.  And, off in the distance, we noticed people sitting on Sunset Rock.  Today was our day to sit on Sunset Rock.

We decided to start at Craven’s House.  There are several trails from Craven’s House that can get you to Sunset Rock.  We chose the longest route.  Even so, it was not much more than 2 miles to Sunset Rock.

We took a trail called Rifle Pits Trail.  I’m sure there is an explanation for why it’s called “Rifle Pits,” but all I could think about was rifles spewing out shells and leaving behind the casings like I might spit out the pits from Kalamata olives.  We did not see a single shell casing, however.

This trail was partially an old road, which made for easy walking.  However, when we got to the Gum Spring Trail juncture, we turned and started climbing a lot of steps.  While it wasn’t so difficult as to be daunting, we were a little worried about Tisen.  These were mostly large stones positioned to form stairs, not actual stairs.  But every time I stopped to check on Tisen, he would run into the backs of my legs, he was so tight on my heels.

I made it up the steep section in 1 piece–it’s a miracle I didn’t trip over Tisen and fall off the cliff.  And the view from Sunset Rock was spectacular.  Unfortunately, it was, as usual, the wrong time of day to be shooting, but I did what I could.

Speaking of shooting, does anyone know how to train a dog not to walk into the frame when you stop to take a picture?  I had to trash about 50 images because of a Holstein-like blur running through them.  While we’re talking about unexpected visitors in the camera frame, let’s talk about my husband.  I think we’ve reached a point in our photographer/non-photographer relationship where he’s tired of assisting.  I didn’t bring my tripod or any extra lenses (for once), which meant he didn’t feel obligated to carry anything for me.  But, he still felt obligated to walk through my frame.  What do you suppose that means?

Bird Kings

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I have a lot of funny stories about birding.  Let’s start with the 2 years I spent getting out my CD-set of bird songs every time I heard a particular bird calling, trying desperately to figure out what it was, only to discover (eventually) it was a chipmunk.

Or, how about the time I managed to convince myself that a Great Blue Heron (one of the most readily identifiable birds around) was a Tri-colored Heron because its feathers were hanging at a weird angle, making a pattern of color around its neck I hadn’t seen before.

Then there’s the time I was sure I was seeing a Louisiana Waterthrush only to realize I was looking at a female Red-winged Blackbird.  While I think all birders have been fooled by a female Red-winged Blackbird, I’d bet there aren’t too many who thought they might be a Louisiana Waterthrush.

But besides my identification mishaps, I also have physical ones.  For example, at the end of this month’s Wednesday morning bird walk (which I was leading), I got excited trying to see a bird in a tree right above us and I walked right into a concrete bench and fell over it, landing on my rear.  Fortunately, my fellow birders managed to catch me enough to keep me from falling all the way over the bench and onto the ground.

There’s also the time I was so busy looking up that I walked into a branch that smacked me right in my wide-open mouth.  I guess that’s better than a friend of mine who made the mistake of looking up with an open mouth just in time to catch a not-so-tasty snack.

Oh, and then there’s the time I drove off the road trying to identify a hawk perched on post at the side of the road.  Friends, don’t let friends bird and drive.

Perhaps it’s all of these antics that often give me the feeling that the birds are as amused watching me as I am watching them.

On our Saturday morning bird walk, which I was also leading, we discovered a family of Eastern Kingbirds.  It appeared the baby had fledged and Mom and Dad were trying to encourage it to start feeding itself (sound familiar, parents?).  But the baby wasn’t ready to give up on getting spoon (or beak) fed.

Perched low in a shrub near eye-level, we had quite a treat watching these wonderful flycatchers swoop in and encourage the baby to make an effort.  Baby, on the other hand, demanded to be fed loudly, squealing at Mom and Dad with a bright pink, open mouth.  No tasty treat for Baby either.

I love Eastern Kingbirds. They’re the easiest flycatcher to identify by sight.  The white rim along the tip of their tails and their size along with their pure white breast make them striking and distinct.  That’s what makes a bird a favorite for me–easily distinguishable features.

Indulgence

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On our last full day in Vermont, after lunch, we decided to take a field trip.  We went to the famous gift shop of a hotel a few miles down the road.  This required making some arrangements.

For starters, we didn’t have a car.  We also didn’t want to walk, having already hiked that morning.  Fortunately for us, the owner was willing to come pick us up and drive us to her shop.

I am not a big fan of shopping.  But, I really wasn’t feeling up to trying Zoomba for the second time (definitely not an exercise for me) and we could get back in plenty of time for yoga class.  Plus, I thought I might find a gift for Tisen.

I was right.  I found an adorable moose to add to Tisen’s collection of “babies.”  I also found a book of guitars for Pat.  And a book of top 10 lists of places to go for Pat and I to share and fantasize about.

And then, I found the most dangerous thing of all.  It was a bag of maple syrup jelly beans.  This was not a wise purchase given that I was at a weight-loss spa, getting tons of exercise, and eating extremely healthy foods.  There is nothing that triggers a binge for me more than pure sugar in convenient handfuls.

When I got done paying for my items, I opened the bag of jelly beans and poured the first handful before I even put my wallet away.  By the time my friend got up to the counter to pay for her stuff (it was at least 10 minutes later, I swear), nearly a quarter of the bag had mysteriously disappeared.

As it turned out, it was the last bag of jelly beans and my friend had wanted to buy them as a gift for her son.  Had I not torn into them already, I would have given them to her.  As it was, she couldn’t really take him a half eaten bag of jelly beans.

Back at the “spa,” I opted to take a nap before yoga versus going to the strength class.  Funny how a person can eat jelly beans while taking a nap.  The darn things just disappeared and I was left in a sugar coma, having polished off 8 oz of maple syrup jelly beans in about 2 hours.

I do not do well feeling like I’m being deprived of anything.  When I get in a situation where I feel like I’m not “allowed” to have something, I start craving it.  When I get any kind of candy, I eat it until it’s gone like I’m afraid someone will steal it from me.  It’s not good.  I’ve been combating this problem by having a few small pieces of dark chocolate everyday.  It’s good for me and it’s so strong, I can’t eat a lot of it.  I guess I should have brought some along with me to the spa.

The Necessaries

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Our second hike in Vermont was on a gravel road that ran next to a stream.  The stream spoke the usual stream language, babbling to us as we walked.  Something we don’t always think about when we imagine the sound of a happily babbling stream is the way it seems to connect directly with our bladders.  Or, at least, mine.

I love the sound of running water diving and dipping and dropping over stones in a shallow bed as it makes its way downhill.  I love it less when I really need to use the non-existent facilities.  This is a case where perhaps the advanced hike might have been more accommodating–finding a private place at least 50 yards from water to go off and take care of one’s needs when walking along a relatively popular dirt road with a group of 15-20 people is not such a simple undertaking.  I endeavored to prove I still have good bladder control.  I made it to the turn around point, through the snack break, and about halfway back, but then we arrived at the juncture between the road and the stream.  The very thought of water rushing beneath my feet as it crossed under the road was more than I could bear.

I made a break for the woods and climbed up an overgrown hillside, bushwhacking my way to a private spot, trying to do as little damage to the hillside in the process as possible.  Fortunately for me, my selected site was in fact private and no one caught me in the somewhat awkward act of re-positioning clothing after the fact.

This, did however, evoke a memory from a long ago jeep trek up a mountain jeep trail near Ouray, Colorado in Yankee Boy Basin.  It was a trip I took with my father, brother, and elderly aunt to deliver my mother’s ashes to her favorite location in the world.  About half way up the jeep trail, my elderly aunt needed to use the facilities.  When I explained to her that there weren’t any facilities, she exclaimed, “What??!!!  They should have a bathroom if they’re going to let people come up here!!!”  The concept of wilderness was a bit lost on her.

I took her to find a spot in the woods.  I don’t think she’d ever walked through the woods except on a fairly flat and easy to follow trail before, let alone found a hidden spot to squat.  I found a secluded spot for her and walked around to another secluded spot for myself not far away.  About the time I was getting re-situated, I heard squealing.  I ran over to where I’d left my aunt and was greeted by two feet, pants circling the ankles above them, kicking in the air amongst the underbrush.  My aunt had fallen over backwards.  Now that is a sight I wish I could forget!

Thankfully, I managed to enjoy the hike in Vermont and leave un-traumatized.

Being Moderate

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At the New Life Hiking Spa, everyone gathers outside the front door and the staff announces the hikes each morning.  They’re categorized into “Nature Walk,” “intermediate,” and “Advanced.”  The Nature Walk being mostly flat, a non-challenging surface to walk on (like a gravel road), and only about 4 miles or so in distance.  The Intermediate walks have more ups and downs, and may require a little scrambling over rocks.  The Advanced hikes are more vertical and are on “unimproved” trails.

While I might have opted for the Advanced or Intermediate hikes, I was there more for the company of my friend and less for the physical challenge, so I was more than happy to do the nature walk.  Plus, I wanted to shoot and I figured I’d have more opportunities on the nature walk than on an advanced hike.

This happened to be the day for the most difficult Nature Walk of the week.  It had a long, slow climb in the middle of it.  This worked to my advantage.  I got to take my time shooting because the group wasn’t moving as fast as they would have been on a flat trail.  I had time to shoot and then run to catch up to my friend.

This was even more perfect than I realized at first.  I got a great workout by running hard to catch up (when I say running hard, I mean any attempt to run on my part is hard–I don’t run fast or far or at all if I can help it).  We would walk along together chatting until the next photogenic subject appeared.

I would have hated being on an advanced hike and feeling like I was holding other people up every time I stopped for a shot.

Plus, the road we walked was lovely.  We were afforded many views of the mountains and lots of pretty open fields full of wildflowers.  The only slightly traumatic part was the graveyard near the beginning of the walk.  We had to wonder what kind of message they were sending us by not only walking us past the graveyard on the way out, but stopping there for our snack break on the way back.  I loved it for the photographic opportunities it provided, but it’s a little odd to snack amongst the dead.

We extended the hike by going past the trailhead to another trail that led up a hill to a lovely view of the valley below and mountains in the distance.  One of our fellow hikers was starting to worry us with his heavy breathing, profuse sweating, and red face.  It was hard to believe the hike was that much of a workout for anyone, but it was a pretty good uphill, I guess.  We were concerned he had heat stroke.  In the end, he, along with the rest of us, did survive and we left no one in the graveyard.

Bright Spot

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After getting settled in and oriented on my recent adventure at a “hiking spa” in Vermont, my friend and I got ourselves together in time for the evening yoga class.  The yoga instructor was well-trained and seemed to know what she was doing.  She reminded me of my first yoga instructor in Columbus with a voice that combined happy with soothing.

Things were looking up.

We made it to dinner and things looked up indeed.  The dinner was really delicious.  There were two choices and I got the combo because I couldn’t pick between the two.  The portions were not as generous as I might have liked, but I consoled myself with the thought that it really wouldn’t be bad if I dropped a couple of pounds.

What was really exciting was the number of repeat customers.  All participants in the hiking spa sat at 4 large tables, so we got to talk to others who’d been there before and/or had been there for several days.  We got the low-down on the place and what to expect.

If the spa director is smart, he will start offering these repeat customers some sort of discount–they are his best advertisers.  One woman at our table was on her 10th visit to the hiking spa.  She is the one who told us it was more shabby than chic.  Her honesty made her more credible and her enthusiasm for the program made us more excited to be there.  She knew everything from the menu for each day to the hikes that would be scheduled.  I really think they should have hired her to do the orientations for new arrivals–we would have felt much more welcome and better informed.

In general, the people we spoke with at our table made us feel like we were joining a fun club with lots of cool people.  They were from all over the place–some from as far as London.  There was a doctor, a spa owner, a retail business owner, and a chemist who held several patents among the many different career choices represented.

The next morning, we got up early to attend the 7AM stretching class before breakfast.  When we walked out to the semi-permanent outdoor tent setup exclusively for the hiking spa fitness classes, the sun was barely visible through dense fog.  It was hard to tell it was nearly 7AM through the gloom of the fog.  The glow of the sun peeping through the thick fog made me happy I’d decided to bring my camera with me.

I would have preferred a short yoga class instead of  a boot-camp style stretching class first thing in the morning, but it was still nice to get unkinked before breakfast.  I just prefer to have calming music and be in a meditative state of mind over having a big, hairy guy leading us through marching in place and elementary-school-style stretches.  But, it definitely got us ready for breakfast.

 

Unguided Tour

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After arriving at the hiking spa in Vermont, I worked on getting settled into my room while waiting for the spa director to call for our tour and orientation.  They’d given us some paperwork to sign when we checked in.  I was more than a little shocked when I realized one of the things I was supposed to sign was acknowledging that I was going to be on a restricted calorie diet.

I somehow missed that there was going to be a limit on calories.

Under “special dietary needs,” I made sure I put that I needed at least 1800 calories a day if I was going to be hiking and working out, worried that this was some kind of crazy starvation diet.  Then, I stared at the phone.

There is nothing I hate more than waiting for a phone call.  It’s been so long since I’ve even had that experience that I’d forgotten how annoying it is.

I tried to find things to do.  After taking photos of the room, I opened a bar of soap and washing my hands.  No call.  Then, I moved to unpacking.  I hung things up in the closet.  I placed folded things into drawers.  I got out my toiletries and lined them up on the bathroom sink.  Still no call.

I called the front desk.  The front desk guy said he would call the spa director again.  We waited another 5 minutes and then we took off.

We wandered down the hall and found some stairs.  We were deposited in an outdoor courtyard.  We walked around, discovering the golf course that abutted the hotel lawn.

The indoor pool looked a little suspect and the hot tub that was supposed to seat 10 looked like it would only be comfortable for 4 people who knew each other well.

We wandered around discovering the features of the hotel and eventually found the front desk.  When the guy at the front desk saw us, he rolled his eyes as he asked if we still hadn’t been called.  I smiled and explained that we got bored and left.  The front desk guy called the spa director and told him we were in the lobby.

The spa director found us and took us on a repeat tour, showing us far less than what we saw on our own.  His idea of showing us something seemed to be waving his hand in the general direction while we were standing in the hall.

I can’t say that I understood any of the positive reviews of the spa or the staff by the time we’d completed our orientation.  He hadn’t asked us a single question about why we were there or what we were hoping to accomplish and he had rapid-fired information at us.

I chose to simply be amused by this adventure.  After all, we were there, it was beautiful outside, and we were only staying for 3 nights.  I could think of no reason to complain.

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