Monthly Archives: August 2015
9,000 ft. Up
My much-needed vacation had a lot on the agenda but blogging just wasn’t one of them. It’s been nice to fill my days with running, exploring, photography, hiking, playing games, cooking, swimming, fishing and star gazing. We’ve got plenty of drinks, music, snacks, trails, lakes and people around to keep our days pretty full without feeling like we have a schedule to keep or a blog post to edit. Not going to lie, it’s been refreshing to go a full week without developing an article!
Our very first night here, the village square was hosting a Margarita Festival that had the best people-watching I have ever seen! It’s also where I fell in love with this sleepy doodle and may have started picking out names for my own in the near future…
The 9,000 ft altitude isn’t too far from the 7,000ft I’m used to from 4 years at NAU but the oxygen-deficient air mixed with the hella-hilly terrain was a challenge on my Sunday morning run. My lungs felt a nice burn, which made me realize how comfortably I’ve been running at home. I need to find a few local hills when I get back to mix it up! I climbed a few hundred feet to Twin Lakes and enjoyed every second of the fresh air, tree-top views, deer sighting, pine trees and creeks and lakes along my path.
We’re still going strong up here in the mountains and I’m feeling like a kayaking adventure today so this girl is signing off. :)
Throwback Thursday #13: Missing Missy
Yesterday morning, my family said goodbye to our maltese Missy.
My sweet Missy Girl has been all over this blog since it started. When I was in high school, I volunteered at our local animal shelter. Like any teenage girl, it wasn’t too long before I brought one of the rescue dogs home. Her name was Mitzy, a 7-year-old Maltese. I tried and tried to change her name to “Lila” but seven-year-olds don’t adapt so easily to a name change. We started calling her “Missy” because it was similar enough to Mitzy, and she joined our family for the past five and a half years.
When I went off to college, she bonded immediately with my mom. Missy became pretty jealous any time I would come home to visit or stay for the summer. I was taking up too much attention for her liking!
Missy was our perfect family dog because Maltese are hypo-allergenic and don’t shed. She was perfectly content sprawling out in her bed or lounging with me when I was home recovering from surgeries. She joined us on weekend trips to San Diego, Northern California, and even snowy Flagstaff.
We knew she was aging when her rambunxious bursts of energy and laps around the house stopped, and her sight started to weaken. But so suddenly on Tuesday evening, she seemed to just shut down. My mom made the difficult decision to give Missy peace and have her put to sleep on Wednesday morning.
Missy girl will be so missed and we are so grateful to have gotten to spend the last five years of her life with her. She was brought to the animal shelter at just the right time. I hope there are plenty of carrots in heaven. <3
Sweet Savannah: Roadtrip Continues
I feel like a broken record with my continual gushing over the gorgeous scenery surrounding my Southern Roadtrip so I’ll try to control my compliments! It’s just extremely difficult to convey what I was seeing and feeling through out the trip without sounding like a tour guide/travel commercial. When I say it was all sunshine and daisies…it was literally sunshine & daisies. You just can’t quite get it across on a computer screen but I’ll try my best!
We left off as I finished up my South Carolina adventures at the Magnolia Plantation and continued south. It wouldn’t be a true road trip without spontaneous stops at a fruit stand, and a peachy cider sign begged us to pull over. I sampled the sweet peach cider buuuuuuut you know me, I left with a coffee. Old habits die hard!
Savannah, Georgia is the most historical city we visited. What really gives it the enchanting and charming character are the huge Spanish Moss trees line the streets and drape over the sidewalks.
Fun Fact: Forrest Gump is one of my all-time favorite movies, I’ve watched it a dozen times. The bus stop scene was actually filmed in Savannah, GA, at Chippewa Square, just half a mile up from our hotel. We walked through Forsyth Park, past this beautiful fountain, searching for the bench. Turns out, the movie prop is now sitting in a museum in the visitor’s center. I didn’t feel like adding a museum trip to my already-busy day so we skipped it. If the worst thing that happened on our trip was failing to sit on Forrest Gump’s bench, I think that’s pretty good.
Savannah sits right along the river just like Wilmington, and all of the buildings sit four floors up from the ground to because of the water and bridges. I got a kick out of all of these signs:
I love the old classic building style, rather than the typical city skyscrapers we see in Manhattan, San Francisco or LA. We discovered that Savannah looooves their bars, not so much coffee shops. We walked blocks and blocks looking for an afternoon iced coffee pick-me-up with no luck, but passed a couple dozen bars, taverns, breweries and pubs along the way. Priorities, haha!
Don’t you worry though, we eventually re-caffeinated at Vic’s on the River (local coffee shop # 6 if you are keeping track!) and continued exploring the River Ralk, the City Market, the memorial squares, bakeries and antique shops.
Our hotel was so eclectic that we ended up spending a good portion of the afternoon in the pool and in our room getting ready for a fun night out. The Mansion at Forsyth Park by Marriott is one of the 11 Autograph Collection Hotels in the United States, with tons of unique character. Quirky art lined the walls, fresh flowers and curtains lined the elevators, floating flowers sat in a fountain the lobby, and an entire art gallery, bar and restaurant sat inside the hotel. The pool was so refreshing after sweating in the summer humidity. We also had happy hour on the top floor while Savannah decided to throw a temper tantrum with a freak thunder storm just when we were ready for dinner.
After one too many glasses of wine, we walked to dinner at The Sentient Bean, our favorite vegan cafe in this city. If you are going to Savannah, GO TO THE SENTIENT BEAN. We ended up eating there 3 times in less than 24 hours: once for an iced coffee & afternoon snack (vegan “power bowl” with grains, veggies and avocado), then dinner (curried tofu tacos) while a local band played in the corner, and breakfast the next day (yogurt & fruit parfait). Everything was so delicious and flavorful, the staff was awesome, and the atmosphere was comfy. A favorite, for sure :)
One of the “Must See” items on my list for this trip was The Olde Pink House in Savannah. This building from 1700s is now a restaurant with a tavern and piano bar in the basement. It’s upheld its historic decor and requires reservations far in advanced, but the I highly recommend!
We started off in the tavern, which was extra crowded on a Friday night. So crowded, in fact, that we were actually seated at the piano! We ordered the skinny cocktail, sweet tea vodka and lemon juice. For dinner, we split an appetizer of “Southern Sushi” which was shrimp and grits wrapped in nori…definitely not something I’d ever seen before. For dinner, we went with a typical southern entree of mashed sweet potatoes, collard greens, and pecan crusted chicken. I am usually pretty good at passing on the bread bowl at restaurants but the mini corn bread muffins and little buttermilk biscuits were irresistible! A totally worth-it splurge :)
I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Savannah! The road trip is juuuuust about over….but I’ll wrap it up later this week. :) Hope August is off to an amazing start for you! (Which reminds me, I saw this quote and cracked up laughing so I had to share: “Awesome things will happen today if you decided not to be a miserable cow.” Ha! Simple as that. Love it!
