Easily Offended?

Maybe.

But I'm tired of all the news channels referring to my home as the Rust Belt. Is that a new term? Why have I never heard of it before?

I realize that according to this map Pittsburgh has recovered from all the "rust," but it still stings.

Week One is Done.

With the new school year approaching, I had to go on a little hiatus. There was much to get, much to prepare, and much to research, so something had to give. It was the blog.

So in the past few weeks, we shopped for clothes--but not much because the kids wear uniforms and all I had to do was buy some khaki shorts. Easy. Then we needed to get school supplies--but Brian handles that so I wasn't really involved. Man. Why did I need that hiatus? Three things.

Last week I introduced the teachers at Matt's school to the Kind Campus program. In a last-minute turn of events, the counselor felt I should present the PowerPoint since I had created it and was, therefore, more familiar with the material while she was overwhelmed with other beginning of the year issues. I still have the pimple on my face from that stress and anxiety, but I did manage to do the presentation. My mouth was dry and my voice was high and tight, but around Slide 11 out of 14 I managed to calm down and talk like a normal person. The good news is that most of the teachers seem to not only be on board with the program but genuinely excited. Jeannette Mare, the founder of Ben's Bells, is coming to our school on Monday for an assembly, so I expect this pimple to stay until at least Tuesday.

Another surprise happened at Matthew's Meet the Teacher Night, three days before school started. We found out one of his classmates has a severe nut allergy, so his classroom is a nut-free zone. Though the no-nut rule was in place last year, it wasn't for real. I mean, no one could take nuts but no one was going to die if someone did. There were a few "just-in-case" moms who wanted to force bogus rules on everyone for no other reason than that they could. I guess. When I realized what was up, Matthew took PB&J sandwiches in his lunch. Not one child had a reaction.

This year, however, the kid could fly into anaphylactic shock, so I'm obliging. That means we can't send any nuts for snack or lunch, Matthew has to wash his hands and brush his teeth thoroughly if he eats nuts for breakfast, and I can't send containers that have previously held nuts or peanut butter. Well, I washed them; let's call it good. So, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out healthy, protein-filled snacks and lunches for my kid who won't eat lunch meat that won't harm another kid. It took a while, and lunches aren't made as efficiently as they used to be, but the options I've been sending have satisfied Matthew.

The kids both had decent weeks at school. Elizabeth loves it. She likes all her teachers, is excited to be on the yearbook staff, and is happy to see her friends on a daily basis again. Matthew is still not a big fan of school, but he wasn't complaining at the end of the week as much as he was at the beginning. That could change when homework starts to come home on Monday. We'll face that beast when we must.

Finally, it was back to school for me, too, on Wednesday. I had a three-day assignment in third grade for a teacher who had to go to a wedding out-of-state. Our summers, sadly, don't line up with practically everyone else's, so sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. Thankfully for her, the district allowed her the time off. Thankfully for me, I got back to work soon after the kids went back to school. However, it was super hot this week, so there was no recess. At this school, they don't have aides covering classes, so the teachers stay in their rooms with the kids. That means teachers have a twenty-minute lunch instead of a forty-minute lunch. It also means that by the time you drop off your kids in the cafeteria "not early" and pick them up "not late," you really have fifteen minutes. But, my pal Julie was subbing there in third grade, too, so I got to spend those fifteen minutes with her. It was a lose-win.

So a lot has been happening even if it hasn't seemed like it here. The new year offers a fresh start. Here we go.

Camp Impromptu

As soon as we returned from our big California camping trip, I thought we needed to go out one last time before the end of summer. Since the kids go back to school next Monday (I know. I know. We are on a modified year-round schedule. Summer vacation is only seven short weeks around here, yet summer goes on for about four or five months. It's cruel.), this past weekend was our last chance. We considered camping for about a week and finally decided it was a go on Wednesday. We wanted to take the trailer, but Mt. Lemmon's road isn't trailer-friendly. Payson was too hot at 95 degrees. Flagstaff was an hour farther than we wanted to go. Finally, we settled on driving above the Mogollon Rim, 7000 feet in elevation and thirty miles east of Payson. The weather looked dry and relatively cool there with highs in the mid-80s.

So the kids and I got things ready on Thursday. I was under the impression we would leave early Friday morning since we didn't have any reservations and all campgrounds that accepted reservations had been full for weeks. Brian, however, had to go to work in the morning for a bit. He said he'd be home around 11:00 or 11:30 and we'd leave by noon. But at 10:30, he called and said he wasn't sure when he'd get out of there because of some some big problem. I won't even pretend to know what was wrong, but suffice it to say I was displeased. The hours ticked by, and I was certain we'd be camping by the side of the road somewhere.

We left for the Rim shortly after 1:30 pm with low expectations. Our first stop would be Aspen Campground, "the most popular campground in Arizona," because I read that when they're full they can tell you which campground or forest roads with dispersed camping have availability.

We made it to Aspen Campground at 4:00 pm. We drove right past the "Campground Full" sign, and the host came out of her booth. Brian told her we didn't have reservations and was about to ask her where we might have the most luck, but she interrupted him, smiled, and said, "You don't know how lucky you are. I'm serious. You have no idea." She left us for a moment then came back with a clipboard. She wrote down our information, collected our money, and gave us tags for site 84. "Someone got sick and had to go home. They just cleaned up the site. You're really lucky." So we drove in and she said to her buddy, "Ok. Now we're full."

I was certainly happy to have a spot, but I worried about the sickness. We don't need any germs! Turns out it was elevation sickness and they were just dizzy. Nothing a trip back down the mountain can't cure, and we got a spot. Everyone's happy! So we pulled in, got settled, had some dinner, a campfire, and slept in the cool pines. The kids enjoyed playing around with the camera and headlamps.

In the morning, we rented a little fishing boat on adjacent Woods Canyon Lake. We had it for four hours. It was a nice outing, but we didn't catch anything. Oh wait. We did get a line caught on a stick and the other got caught in the boat motor, so I stand corrected. We seriously have no idea what we're doing with fishing! But it was a beautiful, if busy, day on the water at a pretty lake. We brought our lunch and just trolled around on the water until it was time to come in.

Afterwards, Matthew and Elizabeth tried to fish from the shore and catch some crawfish in the net.

Some kids next to us left behind some fresh worms. Matthew bravely put one on his hook.

He still didn't catch a fish. But he caught lots of crawfish!

After a day on the lake, we had some dinner and hung around the campsite.

That evening, we went to a ranger program and learned a lot about elk. In the morning, I woke up early and walked around the campground. I stopped in my tracks when I saw a family of five elk grazing a few campsites down from me. With the new knowledge that elk can run 40-45 mph, I opted to turn around. There are no elk photos because I figured they'd only look like spots of brown and tan since I prefer to give wildlife their space.

We had a nice quiet Sunday morning and breakfast outside. Though the high on Saturday was about 84, the nights and mornings were very pleasant low 70s/high 60s. Those are wonderful temperatures to escape to from Phoenix in July.

Elizabeth rearranged some rocks that spelled something different, only we couldn't figure out what.

After breakfast, we took a short walk along the Rim Trail. It was about a mile from our campground. The trail goes on for awhile, but we just walked a short portion of it. After seventeen years of living in Arizona, we've finally officially seen the Mogollon Rim.

Though it started out a little wonky, we ended up having a lovely little getaway. It's hard to believe summer is over already, but we have a few weekend trips lined up in a few weeks. We're always looking forward to getting away again.

Relief

My mom's knee replacement surgery was successful today. I can't tell you how relieved I am. I know it's a common procedure, but surgery always comes with a risk so I'm glad everything went smoothly. I'm happy for her that it's over because I know she was even more worried; she was really dreading it. But hopefully her recovery will be swift and she'll get back to being her more active self. All the pain and limping really caused her quality of life to suffer, so I know she's looking forward to walking at the park with dad after a few weeks of rehab.

Way to go, Mom! Now do your exercises. Keep in mind that this is the good pain that heals. Love you! Dad, take good care of her.

Kind Campus

I've mentioned Ben's Bells before and how the kids and I have gone to their Phoenix studio to help create or paint ceramic beads for these bells that spread the message of kindness throughout the community. It's really an inspiring organization, and I've shared it with a few friends so far. But, with the support of Matthew's school's counselor, we're about to spread it to a lot more people.

Ben's Bells offers a kindness education program to schools and businesses free of charge. The idea is kindness is a skill that can be taught, learned, and is something we can all get better at showing and sharing. There are no formal lessons in which a parent volunteer needs to come in and teach the class (like Art Masterpiece or Junior Achievement); instead it infuses kindness skills into the daily routines of classrooms so that kindness seamlessly becomes a way of life.

Of course, this program does challenge teachers and staff to be intentionally kind to everyone at all times while encouraging their students to do the same. They lead by example. The program was initially rolled out as Kind Kids, but the name was changed the following year to Kind Campus. By focusing solely on children, they felt they were missing a tremendous opportunity to develop the kindness skills of adults. So everyone is included now, even parents as activities are periodically sent home with students so families can have meaningful discussions on kindness and work on their skills at home.

The program helps each of us develop five core competencies of social-emotional learning. These are: self awareness (knowing our own character, feelings, and desires); social awareness (understanding and responding to the needs of others); responsible decision making (making sound judgments on our behavior and how it affects others); self management (taking responsibility for our behavior and well-being); and relationship management (building and maintaining strong relationships based on trust). Before  you begin thinking this sounds "crunchy" or "granola" or like something a hippie would love, I'll point out that the program was developed through a partnership with scientists at the University of Arizona. Through cutting-edge scientific brain research, they've pinpointed effective techniques humans can use reduce stress, improve empathy, and promote a positive outlook.

I'm very excited for our counselor to introduce and share the details about the program with our teachers and staff when they return to work next week. She and I have been working on a presentation and are ironing out the details. I'm happy she's supporting Kind Campus and chose it as our school's character education program this school year because what we need right now is for more people to be kind.

I know you won't be around for the presentation, but if you want to gain a better understanding of the message and the mission of Ben's Bells, this video is a wonderful place to start.

Flashback

For a craft project, I needed glycerin. I wasn't even sure what it was, so I had to look up where to buy it. Anywhere. You can pretty much buy it anywhere. So I may now go forth with my project, which you'll hear more about in a later blog.

In the meantime, here's the song that's been in my head all morning. My college pals and I would listen to Bush's Sixteen Stone on repeat freshman and sophomore years. Remember when Gavin Rossdale was awesome? Yeah, not so much anymore.



I also remember believing a lyric in this song was "our old friend Phil and you and me." Fear's their old friend, not Phil, but no one was surprised then and no one is surprised now when I mishear lyrics. I should entertain you with my versions sometime. I get that from my mom.

Yosemite National Park

While I was planning this trip, I knew we'd be able to spend about four days maximum at a place without hook-ups. I mean comfortably; we might be able to go longer, but we'd be worried about it. Anyway, I had our three nights in Kings Canyon scheduled, thought about extending it to four nights, but then came across that offer I couldn't refuse from Living Social--two nights with full hook-ups about an hour outside of Yosemite for $49. The travel window was from June 1-30, and we used our voucher on June 29th and 30th. The timing worked out swimmingly.

So on Wednesday morning, we sadly bid farewell to our lovely campsite in the Azalea Campground of Kings Canyon's Grant Grove and drove four hours to Groveland, California, which is about eighteen miles from the entrance to Yosemite and then another twenty-four miles to Yosemite Valley. There were more direct roads we didn't take because they weren't recommended for RVs, so we went through a lot of farmland and saw some small towns. Then Google switched gears and directed us on some really back roads that we shouldn't have been on. This one had a few deep dips, and we scraped our back bumper on the last one. No damage, as there are tiny wheels below the bumper that help out in situations like that, but still. No low-clearance trailer should be on this road in the middle of nowhere.

We laughed at how people who live on that road probably haven't seen a car go by for fifty years until maybe eight years ago when Google started telling people how to get to places. So funny. But then we promptly stopped laughing when we got to Priest Grade.

We knew not to take Old Priest Grade. There's even a sign at the bottom that says vehicles over 7000 pounds are not recommended. So we took New Priest Grade, a road of winding switchbacks that ascends almost 2,000 feet over five miles. Brian was driving, but it was still too much for me. I was on the cliff side that, in my opinion, did not have ample guardrails. We had to maintain a decent speed to make it up the mountain, but the blind corners and turns felt like launching pads and sometimes Brian actually had to brake around them while we were going up. I was practically in his lap as I clutched and leaned into the center console, and even Elizabeth (who was behind me) was speechless and couldn't look directly out her own window. For two nights I had a hard time falling asleep, worried about going back down this road. If you want to see what it was like, there's a YouTube video of a motorcycle driving down it. New Priest Grade begins at 4:50. There's a cafe that splits the two roads; Old Priest Grade is straight ahead, and the new road goes right. He gets down the road a lot faster than we did so it won't take up too much of your time, but you may want to mute it because the motorcycle is noisy. Click Here

Once we made it to the Yosemite Pines RV Resort, we plugged in, turned on the AC, and got set up. We had some lunch, took showers, and then headed into Yosemite for our Valley Floor Tour that started at 6:00 pm. We got to the park around 4:30 and were stunned by our first views of Yosemite Valley.

We parked at the day use parking area, took a shuttle to the visitors center, and then took another shuttle to Yosemite Lodge. It felt like a scramble to get there on time, but we made it with thirty minutes to spare. We knew Yosemite Valley would be busy. After all, it's the holy grail of national parks. The entire park is about the size of Rhode Island, yet 90% of its visitors are in the valley, an area that's roughly one mile wide and thirteen miles long. Maybe it was because it was late in the day and people were heading out of the park or back to their campsites, but we found the size of the crowd to be shocking. The shuttle was filled. So were the sidewalks. So was the visitors center. Brian and I looked at each other with wide eyes and he said, "This is like Disneyland!" He didn't mean it in a good way, either. But once we took the time to review the shuttle schedules and figure out our way around this small, heavily-populated "City in Nature," we were better able to navigate and felt more confident getting to where we needed to be. Plus, we understood we were four more people contributing to the overcrowding, so we just tried to be patient and go with the flow of people traffic. Even when they were far more annoying. :)

Our tour departed from the Yosemite Lodge. Below, Elizabeth and I are on the tram and ready to go. The following are photos we took while on the tour. Now, I don't usually go for tours like this. Normally I think it's better to explore on your own for free. However, since this was our first visit to Yosemite and we had a limited amount of time, this ranger-led tram tour seemed like an efficient way to see the highlights. We sort of put rangers on a pedestal, too, so the fact that a ranger was showing us around and sharing the specifics and history of the park was a big draw. It was a very reasonable $66 for the family-of-four group rate and worth every penny (that goes to the National Park Service). It lasted two hours, made two stops--at Valley View and Tunnel View, and Ranger Jenna Wood's sincere love for this place and her job had me in tears by the end. If you go to Yosemite, we highly recommend you take this tour.

El Capitan 

Bridalveil Falls

Ranger Jenna Wood's name suits her as a park ranger.

We took several photos at Inspiration Point (Tunnel View) because it was just so beautiful, especially at that time of day.

Half Dome

Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls

mule deer in a meadow beside the tram

After the tour ended, we took a stroll from the Yosemite Lodge to the Lower Yosemite Falls Trail. It was about 8:30 pm, so there were only a handful of people around. It was like we had the whole place to ourselves, which is unheard of here at one of the most popular spots in the park.

It was getting to be later in the evening and we had a long, dark drive back to our camp, so we quickly walked past a meadow to get to our car. We happened upon another mule deer very close to us. These pictures are not taken with a telephoto lens. Brian stayed on this side of the road to snap some photos, while I dragged the kids to the other side of the street. They thought I was being ridiculous, but I didn't want anyone to get hurt. I also recently watched the viral video of the lady in Yellowstone getting run over by an elk while she was trying to take its picture. Perhaps the thought of being publicly humiliated as one of those stupid people who visits national parks outweighed the possibility of getting hurt, but does it matter? I just wanted our physical and emotional selves to be safe. And the next day on the shuttle, we saw a sign that read, "Respect Wildlife: Even deer can be aggressive if approached." So there. Six car lengths is the safe standard, folks. Listen to Mom and respect wildlife.

The following morning, we woke up early and headed into the park as soon as we could. I think we arrived around 9:00 because we wanted to hike two of the most popular trails in the park. Bridalveil Falls is just a few steps from the parking lot, so we stopped there first. So pretty! The sun hadn't hit the valley yet, so it was a little bit chilly in there. We warmed up fast on our next hike, though.

We found a parking spot at the day use area and boarded the shuttle for the visitors center and then caught the other shuttle which took us to stop #16, the Happy Isles Trailhead. Many trails begin here, including Half Dome, but we were interested in the Mist Trail that day. It's a strenuous 1.5-mile hike to the top of Vernal Falls. The first mile is a steep, paved path and then you climb 600 granite steps to the top of the falls. We kinda knew we were in for it.

Matthew, with his smaller legs and unambitious attitude, is naturally our weakest link. He wasn't having much fun on this climb, and he let us know about it as many times as he could. Brian and I took turns walking with him as the negativity can drag you down mentally when you're trying to propel yourself up a mountain. But little things like squirrels and rainbows would occasionally distract him and lift his spirits (for a few seconds at least).

When we made it 0.8 miles to the footbridge, Brian had his doubts that Matthew would make it to the top of the falls. He said nothing about it, though, so we headed onward and upward.

It was a long way up, for sure. The steps were big steps, and some were slicker than others. But the mist! By then we had worked up quite a sweat, so the mist was so refreshing to climb through. It was absolutely incredible to be so close to that waterfall.

Right about here I had a moment of complete amazement. It was surreal. The water was roaring, the mist was all around us, our legs were exhausted, and we were all out of breath, but this majestic thing of natural beauty was powerfully pushing us on. It was peaceful and thrilling at the same time.

Here we are at the top of the falls. We're blocking them. Sometimes it's hard to find a good photographer among strangers. But this photo proves we all made it!

Halfway up the trail, Brian gave Matthew the GoPro so he'd have something to do other than complain. We watched his footage yesterday. Brian got sick. hahaha

Instead of going back the way we came, we opted for the "easier" route down, the John Muir Trail. Only no one told us we'd have to climb really far again before we came back down. That was rough, especially when you've mentally told yourself you're at the top (and also told that to your kids). However, if we hadn't gone this way, we never would have seen this view of Vernal Falls. Breathtaking!

About another 1.5 miles and several hundred feet higher is Nevada Falls. That's as close as we got. The John Muir Trail meandered down to the trailhead for 2.8 miles. In the end, we'd hiked 4.5 difficult miles. I give the kids a lot of credit. Parts of it were pretty tough.

Once we made it back down to the trailhead (a hike that Matthew didn't mind in the least!), we took the shuttle back to the visitors center and had our picnic lunch. We bought some souvenirs, walked through the exhibits, and returned to our camp late in the afternoon. We were pretty spent after that hike, but as difficult as it was, we were glad we did it. We walked away with much more than sore legs and sweaty clothes. It was one of our most challenging hikes and certainly the one with the most gorgeous scenery.

Overall, we felt our time in that valley was well spent. We saw the highlights and experienced some of the best trails. We hope to go back again someday. Maybe when the kids are a little older we can make it to the top of Half Dome. Lofty goals!