Continuing with my 2025 recap! In April, I took a quick trip to Victoria, Canada to visit my brother and his family. I found it really interesting that I got an empty row on both my inbound and outbound flights! Amazing. 😀 Victoria is such a pretty city! Its roots go back to England and you can see many British influences all around the city, including FLOWERS, tea shops, and gardens. I enjoyed hanging out with my family, visiting cool coffee shops and bakeries, and taking long walks to enjoy all the lovely flowers.

In May, I did 2 fun day trips. The first one was to (finally!) ride at Bean Peaks in Prescott. This is a fun trail system that is modeled after conventional bike parks. That is, most of the trails are “gravity fed,” i.e., downhill! The main difference is that in order to get to the downhill trails, you have to pedal your way up, instead of taking the chair lift up to the top. Bean Peaks is great for all riding levels, as the trails are flowy and smooth. I had a fun day with my friends Janey and Keeley and we appreciated getting out of the Phoenix heat and riding new trails.

My second May day trip (ha, that sounds funny!) was a hike at Horton Creek with my friend Kate. Horton Creek is quickly becoming one of my favourite areas to visit because it is just so pretty and features a waterfall! We had a gorgeous day and basically had the area all to ourselves. Kate’s dog, Jasper, also had a great time running circles around us and checking out all the foliage. The hike itself is a pretty mellow 8 miles with enough elevation gain to earn a decent lunch. 🙂

In June, I went on another 2 day trips. Phoenix starts to really heat up in June, so getting out of town is welcome relief. Last year, I rode the Full Sail trail in Flagstaff for the first time and it was so fun, I knew I had to ride it again soon. However, “soon” turned out to be “a year later,” due to schedules and availability. This year, I got to show Janey Full Sail and we both had a blast riding a well designed downhill trail! The uphill riding to get to the start of the downhill wasn’t too bad, since we parked at a different trailhead than where I parked last year. That was a good move on my part because we “only” had to ride uphill for 3 miles instead of 8 miles and could do laps. Beautiful day with good company!

Ah, Humphreys Peak. I’ve hiked Humphreys annually for almost 10 years! I normally hike this with my friend Crystal (for example, see this post), but this year, she couldn’t make it. So, my SAT (self-appointed trainer and husband) joined me this year and we used the opportunity to make this hike our one and only big training hike for our upcoming Colorado trip (more on that in the next blog post!). For the uninitiated, the Humphreys hike is about 10 miles (16 km) round trip in distance and around 4000 feet of gain (1200 m). Because my SAT and I have high altitude hiking experience, I knew that we wouldn’t be adversely affected by altitude sickness. However, since we weren’t in top hiking shape, I wondered how we would withstand the day. (We were fine!) Our hike was great, weather was perfect, and we got to escape the Phoenix oven for a few hours, which is always a treat in summer!

Thanks for sticking with me so far! Here’s a bonus picture of a pretty sunflower to end this installment of my midyear and the first half of 2025. Stay tuned for the third and final installment of my midyear recap!