Mid-year recap, part 1/3

July 27, 2025July 27, 2025 ~ reluctantroadie ~ Leave a comment

Hello, dear readers! I say this every year, but….really….THIS year has gone by SO FAST! I am yet again woefully behind on updating this blog, but I shouldn’t complain because I get to do some cool, fun things. Let’s jump right into recapping 2025!

January in the desert is lovely. It’s cool and one can get outside whenever one wants. Unlike summer in the desert, in the winter, there’s no rush to get outside at dark o’clock in the morning to “take advantage” of the “cool weather” at 5am. Most of you know that I am NOT a morning person and prefer to get as much beauty sleep as possible! 🙂

I started 2025 with a fun ladies’ theme ride: New Year’s sparkle! The next major event for me this month was a local, homegrown mountain bike festival called Hawesfest, which took place at the Hawes trail system in east Mesa. I volunteered at the Hawesfest “kitchen” with my friends Vicki, Tawnia, and Scott and we worked our buns off (pun intended) ensuring that all Hawesfest riders got lunch!

*Mountain bike gals posing in their sparkly best!*

February’s trip was a weekend getaway to Bisbee, AZ. I’ve wanted to visit Bisbee for a long time because of the artsy vibe to the town and the famous “Bisbee 1000 Stair Climb.” My SAT (self-appointed trainer) and I hiked the Stair Climb race course and had a fun time finding all 9 staircases. Another cool thing to do while in Bisbee is to drive over to Erie Street, which has been preserved as a quasi-museum of classic 1950’s cars and storefronts. In between all the hiking and sightseeing, we enjoyed some great food, some of which was at Cafe Roka. 10/10 recommend!

*We had dinner our first night at Cafe Roka — highly recommend!*

March is birthday month! My annual Sedona birthday weekend this year turned into “Snowdona” because of a huge dump of snow that weekend. However, that snow only dampened our boots (and not our spirits). We pivoted our plans to include more hiking and less mountain biking, due to the very muddy trails, and took advantage of our amazing Airbnb to cook and eat lots of yummy food (including birthday cake!) and spend some quality girl time. Fun fact: this annual birthday weekend celebrates 5 of us!

A couple weeks later, I got to hike Picketpost Mountain with my friend, Gladys. This is a hike I’ve been wanting to do for a long time and the stars finally aligned for Gladys and I to hike this fun trail together. She is very knowledgeable about the trails and hikes in the Superstition Mountains and I felt very lucky to benefit from her guiding expertise! Just take a look at the views from the top! Although the trail isn’t long, there is enough uphill to make this hike a great workout. I enjoyed the scrambling near the top and loved soaking in the views at the top.

*RIght before we got to the trailhead, we passed some friends who were doing a backpacking overnighter in the same area!*

Stay tuned for a couple more recaps in the next week! Until then, get outside. 🙂

Another catch-up post!

April 10, 2024April 10, 2024 ~ reluctantroadie ~ Leave a comment

I say this every year, but how is time going by so quickly? It’s already the middle of April! So far, 2024 hasn’t been too bad. It’s been full of much of the same things as last year: work, cats, riding bikes. However, one new unwelcome development is my recent tennis elbow diagnosis (or, as the medical types call it, “lateral elbow tendinopathy“). That diagnosis has forced me to dial back the intensity of the trails I ride and the frequency I ride. Bummer. However, I’ve been seeing a physical therapist for the past month and am seeing improvement, so I’m trying to take some comfort in that. Being patient is NOT a strength of mine!

On to happier things….last month, I got to do my now-annual Sedona weekend with some friends. There are a handful of us who have March birthdays and we’ve made a weekend celebration a tradition. This year, the weather was on the cloudy / rainy side, but that did not dampen our spirits a bit. Most of us arrived in Sedona early enough on the Friday to take a hike and promptly got drenched. It rained SO HARD! The trails dried up enough overnight though, so we got to ride the rest of the weekend. I’m so grateful for my “girl gang” and always have such a fun time with them! We booked a fantastic Airbnb and had a blast cooking, eating, watching stand-up comedy shows on Netflix, and just hanging out. Happy birthday to us, indeed!

*Coffee Pot mountain! We hiked around this on Friday afternoon…in the RAIN…*

Things coming up on the horizon include a White Rim trip next month and a Colorado trip this summer to celebrate a big anniversary. 🙂 I hope you all are enjoying a lovely spring!

Birthday bike bash

March 19, 2022 ~ reluctantroadie ~ Leave a comment

One of the things I wanted to do to celebrate my birthday this year is ride my bike in Sedona. I invited a few friends to join me and we happily planned 2 loops to ride, totalling 15 miles. We rode the “Rabbit Ears” loop first, which is a 7 mile loop with a good climb in the first half and a fun descent in the second half. I think the name “Rabbit Ears” comes from a tall rock formation that *could* be interpreted as a pair of rabbit’s ears. There wasn’t anything super technical about this loop, which is a nice way to start a day of riding. Weather was perfect and spirits were high as we drank in the beauty of our surroundings. After we finished the loop, we enjoyed some homemade brownies and other snacks.

The second loop, which included the Slim Shady, Templeton, and Easy Breezy trails, was more technical and I was happy to observe that I rode all of the features! It’s always encouraging to have some solid evidence of progress. A couple of the drops I rode were more steep than I anticipated, but my riding technique was solid enough that I didn’t panic and crash. 🙂 The day was a really memorable one and I enjoyed spending some great biking time with some wonderful friends. One friend, Gladys, even brought some wine and we all toasted to a great day and even better year. Sedona is such a fun place to visit and it’s convenient that it’s only a 2 hour drive away from me. I’ll be coming back again!

Me, Vanessa, and Jess. All of our birthdays are in March, so “my” birthday ride was kind of shared with them. 🙂

Freefalling….

March 16, 2015March 16, 2015 ~ reluctantroadie ~ 1 Comment

I have been thinking about how I want to direct the content of this blog, now that the original purpose for its existence is fulfilled. I believe that I will still be pursuing adventures in my leisure time, ones that include hiking, rock scrambling, rock climbing (hopefully soon), camping, and yes, cycling. Until my next big adventure, I want to share the wonderful day that my SAT planned for me this weekend to celebrate my birthday. Everything about the day was a surprise. The first thing I was told to do on Friday night was to go to bed early, because we “had to meet some people at 6:30am.” My first thought was that we were going to go on a long, difficult hike that required a very early start. Cool! So, we went to bed early and got up just after 5am. (Yes, that hurt a little bit.) As we were driving to the yet-unknown destination, I tried to guess where we were going to hike.

~~~~~~~

Me: “Well, we’re not going to Red Rock, since we’re passing the exit…”

SAT: [smug grin]

A few moments later….

Me: “Maybe we’re doing Black Mountain?”

SAT: [smirk]

Upon spotting the signs directing the way to Boulder City….

Me: “We’re SKYDIVING??”

SAT: [guffawing with laughter]

~~~~~~~

A long time ago, back when we were both barely of legal age, I said that I wanted to skydive and would totally do it with my SAT. He remembered this and filed it away for an opportune moment. That moment had arrived. The whole skydiving experience was excellent and the instructors at Skydiving Las Vegas had everything down to a science. Upon our arrival at 6:30am, we were given paperwork to complete in a small room that also had a short training video playing. After running through some basic body positions (cross arms before jumping, banana position while in the air, etc.), we changed into our jumpsuits and got into the plane. I immediately noticed that I was the last of our group to enter the plane (the lightest person in the group gets on the plane last and is seated at the back, near the wings), which meant that I would be the FIRST to jump. On the bright side, I had the best seat on the plane, as I was right beside the exit door and windows, which gave me great views.

(Photos 1-2: Beautiful views of Lake Mead. Photo 3: With my jump instructor, John.)

About 10 minutes or so before jumping, John opened the exit door to give me a breath of fresh air:

(This just got real.)

Just about to jump! Note my SAT in the background, grinning like a fool. He was looking forward to seeing me jump:

I was NOT ready to jump at all. John told me to cross my arms, bend my legs backward toward the plane, and “…are you READY? LET’S GO!!!!” and he pushed us out of the plane before my brain realized what was happening! The actual falling-out-of-the-plane part wasn’t scary and there wasn’t that weird stomach-in-throat sensation because you’re falling at the same speed as the wind and plane (100+ mph). I found it difficult to breathe because of the wind pushing against my chest and face. The instructors will tell you to scream, as that helps you to breathe! (I didn’t scream, though.) Freefalling lasted about 8 seconds, then John pulled the chute open, which jerked us upwards. After that, everything was quiet because there wasn’t any wind and we were just floating.

(Just after jumping!)

(Yahoo!)

(My SAT is stoked!)

(Checking out the views.)

All too soon, it was time to land. John told me to bring my legs up as we approached the ground:

(Photo 1: Touchdown! Photo 2: Back on solid ground.)

I would TOTALLY do that again. Super fun! I can’t describe the sensation of freefalling or floating, but it was definitely the closest I’ll come to being a bird in flight. My SAT did a fabulous job of surprising me!

But wait! Since we were finished so early, we decided to head back home and go for a hike for real. I suggested we hike the ridgeline on the mountain across from our place, so that’s what we did. Here are a few pictures from that little adventure:

(Top of first summit!)

(Our hike continued to the next two summits you see in the right half of the photo.)

(Fortunate to enjoy rugged hiking right across the street!)

Finally, to cap off all that fun adventuring, we enjoyed a lovely dinner on the Strip. Perfect day and wonderful memories made that will last a lifetime!

(Hey, we’re not wearing our cycling clothes!)

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