Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for August, 2017

San Diego Tourist Run

Posted in Running, tagged , , , , on August 28, 2017| 2 Comments »

First things first — happy 46th birthday to me! My day started off right with coffee brought to me by my husband at 6:30 this morning — French press with a splash of almond milk, just how I like it! I’ve snuggled my dog Roxy and now I’ve got one of my three cats — Willow — helping me type this post. Mainly the day will involve school drop offs and pickups (with a bonus “hey Mama I forgot my math homework on the counter, can you please drop it off for me?” drive to the junior high school. I know there are people who refuse to drop off forgotten homework because they believe kids need to learn things the hard way, but I’m one of those people who is happy to drop off the homework if I have time to do so, with one little catch — it will cost my kid an equivalent amount of time in chores around the house. If it takes me 30 minutes to drop off your homework, you owe me 30 minutes of unloading the dishwasher and emptying all the trash cans in the house! Frankly I think I’m getting the better end of the deal!)

What I really wanted to tell you about though is my quick trip to San Diego this weekend to see my brother-in-law and his family. I got to meet my 7-month-old niece for the first time and play with my two-and-a-half year old nephew. And of course while I was there, I took advantage of my favorite way to explore a city — I went for an hour-long run around Point Loma out to Shelter Island and back.

IMG_5596

I happened upon a short section of trail on Point Loma with beautiful views of San Diego Bay.

I loved that I was out for a run at 10 a.m. and yet it was overcast and cool with a slight breeze! I wish I were there now, given that it’s going to be over 100 degrees for several days this week in Southern California.

I ran without a watch and just meandered around town, enjoying the sights like these gorgeous ruffly blossoms on a tree:

FullSizeRender-3

Anyone know what kind of tree this is? I want to grow one!

And here’s a sight you don’t see every day — two women setting up for belly dancing lessons under this awesome concrete sculpture:

IMG_5602

While I enjoyed the overcast skies on my run, I was glad the sun came out so we could enjoy sailing on a boat on San Diego Bay.

IMG_5603

Hello, gorgeous! The view of downtown San Diego and the bay from the balcony of the house where we stayed on Point Loma.

We saw many sea lions and seals hanging out on the buoys in the bay, and got a front row seat to an impromptu air show as fighter jets took off one after the other from the naval air station.

It was a whirlwind trip, driving down Saturday night, running and sailing on Sunday during the day, and driving home late Sunday night, that makes the whole weekend seem surreal. Good thing I’ve got the pictures to prove it happened. I sure am lucky and feeling blessed on my birthday this year!

Do you run when you are on vacation or do you take a “vacation” from running when you travel? 

 

 

 

Read Full Post »

Fresh Tomato Sauce Recipe

Posted in Gardening, Recipes, tagged , , , , , , on August 21, 2017| 1 Comment »

Besides running, one of the hobbies I am passionate about is gardening! The problem is that passion does not necessarily translate into talent. This is the first year that I managed to dial in the formula for a truly successful tomato crop (dig at least six inches into the top soil and mix in compost in a 1:1 ratio with the soil, then add a little EB Stone Organic Sure Start Fertilizer (affiliate link). About six weeks later or when the fruit first starts to set, sprinkle on a little more fertilizer.) And voila:

tomato row

Plants so tall and laden with fruit I had to tie the row up with twine!

I usually harvest the tomatoes before they’re fully ripe and let them ripen on the counter, just so the pill bugs and other critters in my garden don’t get at the tomatoes before I do. So you can see tomatoes in various stages of ripening in this food art arrangement my 9-year-old made the other day with the harvest:

Food art harvest

Yes those are mini pumpkins, harvested in July because they grew as renegades in my compost pile. The harvest also includes lemons, limes, apples, and red and green grapes.

I’ve been using up a lot of tomatoes with this super easy blender salsa recipe from Yummy Mummy Kitchen, but I also wanted to try to make fresh tomato sauce for the first time ever. I ended up adapting and combining several recipes from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian for what I consider a delicious fresh tomato sauce with garlic, onions, and fresh herbs.

Read on to see how to turn this:

IMG_5556

Into this:

IMG_5494

Fresh Tomato Sauce Recipe

Prep time: 20-30 minutes depending on how aggressive you are peeling the tomatoes

Cook time: 15 minutes

Ingredients

4 cups ripe fresh tomatoes (peeled, seeded and chopped)
1 large yellow onion (chopped)
4 T olive oil
10 cloves garlic (minced)
5 whole bay leaves (optional)
1/2 cup fresh basil (chopped)
1/2 cup fresh parsley (chopped)
2 T fresh rosemary (chopped) (optional)
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste (I used 1/2 t each)

Directions

1. Heat olive oil in a large skillet (if you use a cast iron pan, bonus points and bonus iron for you — the acidity of the tomatoes will leach some iron out of the pan) on medium high heat.

2. Brown the onion for 2 minutes, then add the garlic for one more minute.

3. Add the tomatoes, salt and pepper, and bay leaves if desired. Heat to bubbling, then turn down to low to simmer for 15 minutes.

4. Add the basil, parsley and rosemary as desired and simmer just to warm. Remove bay leaves.

5. If you want a smooth sauce, let the sauce cool and then puree it in a blender, or transfer the hot sauce to a large pot and use a stick blender to puree.

Makes 8 servings. Recipe doubles easily.

Read Full Post »

Hiking Mt. Baldy at Night to See the Sunrise

Posted in Family life, hiking, Trails, tagged , , , , , , , , , on August 14, 2017| 7 Comments »

My husband Mike and I have a long history of crazy outdoor sports adventures over our 29 years together (next year we celebrate the 30th anniversary of our first date as high school sweethearts!) Riding mountain bikes 17.5 miles around the single track Potawatomi Trail in Pinckney Recreation Area in Michigan? No problem! Snowshoeing up Mount Kearsarge in the White Mountains in New Hampshire? We were back in time for a delicious dinner at the hotel. Flying in a glider over Oahu? Um, yes, but maybe not so many acrobatic tricks? Cross-country skiing all 21 miles roundtrip to Glacier Point and back in Yosemite National Park? I cross-country skied as a kid in the midwest, surely I could make it? (We did make it, but I have never been so sore in my life – worse than post-marathon soreness). Scuba diving in the Pacific Ocean off Kauai? No need for prior experience! Waterskiing behind our very own jet boat on Lake Mohave on the Colorado River? The cold water took my breath away but we loved it. Riding 34 miles on the Kal-Haven rail trail from Kalamazoo to South Haven in one day, staying overnight at a hotel and riding 34 miles back the next day? The hotel shuttle driver thought for sure we would be begging for a ride back and he could charge us an exorbitant fare, but the bike ride back the second day might have been easier than the first day’s ride!

So when Mike suggested that we hike Mt. Baldy (more formally known as Mount San Antonio) in the dark at 1 a.m. so we could view the Perseid meteor shower and then watch the sunrise from the peak, I readily agreed. We had hiked Mt. Baldy once before in the daytime in August 2015 and even dragged along our daughters who were 7, 10, and 13 at the time (pro tip (actually, crazy amateur tip): 7 is a little young to hike Mt. Baldy – not only is it a long day trip, but I had to keep a literal death grip on my 7-year-old’s hand to keep her from slipping off the Devil’s Backbone and other treacherous sections of the trail). Mt. Baldy stands out as the highest peak in the San Gabriel Mountains.

I set my alarm for 11:30 p.m. and tried unsuccessfully to go to bed at 8:30 p.m. We got out the door by midnight and arrived at 1 a.m. at Manker Campground and the trailhead (we chose to walk up the fire access road to the Ski Hut Trail, across Baldy Bowl to the summit, then loop back down across Devil’s Backbone to the Baldy Notch, where you can take a chairlift down to save yourself four miles of hiking). The hike up from the trailhead to the peak is four-and-a-half miles but we managed to add nearly half a mile when we lost the trail in the dark a couple of times. With snack stops and meteor-viewing breaks, it took us four hours to reach the summit at 10,064 feet. We had to hang out there for an hour before the sunrise, and unfortunately it was windy and cold at the peak. This was the view for the entire hour before the sun rose up over the horizon:

Pre-dawn on Mount Baldy summit

And here is the sunrise at about 6 a.m.:

Mt. Baldy sunrise

We were grateful to see the sun come up not so much for the colorful sunrise display as for the warmth the sun brought!

At 6:40 a.m. we started our descent along the Devil’s Backbone. There are some hazardous sections along the ridge, but they seemed easy compared to the hike up in the dark!

IMG_7881

My 15-year-old and me on the Devil’s Backbone trail

At certain points it felt like we were on another planet with the sparse, rocky terrain above the tree line.

Devil's Backbone trail

We reached the lodge at Baldy Notch three miles later in about 1 hour 50 minutes. We paid $15 each for a one-way ticket down the chairlift (not that they checked that we paid, but I was happy to be honest about it). Then we had a half-mile walk back to our car at the trailhead. We ended up hiking a total of about nine miles in six-and-a-half hours. We did several things right (took maps of the trail, appropriate hiking boots, packs, headlamps with extra batteries, and plenty of water, juice, Gatorade and snacks), and learned that we should prepare better for severe cold and winds on the summit.

If you want to do this hike, either in the daytime or at night, do your homework by reading all about the trails on hiking sites like Trail to Peak, and be sure to check the weather conditions not for the village of Mt. Baldy but for the summit itself! This hike is best done in summer when all the snow has melted, but serious mountaineers do attempt it in the winter. Sadly, there have been several deaths on Mount Baldy in the past few winters.

Stay tuned for more posts on mountaineering, because my 15-year-old and I are training to hike Mount Whitney (the highest peak in the 48 contiguous states) next summer! We are taking an informational class at REI (not an affiliate link) in September to learn how to apply for a hiking permit and what exactly we need to do to get ready. And as part of our training, we are hoping to run a marathon together in the spring (maybe the Eugene Marathon? Most marathons require the entrants to be at least 16 years of age so we are looking at races in late April or early May 2018).

Have you hiked Mt. Baldy or Mt. Whitney? Ever run the Eugene Marathon? Thoughts and opinions please!

 

Read Full Post »