RIM2RIM GRAND CANYON HIKE #3...

 We recently completed another Rim2Rim hike at the Grand Canyon - this time with another couple we've been friends with for almost 40 years!  Let me clarify, any hike where you go from the rim of the canyon down to the bottom and cross the Colorado River and back up to the rim qualifies as a Rim2Rim hike IN MY BOOK.  But, according to purists (which I have recently learned) a Rim2Rim hike across the Grand Canyon is strictly a north rim to south rim hike.  According to them, we technically did a Rim2River hike. Who really cares?  It's one challenging all-day hike!

I didn't sleep well the night before the hike, and at 2 a.m. while praying and thinking, it occurred to me that this hike was like Christmas morning to me!   The anticipation of things I knew and also a little bit of the unknown had me giddy.  All the preparations, the planning, the training we had done to be ready was about to be tested.

We hiked down from the south rim, starting at 5:20 a.m., taking South Kaibab trail down to the river, took a little side trip to Phantom Ranch, then back across the river and up the Bright Angel trail (also south side).  It was a total of 20.2 miles, and it took us about 13 hours.  We went down in the dark and came back up shortly after sunset, about 6:45 p.m. 

We enjoyed all the gifts of the canyon - the sunrise, the layers upon layers of colored rock, the textures, the varying desert plants.  Wildlife included deer, bighorn sheep, lizards, and even a condor!  The lushness of Indian Gardens is always a favorite area to hike through.  We did a little side trip to Phantom Ranch - the historic campground for over 100 years!  We ate our lunches there with other enthusiastic hikers, and bought the lemonade to drink.  Such an energetic atmosphere.  The way up Bright Angel trail proved long and arduous for me, and as the last 2 times, the last hour was especially hard.  I actually vomited on the trail.  Not sure if it was the electrolyte gummies I had been eating or just pure exhaustion at that point.  But after that I felt better, and we made it to the rim within 30 minutes!  Pure joy in that moment!  And sharing it with our friends was really a pleasure.  

One thing I have to say is all the training paid off (twice we climbed Mt. Scott and twice around Lake Hefner at home) even if I did have a moment of sickness.  I was not very sore at all the next day!  

Once again, the Grand Canyon lived up to its name.  

BEAUTIFUL PLACES IN ARKANSAS...

 My Mother had a big birthday recently, and my sister and I started taking her on little road trips every 5 years, so it was time for another!  Mom had hinted a few times about a gardener on public television, P. Allen Smith, who has a farm/home tour in Arkansas somewhere...so I researched and found out more about it several months ago.  So that became our destination!

We stopped in Fort Smith for lunch and a tour of Miss Laura's house.

Miss Laura's is the only bordello on the National Register of Historic places.  It's got an interesting history and is filled with beautiful period furniture.  It also serves as an Arkansas visitor center. We drove on to West Little Rock where we stayed in a VRBO.  

The next day we headed out into the hills past Pinnacle Mountain to Moss Mountain Farm, P. Allen's home.  Mom was so excited!  We were greeted with this amazing old post oak tree by his home.  Turns out he selected that spot to build the home because of that tree.

The home is only about 20 years old, but made to look old.  We toured inside and also the gardens outside.  All of it was very beautiful and interesting!

After touring the home and gardens, we enjoyed a wonderful lunch!

P. Allen came in after lunch and did a Q & A about roses!

The next day we went to do some things in Little Rock - the Esse purse museum was so interesting!  It had a lot more than purses. It was all about fashion through the decades.  My mother felt like she had taken a walk down memory lane!  Nearby we ate lunch and enjoyed some of the gift shops.

The Old Mill is in a lush park near downtown.  It's claim to fame is that a scene from the movie "Gone With The  Wind" was filmed here back in the 1930's.  

We went to the Bernice Garden on Sunday to see the Farmer's Market and the sculptures.  It was a nice way to end our weekend!  

It's always fun to do a little road trip with family!  

RECREATING A FAVORITE SALAD FROM ISRAEL...

 At the end of our Israel trip, we had a couple of days in Tel Aviv and got to spend a couple of hours at the Carmel Market!  It was amazing!  I had researched good restaurants nearby and found Schlomo & Doron, a high rated place for hummus, so we went there.  It was literally a hole-in-the-wall, but we could tell it would be good from the people already eating and the line that formed right after we ordered.  We didn't know what to get besides the hummus trio, so we ordered a market salad.  Turned out we liked the salad better than the hummus!  I took a picture and tried to recreate it here at home.  Here's my recipe!  

Isn't it pretty!  

TOUR OF ISRAEL WITH A SIDE OF COVID...

 I had always planned to travel to Israel and see biblical sights "someday."  After The Hubs got turned on to the BEMA discipleship podcast, and found out the host also takes groups to Israel for a study tour, he was ready to go!  We started planning to go with his brother and sister-in-law about a year ago.  It was interesting to me as the host had homework for us to complete, to get more out of the trip.  I actually really enjoyed it! 

Trip day finally came in March after much preparation! We had to have special paperwork filled out to enter Israel, in addition to a negative Covid test 48 hours before we left and upon arrival at the airport.  All that done, we got down to enjoying the sights, the teaching from our host and our Israeli tour guide, and getting to know the 50 others on our bus who all love BEMA discipleship and Jesus! 

Our host and teacher - first lesson at the Standing Stones

Honestly, the community we had on the trip was a great benefit I did not anticipate.  It was like being at church camp for 2 weeks!  We had connected via a private Facebook group before the trip and our host would occasionally post informational videos on there for us.  So it helped to see all the folks from all over the US +2 foreign countries that were going on the trip.  We all really bonded during the two weeks.  I made a friend from Ohio and we took selfies together every day!

Me and my friend from Ohio

We traveled from the southern tip of the Dead Sea and the desert to the green hills of Galilee where Jesus spent most of his ministry.  We saw the caves of Ein Gedi where David hid from Saul and the caves near the Dead Sea at Qumran where the Dead Sea scrolls were found.  We trekked through fields, up hills and in caves for lessons.  A boat ride on the Sea of Galilee was surreal to think about Jesus taking the same route. We saw the most likely place where the Demoniac was healed and the pigs ran off the cliff into the Sea of Galilee.  We saw a lot of ruins and beautiful green hills and valleys.  Oddly enough, Jerusalem was not my favorite.  It is a big city with lots of people and lots of guesses of where Jesus might have actually been.  And according to archaeology, so many civilizations are built on top of one another who really knows?  But it is interesting to see the geography of the land, preserved ruins of ancient cities, and how Judaism and Christianity has impacted this place.  

Camels in the desert!

Site of an ancient city - Gamla - where many battles were fought

Temple of Pan at Caesarea Phillippi

Synagogue remains

Taking a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee!

A lesson in a cave like Jesus could have been born in...

On top of Masada, Herod's masterpiece

Ruins of Bet Shean

Floating in the Dead Sea (me on the right)

The Hubs and twin brother at Ein Gedi

The Hubs developed a cough after the first week and declared it, a "cold."  Several days later, I thought I had allergies to something that was blooming.  Sure enough, when we were tested the night before our flight home, we were positive for Covid.  No one else in our group was.  We had all worn masks on our bus.  Who knew?  We didn't feel that bad.  But we had to quarantine.  

We had gotten trip insurance thank goodness!  We also had a woman from the tour company to walk us through the necessary steps needed in this situation.  After we were tested we were immediately sent to our room and someone would bring us dinner.  We were taken by ambulance the next day to the official Covid hotel.  I was hoping for a balcony, but no such luck.  We were required to stay in our room for 7 days or be fined.  The room was somewhat dingy, but not horrible.  We had a gorgeous view of the Mount of Olives and Mount Zion. Meals came to our door 3 times a day.  It was always interesting to see what our Kosher meals would be!  After a couple of days, we fell into a routine and kept ourselves busy exercising, washing clothes in the bathtub, playing cards, watching the world outside our window, watching TV and checking social media.  Our son even sent us a puzzle and pie via an Israeli delivery service!

Awesome view out our window

On the 7th day, we got the green light to go and headed to Tel Aviv!  We were excited to spend the weekend there by the beach, eating WHATEVER we wanted and walking around freely!!!  It also made a lot of sense, being closer to the airport and waiting for an email to come in from the Ministry of Health.  It turned out pretty well - we got to Tel Aviv in time on Friday to enjoy the Carmel Market.  We ate some delicious food and gelato.  We walked the beach too.  Saturday we walked about 15 minutes down the coast to Old Jaffa port.  It's a photographer's dream!  Loved the old city and the fishing port that is one of the oldest in the world.  

Olives at Carmel Market

Old Jaffa

Tel Aviv high rises from Old Jaffa

So many picturesque doorways in Old Jaffa!

Our 3 week adventure finally ended on Sunday when we got to fly home.  It was a wonderful learning experience in many ways.  And exhausting and spiritually challenging.  Praise God we weren't too sick when we got the dreaded Covid!

 

RASPBERRY CHEESECAKE COOKIE CREATION...

I hosted a wedding shower recently, and had asked the bride what kind of goodies she liked.  We tried to make all her wishes come true with this spread!  She said she liked Chocolate chip cookies and berries.  

We had blonde brownies, chocolate chip cookies, berry cups, pink flower sugar cookies, and raspberry cheesecake cookies! I had the idea for raspberry cheesecake cookies when I tried a new icing recipe with cream cheese in it, and it seemed way too rich.  Then I decided to try it on a very plain sugar cookie and topped it with a raspberry and Voila!  Raspberry cheesecake cookies.  They were pretty and delicious!  Here's the recipes:

Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies

8 oz. cream cheese

2 sticks butter

3/4 cup sugar

2 3/4 cup flour

1 t. almond extract 

Mix all ingredients and chill overnight.  Roll out and cut into shapes.  Bake on middle rack in a 400 degree oven for 7-8 minutes.  Try not to let the edges brown.  Frost when cooled. 

I used this recipe for frosting from Pinterest and added a few drops of red food coloring into it to get the pink hue.  I used an M tip and piped it onto the cookies in a rosette shape.  These cookies do need to be refrigerated because of the cream cheese in the frosting.  

Finally, about an hour before the party, I rinsed raspberries and let them dry on a paper towel.  Then I carefully pushed one into the middle of each cookie.  They were beautiful and tasty with the tart raspberry and the sweet cream cheese frosting on the plain shortbread type cookie.

The whole table - I got this fun picture with the groom and all the hostesses!  He had arrived before the bride at the start of the shower and we thought it was funny.  They're a sweet couple.