Eat, Soak, Yoga

A Circular Mark Used By Early Native Cultures To Direct Wandering Tribes to the Hot Springs

“Arsenic Mineral Pool” the sign reads.  Can that be true?  I am sitting in steaming hot springs, trying to read a posted sign under the light of a shining full moon.  Just to be sure, I slipped from the 105 degree waters to get closer.  Sure enough, the only known one of its kind in North America - possibly for good reason.  But according to the brochure, “Arsenic is a powerful and beneficial element in trace levels, as found in this pool.  It is supposed to help arthritis, rheumatism, burns, eczema, contusions and even stomach ulcers, especially when taken internally (which I did not!). It comes out of the ground at about 113 degrees but cools to about 105 degree in the open-air pool.”  Hmm… I distinctly remember that it was arsenic that did the job on the bad guys in “Arsenic and Old Lace”.  Maybe I’ll just stay in for a few minutes and switch to the “Iron Pool” which I figure worse case will give me Popeye biceps without the spinach.     

The Arsenic and Mud Pools

The Iron Pool

These hot spring mineral waters are just one of the reasons I am here in Ojo Caliente.  Karen Voepel, a friend and yoga instructor invited me to attend her annual yoga/hiking/gourmet food/wonderful women retreat here in the Georgia O’Keefe country of northern New Mexico. 

Sorry guys, but sometimes women like to get away and connect with women friends, practice yoga, hike, cook together, and, get ready for this one….expand our personal universe with some meditative thinking.  If you can do all this in a hot springs spa setting during a full moon among the sandstone cliffs of Northern New Mexico, so much the better.

You probably caught that word, “spa”.  You all know that the word “Spa” and Julie are usually never used in the same sentence.  I buy most of my clothes online from REI or Cabelas type stores and own only one skirt to which I do have matching shoes.  But no, Ojo is my type of spa.  Ojo is not lavish. It has a certain quirkiness that makes you smile and let go of any preconceived notions about what a spa involves. We wore our robe and flip-flops for the short walk from our group adobe lodge to the mineral pools and spa area.  As one of our group said,  “it feels really liberating to go around in public wearing a robe.” 

Yoga In A Yurt

And freedom from all the hectic things we schedule for ourselves is what a women's retreat is all about.  Morning yoga practice in the yurt followed by hot spring soaks.  Hikes among the sandstone cliffs and Indian ruins.  Followed by hot spring soaks.  Homemade gourmet dinners with eleven fabulous and fun women.  Yes.  All followed by hot spring soaks.

So much of yoga practice seems to draw directly from nature (common poses are named for animals, trees, mountains and crescent moons), practitioners often say that doing yoga outside allows for deeper connections.  I think it is true – the eleven of us felt like we’d known each other since highschool – though most of us had just met.  Yoga, full moon, hot springs, great connections, gourmet food made by the group….  “Women’s yoga retreat” and Julie will definitely be used in the same sentence again.  Maybe “Spa” too!    

Full Moon Ojo Caliente

Hiking the Grand Canyon - Sweat Equity

Julie C. and Julie B.  return just at the storm hits South Rim

With my free left hand, I grab at scraggly weeds protruding from the towering red cliffs behind me.  With my other hand I clutch my trusty walking stick for support as a mule team blusters its way around us on the trail.  Bored and burdened, these mules feel a strong sense of entitlement when it comes to trail sharing.   

 Julie C. at the Colorado River 

Hiking the Grand Canyon seemed like the right answer to lift my spirits.  My husband Glen had just set off for a month long International Red Cross disaster volunteer assignment to Sierra Leone.   I was in need of that magical feeling I get when totally immersed in Nature.  A super-fit hiking friend, whose name is also Julie, was up for adventure and we were off. 

Julie C. soaking at Indian Gardens creek

 Peering down from the South Rim the evening before our hike was a bit intimidating.  Our hiking plan was to hike down 9.9 miles to Phantom Ranch the first day, descending 4,500 vertical feet in elevation.   The second day we would use Phantom Ranch as our base and explore some short, inner canyon trails so our muscles wouldn’t seize up and because, well, ….how often do you get to have a day to explore the very heart of the Grand Canyon.  
 

Now, what you see peering over the Rim is awesome.  But make no mistake: the views, scenery and emotion that opens up as you descend to the Colorado River are unmatched.  Julie and I stop at Indian Gardens  half-way rest stop to soak our feet in the stream and snack on trail mix.  This mid canyon perspective - when you're deep into the colorful strata of erosion, but can still see the massive canyon sprawling above and below and to the sides - is the highlight of a rim-to-river trek.  Julie and I took turns listening to each other’s awestruck exclamations as we turned corners and saw new wonders.  But nothing can prepare you for a totally different kind of wonder; the amazing place called Phantom Ranch. 

Cozy Cabins On Bright Angel Creek

Canteen Menu - Beer, Wine and Trail Mix Top Sellers

Rustic as it may be, at the end of a hot and long hike,  Phantom Ranch looms more luxurious than the finest hotel.  After more than six hot and dusty hours on the trail, Julie and I claimed bottom bunks in the dorm and jettisoned our backpacks on the wall pegs.  Amazed by the flush toilet, shower and mirror (yikes!) I had to learn more about how this enclave called Phantom Ranch came to be. 

Julie C. Surveying the Splendor

Phantom Ranch lies beside Bright Angel Creek, a ways past the Colorado River. When Grand Canyon National Park was designated in 1919, its concessionaire was the Fred Harvey Co., who appointed Mary Jane Colter to design permanent buildings for tourists at the Canyon's bottom. She designed cabins and lodges using smooth river rocks and simple wood trim. Her style blended with the surroundings and became a national park standard.

More Than Their Fair Share of Trail

 Through the '20s, the ranch's guest book saw the names of America's brave and wealthy. When the Great Depression hit, the land across Bright Angel Creek became a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp. Workers planted more trees and trails throughout the Canyon were improved.

Forward to 2012.  In the 100 degree heat of August, Julie and I and about 100 other trail-weary hikers and campers found cool refuge in the massive cottonwood and sycamore trees that now sprawl between creek and cliffs. At one end of an open area, park rangers offer interpretive talks. At the other end stands the Canteen. Meals are served family style, and we enjoyed Hiker Stew with salad, and chocolate cake.  Calories don’t count after a hike like that.  In the morning, pancakes, bacon and scrambled eggs are a bit heavy but irresistible for our bonus day of inner canyon exploring. When the sun is high the canteen tables are full with hikers from all over the world who drink beer in the cool and share tales of their trips. After dinner, the dining room transforms into a sort of hikers’, canyon-bottom club with games of cribbage and checkers. 

Hikers Stew - House Specialty

But the best show at night is looking up.  We sit on the benches built in the 1930s by Depression era workers who enjoyed the very same show with the same original night soundtrack; moonlit canyon walls, crickets and bats chirping, mules braying and Bright Angel Creek gurgling by.  The climb out WILL be tough.  But the last night there was nothing better than to sit and enjoy our hard earned sweat equity!





A Happy Hiker

Mules At Rest Plotting the Overthrow of Hikers
 

In Coaster Brakes Country

Plenty of Working Windmills in Holland

“What are you doing down there?” Glen asked in alarm.  We were just out the door of the train station where we had picked up our big, Dutch bicycles.  “Looking for my hand brakes” I answered.   Glen should have been happy that I sacrificed myself instead of plowing into his bike from the rear.  Instead I chose to crash into a portable barricade that was now toppled onto my bike – now both laying on top of me right outside the entrance to the Central Train Station. The lovely Dutch people exiting the station sprang to my aid, clucking and looking extremely worried about my future on the bike paths of the Netherlands. 

Maybe the Babysitter Didn't Show Up!

Back in Arizona it had seemed like a pretty simple plan.  “Flat,” I told Glen.  “Flat with bike paths all over the place.   Along the canals, in the cities, from town to town.  Windmills along the way, tulips growing wild in the fields, the occasional cows and tall, beautiful people who love to speak English and welcome travelers into their homes for B&B.  And cheese.  Delicious cheese.”

Our guidebook assured us that we were in bike friendly territory and that every train station in every town rents bikes for something like 6 Euro a day.  We also checked out slick internet sites that boasted countless and beautiful 10- 20 mile loops that we could do as day trips.  So we gave up on the advance details and rented bikes in historic Haarlem - “our town” in the Netherlands.  



Cycling Along the Dunes of North Sea



Glen and I love to ride our bikes at home.  We ride them for fun, for transportation, and occasionally for shopping.  We figured it would be no problem translating those basic skills in a flat, cool bike culture.  The reality of things were somewhat startling however.  

First off,  the bikes are way different than our bikes at home.  Dutch bikes are heavy and built to last.  Our B&B host told us that her bike was over 30 years old and was her primary transportation.  She doesn’t even own a car. 

Julie Before the Fall

These bikes are also very big, tall and hardy.  Black, mostly, or spray painted some crazy color.  No gear shifts.  Rust on the fenders.  High handlbars with a large, colorful basket.  Wide, fat tires.  And here is the most important part -  coaster brakes.  The bicycle you learned to ride on felt like this.  That is how I found myself tangled up “right out of the chute” as we say in Arizona.  Searching for nonexistent hand brakes in a coaster brake culture. 

Bike Parking At A Train Station

Riding bikes in the Netherlands is not for the uninitiated.   Americans with visions of canals and tulips and windmills in their heads need to take a couple days to figure it all out by carefully observing.   The intersections have three sets of traffic signals: lighted spheres for the automobiles, lighted walking men for the pedestrians and lighted bicycles for you. On many streets you get your own lane, too, with its own yellow lane divider. This would make your inaugural bicycle ride quite charming and tranquil except for the motorcycles and the buses and the delivery trucks and the map-reading tourists and the

Our B&B Headquarters Haarlem

honking Smart cars and the ambulances going eeee-ooo-eeee-ooo (like from the Ann Frank movie!) and the other bicycles silently bearing down on you from behind…. At times it was scary as hell.     

We Never Found Out What This Meant!

While on our bikes we were commonly overtaken by the following type persons, all of whom pedaled  aggressively and glided past us like we were standing still: leggy blond Amazon women in miniskirts and four-inch platform shoes; businessmen and women in suits; teenage boys with girlfriends balancing sidesaddle on the back; mothers carrying two small children in the front and another clinging from behind; shoppers carrying packages piled up in their front basket; women carrying full sacks of market vegetables; an elderly white-haired women with her small dog peering out of a covered crate; ......None of these people, by the way, were  wearing a helmet.

Glen Pedaling Along Cow Country

For all our near – miss experiences on and around bicycles in the Netherlands we would do it  again.  Especially now that we have some training miles under our belts.  Do we advise our friends and family to take off on two wheels in Holland.  Yes, and we will again. 

Miniskirted Mom and Kids On Bike

But here are some warnings:

-          Most important to know is that you have to pedal furiously backwards to brake. The opportunity to clench your hand brakes in the face of an oncoming obstacle is sadly lost as I found out in my first five minutes.

Dutch Cheese Market

-          The bikes are generally built for long-legged, tall Dutch people. At 5'9", Glen and I were at the very minimum of height for those huge bikes. Not to mention trying to pedal backwards.

-          In cities, Dutch are often on the way to or from work and cycling for them is a serious means of getting from A to B as quickly as possible. Tourists in cities travelling at a snail's pace and stopping to consult their maps can expect to be clanged at by a whole string of bell-ringing Dutch men and women.  Best to stick to the countryside.     

            Cyclists are forced to share their path with mopeds and scooters who weave in and out of the bike traffic at alarming speeds. You never seem to know that they are there until the last startling moment.

 GO!  Bike!  Love it! If we can come out of it all in one piece so can you.  But next time we’ll bring our helmets.   



Dutch Cow



The Swiss Franc Ate My Dollar!

I nervously ordered a drink in my best French accent.  “L’eau con gassom” s’il vous plait.  Our local Geneva colleague nodded approvingly. “Three languages used in one sentence, now you are truly a Swiss.” 

Any country with four official languages is bound to be somewhat confusing for someone who doesn’t speak any of them.  Most amazing is that so many Swiss can drift effortlessly from one language to the next, scarcely aware of the transition.  A Red Cross colleague at the headquarters there explained.  “Some words translate my meaning better in French, some in English.   We find ourselves selecting the right word from among the languages we speak.”  Hmmm….Geneva is probably not the city for a French immersion course.  Or as I learned, for anyone on a budget. 

Julie In Sticker Shock Checking Into the Hotel

 I would go so far as to say that the words ''Geneva'' and ''budget'' are almost never used in the same sentence.   However, creative traveling and tips from Red Cross local colleagues allowed us to experience the “real” Geneva instead of the larger than life Private Swiss Banking version.   What I found out is that a few really great experiences are free or very inexpensive.   For example, all public transportation is free for visitors, and excellent.  The buses run often and extend way out of the city.  Attractive villages are scattered along the route, often with a post office and restaurant set around a fountain.  The bus routes extend into France along two different borders.  We found that out by accident when we took the bus to a village about 30 miles outside of the city and wandered into France for lunch.  We didn’t realize it until we were eating lunch on the front patio and noticed that down the road we had just walked was an abandoned  border crossing kiosk from the pre-EU days of passport stamping.



Glen and Julie riding the FREE bikes for visitors. 



I won’t say it is possible to eat inexpensively in Geneva, but our Red Cross colleague shared a great secret for low cost dining.  Our favorite place in Geneva is neither a bar nor restaurant, but a sort of public beach complex run by a neighborhood cooperative dedicated to keeping it accessible to all. It is of all things a bath-house , on the right bank of Lake Geneva, jutting far into the harbor almost directly opposite a tall plume of water, the lake's landmark fountain. From afar, the fountain might not seem remarkable. But from under the 459-foot-tall column of misting water, it's an awesome spectacle, especially when it's illuminated at night.  Between the funky public bath atmosphere, great food, reasonable prices and water show, Glen and I clinked our free tap water, toasted our anniversary and agreed we were lucky to find ourselves in this corner of the world where “simply ordinary” is never used in the same sentence as Geneva. 




459 ft tall Geneva Icon



Guerrill Knitting of a tree on the wharf in Geneva

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Niagara Falls - Nature Trumps Tackiness

I sat on the porch of the B&B sipping tea and studying the map.  Three days left to tour Canada and the rainy, misty weather had thrown a monkey wrench in my plans.  A plan that had seemed so brilliant …a masterful route visiting the best of the quaint villages along the St Lawrence Seaway on our way to a few days in Ottawa.  I just drew an imaginary line through my plan for the day; taking the ferry across to a nature preserve island.  We had already worn our foul weather gear the past two days and now the fog had rolled in with a light mist.  How to maximize our limited time in these weather conditions?

A promise is a promise.  I had promised Glen that this trip would be relaxing.  We would NOT go tearing all around the country at warp speed trying to see and do too much.  But considering the weather this new plan might now hold better sway. 

Laying out the map with a smile and refilling Glen’s tea I said,  “Did you know we are only four and a half hours from Niagara Falls?  And it is supposed to be way better on the Canadian side?  Like, doubly better according to the guide book. ”   

That is how we found ourselves barreling at warp speed on a very long daytrip ( is four and a half hours each way still in the day-trip category? )  to see Niagara Falls. 

The Canadian side had WAY more cascade.  And kitsch!

Things weren’t looking too swell as we entered the town of Niagara; a mini-Las Vegas w towering hotels and casino towers right along the Falls.  Tacky carnival looking stalls and food emporiums were further up the hill with larger than life ice cream cones and foot long hot dogs promising to smartly separate fools from their money.  This wasn’t looking so bueno as we say in Arizona.  But as we approached Horseshoe Falls on shaky legs, too cramped from the long drive, everything kitsch faded in the mist.  The roar of the cascade grew deafening.  With Niagara Falls, nature trumps tackiness, gallon after cascading gallon, day after day.  Niagara Falls is one of those tourist activities that can’t possibly live up to its reputation but somehow just manages it.

And as we stood there mesmerized by the roar I began to get it. To feel the bone-rattling power of all that cascading water up close is to understand the awesome natural wonder that is Niagara Falls. Thoroughly drenched, chilled and road cranky, Glen and I felt small and mortal, once again in Natures (with a big N) thrall.  This is perhaps the real point of visiting the Falls, to put nature and mankind in proper perspective.

Glen's ponders our 9 hour drive for a 30 minutes Niagara Falls experience.