travel – kristilynk

Grand Canyon – part one

The day started at 345am. I ate a boiled egg and a banana. Built my pocket burritos out of precooked, shredded chicken and avocado smashed up. Next up, filling hydration packs. I had brought one 2 liter and one 3 liter bladder bag plus 2 12 oz collapsible water bottles for my from ouches on my day pack. The collapsible bottles I filled with water and electrolytes, I use LMNT sooooo salty.

Time to go! We left the hotel a little after 430am. I called the taxi on the way to the visitor center, packing lot 4, so they could scoop us up to take us the south Kaibab trail. The shuttle service doesn’t start until 6am at this time of year and we wanted to start the hike earlier to make sure we were out of the canyon by 2pm. Rain was predicted to roll in around that time.

When I called the taxi they actually told me the taxis were so busy they would need to call me back in an hour! This was 430 in the morning 🤯

At the parking lot we waited, got out of the car and actually were a me to sneak on to someone else’s taxi ride. Score! From the parking lot, south kaibab trail is 2 miles so we were there in no time.

My second time to the Grand Canyon. 1st time going IN the GC.

I was a little nervous going in but once we got going my confidence soared. I thought, I got this. The downhill is pretty steep, and it’s a long way down. I would recommend prepping with a LOT of front lunges.

From Kaibab, we headed west to the Tonto Trail

The farther west we went it was cool to see green lush tree lines, you know what that means! Water! 😍

This is around the time I realized… I forgot my pocket burritos!! Not good.

Super rookie move. Remember, I had only eaten one boiled egg and a banana. Luckily my hiking crew member was a hero and thoughtful and brought 2 bagels, so I gratefully scarfed it down.

Just after this rare shade finding, there was a little creek I didn’t take any pictures of because there were too many people rest here and I wanted to keep trekking. I did dip a plastic sandwich bag in the creek to fill it up with water to soak my neck cooler in for 30 minutes, it was getting hot .

There was very little shade in this trail. Having a hat is very important. Anytime I found shade it felt so great to take the hat off to let my brain breath.

I’m really not a fan of hats, glasses or things – like neck coolers – around my neck. I wore them when needed but as soon as I could those items were OFF.

Around this time we stopped and I collapsed my trekking poles. I like to have my hands free and I was tired of carrying them.

The old water line busted so they just replaced it. I think the construction is fairly new. I really hope they bury the line or cover it with something more aesthetically pleasing because this is not what I want to see.

Off to Havasupai Gardens

Another stop around here to sunblock and dip the neck cooler in the stream again.

Next up! Off to bright angel.

But first, I met Phantom, he’s a canyon mule and so sweet

Not gonna lie. I was scared. I’d never met a mule

We LUCKED out. Just before the over 3500 foot ascent, the clouds starting rolling in so the sun was GONE! I could not have been more thankful.

I ate an RX bar, 200 calories.

It didn’t last long.

This is about where I started to question my judgement. I was losing steam and fast.

Pitt stop for a peanut butter and jelly snack. Only 170 calories. Up up we go.

This was – what they said to be 1.5 miles left of the trail. It was miserable.

Wow, I made it.

The walk to the shuttle was painful. The rise in the shuttle bus was amazing. It felt great to sit after 7 hours of walking.

Back at the car, we grabbed a fresh stash of clothes, socks, shoes and some body wipes to clean up before the ride home.

Pit stop in Flagstaff for a burger and fries and Diablo Burger. I had the Blake and it was sooooo good.

In 3 weeks we plan to hike the south rim to the north rim. Lessons I learned that will be applied to the next trip.

I must drink a shit ton of water the week before and especially the day before the 25 mile hike. I will need to pack way more calories for this next trip and NOT forget the pocket burritos. I’ll need to eat more frequently. I’m positive I can do the rim to rim. I know the hike up was so hard was because I did not fuel my body enough to make it and this made the ascent more difficult than it needed to be.

Until next time! Happy trails 😁

February 2024

Feeling a little off today. Disconnected may be a good descriptive word for my head space today. I’m not going to try to analyze it or fix it. Just recognizing the feeling and sitting with it for a moment.

Sitting with it, prompted me to stop scrolling through IG and start scrolling and remembering the past 4 months. Here’s my Feb.

Lilou, the cowGIRL corgi came to meet Mork before we went away to cabin in the woods for a weekend. They did great. Lilou is only 1year old so she is pretty rambunctious. Mork tolerated her, when he was done, he put her in check and she submitted. Thankfully, they were good together.

This was a bit after Mork escaped and we had to run around the mountain for 15 minutes playing catch me if you can. I did but oh my goodness! That boy was so happy to be running free, I captured him about 25 feet down a hill, picked him up and hiked him back up the hill. I think I died.

We stopped for coffee at the strawberry inn in the way home.

The weekend was super chill, we played games, listened to music, walked the dogs and talked.

Back home and the rest of the month consisted of work, walking Mork & trying to stick to the training plan for the 1/2 marathon in May. I was in track around this time.

Stay tuned for more possible updates 😅

Lake Day

I love water. The ocean, the river, a pool, a hot tub – or is it a spa? Are all hot tubs spas? Are all spas hot tubs? – I love water.

I don’t love the lake. I mean, they’re beautiful, because its water but…to me, it feels… germy. Especially in Arizona. Its HOT, the water is just floating around, not really going anywhere. Kinda gross if you really focus on it.

With that said, I am trying to get past this. So, me and my friend and our mens met up at Lake Pleasant in AZ., the mens sat at the restaurant, on the water , had drinks and snacks while me and the friend putzd around on the lake with our paddle boards.

Rule #1 carrier your blow up paddle board down to the dock.

Rule#2 get comfy and don’t complain, it’s going to take about 5 minutes to blow up the board.

Rule#3 don’t be afraid to ask for help getting into your board from the dock.

There was some shade, thankfully, it was still hot 🥵

Once

On the water it was my bliss 😍 even though I did forget sunblock!

Thought I’d stop by

May! So far so good but lets travel back in time a bit all the way to April, like 2-3 weeks ago.

I’ve done some moving and shaking, but just around Arizona.

April was Tucson for a show in downtown. We stayed at the historic Hotel Congress and had too much wine so even if there were any ghosts to be seen I would have been stone cold sleeping.

The following week we headed up to Crown King. A couple of our friends are getting married up there this coming October so they wanted to check out the venue. Crown King is another historic location, old mining town = dusty and dry. The little hotel we stayed in was a different story, many flowers, green grass, horses and really felt like we were in a little magical place.

Cut to..Jasons birthday week. There was a huge damper on celebration due to the sudden, unexpected, devastating death of a good friend. Good friend in the sense of chosen family. I won’t say any more…because, Hi, I am Kristi. I tend to bury my head in the sand when reality smacks me in the face.

Last minute decisions and phone calls were made to gather a group of our close friends and celebrate the life of Scott and Jasons birthday. Scott would have wanted it that way. It was a good night.

Fast forward another week, this trip brought us up more north to Whitehorse Lake in Williams, AZ. It is not often we camp in a for real campground. When I say “not often” I mean like I am pretty sure there have only been 4 times we have stayed in a for real campground. Whitehorse is the absolute coolest of all of the campgrounds of the 3 I have visited. Three sites because I have now been to Whitehorse 2 times. That’s all the math I will do tonight.

We rented the group site, there were 7 spots and a gazebo for us all to hang out, drink, play games and grill. I didn’t play games and I didn’t grill so I drank.

Amy brought all the ladies lil champs and OJ for mimosa for mothers day – bubbles and branches

Muppet babies, yes this is in AZ but it was like 35 degrees at night and COLD. Our 78 year old dogs get cold.

Renting out the entire area is the best way to go when camping in a non-wild manner. We were here for Saturday, Sunday and came home on Monday. The trip was not perfect, there were issues which were out of our control. WIND..oh my goodness, so..much..wind. This was my 2nd time here, neither times was I able to get the paddle board on the water. It was too windy this time. The last time I had just had 20 stitches from my hand removed and I didn’t want to chance getting lake water in my newly healed wound. As I was typing those words, I was making myself sick to my stomach just thinking about that. Sorry if that disturbed you.

The tiny dog, Larry, decided to try to end his life by jumping off the tailgate of the Tacoma. It didn’t work, he survived but he was sore.

Chubba Wubba, Ollie, had a scary seizure in the middle of the night. She too survived but was also sore and tired.

Our brand new, out of the box, Coleman sunshade broke because it is a 150.00 piece of garbage. The metal things snapped in the wind. We had to throw it away. I need to have a word with Mr. Coleman please.

We were all good and tired by the time we got home Monday afternoon but really in the end…a weekend in the woods, even with a series of unfortunate events, will always be a good idea. There will always be beautiful moments in nature. I’ll hold those moments closer.