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PS – I Love You

17 Nov 2011 -

 
PS aka Palm Springs is making me smile…a lot.

Yesterday was one of those days that I want to hold like a smooth stone, turning it over and over and just feeling the lovely weight of it in my hand.

It started with breakfast at Norma’s at The Parker. Mango and papaya slivered into thin slices and stuffed into cinnamon crepes. Gorgeous big carafes of French-pressed coffee with cream. All served up in a tropical garden outdoor setting.  What’s not to love?

 

Except. It got better.

We drove out to Indian Canyons on the Agua Caliente Cahuilla Indian Reservation and met our Ranger guide Raven Longbow (who happened to actually be an Apache & raises a couple dozen scorpions for their medicinal venom & is a flautist who is featured on CDs & got in an argument with Deepak Chopra(!!??) & counsels and conducts healing ceremonies for natives in prison & is generally one of the most entertaining, funny and knowledgeable walk-about guides I’ve come across- Whew!)
Indian Canyons

Raven walked us along a dusty trail in the middle of this canyon oasis, explaining how the ancestors Cahuilla (Kaw-we-ah) lived and thrived in the area. As he’s a practicing man of indigenous medicine, he also explained how various roots and shrubs and leaves are utilized for healing. We ended our tour by having Raven play his flute as we left to have a picnic lunch in a cathedral of towering palms. Seriously.

And then, my day, that already felt quite perfect…got a whole lot better, spending the afternoon drifting between steam baths, saunas, and ‘taking the waters’ in a private little mosaic-lined hot tub for one at the Spa Resort Casino. The grand finale of our stay ended by being led to a dimly lit room where single beds were lined up in two rows like a little orphanage…except we were covered in soft sheets with cool compresses placed on each eye.

You don’t often get to use the word bliss in an authentic way, unless you happen to be zoning out in a dimly-lit room in an utter state of that aforementioned word.

Bliss, people. I’m talking bliss.

There were more lovely moments stuffed into yesterday…but the inspiration came after dinner when we slid into our seats at the Palm Springs Follies. Showgirls from 55 to 78-years old, kicked and strutted and sang in costumes studded with crystals and feather foliage of epic proportions.

I loved it.

You knew it was inevitable right? I had to come up with this trip’s Travel Announcement; I’m getting myself some of those dance shoes.

If a 78-year old mother of seven can dance around a stage doing nine shows a week while wearing a zillion-pound glittering costume than surely they must be comfortable enough that I could wear them out to dinner?

The night ended, as some of the best nights do, chatting with a new friend while enjoying a martini at the Trio bar before I tucked into my lovely new digs at the Movie Colony Hotel.

I’m sure that grin was pasted on my face while I slept.

Category: Food/Restaurants, Hotels, Photos, Theatre, Traveling  Tags: , , , ,  8 Comments

The Ground Beneath My Feet

04 Nov 2011 -

Glowing Feet

I love the feeling of my bare feet when they sink ever-so-slightly into heavy wet sand at the shoreline of the ocean.

You know how you feel like your feet are fully supported exactly where they’re at?

You feel so firmly grounded that the rest of your body stacks solidly on top of that wonderfully rooted foundation.

Kind of like having a really good friend who accepts you just how you are…quirks and all.

Yesterday, I was reminded of that warm happy-beach feeling as I stood on the FootBalance machine in the Salomon West Vancouver store. Manager, Scott Winston, directed me as to where to place my bare feet on the imaging glass, and, in less than ten-minutes, I was inserting brand new custom insoles in to my shoes.

I’ve been wearing orthotics for years, but our recent hike in Wales pretty much destroyed what was left of my best pair. They’ve been held together by manky medical tape and have weird dips and rips ever since; not very attractive and I’m not so sure that they’re doing much good any more.

But I’ve been putting off going back to my podiatrist because I know the bill will be over $300.00 for a new pair.

Well. You can imagine how my frugal Mennonite heart burst into hymns of praise when I received an email asking me to please do a review on these custom foot beds. Well…Hello! Count me in. And Amen.

And yes, even though they’re free to me, I am telling you the truth here…they feel pretty darned good.

Would my podiatrist approve? I’m guessing not. His orthotics are designed to correct my feet, whereas these are meant to support my feet.

If we are still going with that aforementioned metaphor of a friend…I prefer these. The corrective orthotics were pretty hard and unforgiving. I prefer the support. As they’re also priced at $80.00/pair, they make me happy on a whole other level (see above reference to frugality).

These Footbalance inserts are much cushier than my old insoles, and sitting here on my sofa at the end of this fabulous Friday, my feet are feeling pretty fine. The real test will be a good hike. Not a Welsh 300-kilometer hike, but striding along a dirt trail will be a good test (and I’ll be doing exactly that next week when I’m up on the Sunshine Coast).

Meanwhile, my only criticism is that when I take off my shoes, the inserts look tres sportif with my shoe size emblazoned in white (does the 42 have to be written quite that large??) along with the big white letters of Footbalance.

I know branding is king, but I’d prefer a discreet basic black insert so that when I slip off my shoes, it looks a little less athletic. Probably most people will be using these in runners or hiking boots, so it wouldn’t matter…it’s not much of a complaint, because when the shoes are on my feet…I feel like I’m walking on clouds.

Vancouver Clouds

 

 

 

 

Category: Photos, Product Reviews  Tags: , , ,  6 Comments

Taking A Break – Offa’s Dyke Path in Wales

10 Sep 2011 -

Looking Back...

 

Today we left from Trefonen at just before 9 am and arrived in Llangollen at just before 7 pm. Ten hours of pounding the feet. Ten hours of spectacular views…

And if you’re wondering how to pronounce Llangollen? Think about a cat clearing a fur ball from his throat , “Th-lll!”

That is how those double ‘LL’s’ sound, like something in the back of your throat with a bit of a spitty enunciation. There is no equivalent sound in English.

After over a week of looking at the various Welsh signage,  I know this…I could finally win a Scrabble game (with my inevitable tray full of only consonants) if I could just use Welsh words.

But back to the walking. We covered 27 kilometres yesterday. It was supposed to be 26 kms, but we missed a marker.

Today we did the full 27 km with no wrong turns at all. And if you read that quickly, it doesn’t sound like much.

And the most humbling thing about this trip has been meeting all the other regular walkers, where that really isn’t a big deal. Did I mention most of them are older than us? Though, in our defence, all of them take rest days and they are quite taken aback that we would do the whole Path with no time off.

Regular Ramblers - Mick & Catherine

We shared a pub meal with three fellow walkers last night and were amazed at all the regular long rambles they take. In fact, most of them belong to The Ramblers association, but in spite of all the regular walking they do, they still break up a trip and make sure they take time off in between the long distances.

Knowing this, if I were to advise anyone who was thinking of doing this trek, that is something I would definitely recommend…take a day off in the middle of the trip and just let your body crash and regroup. There is something quite draining from the cumulative effects of endless walking.

We have  now covered about  225 kilometres in ten days. As I write this, I have a bag of ice on my left ankle while Kevin has his left knee wrapped in another towel full of ice. We will continue to switch up the icing of body parts and hope that we can survive, the next – and last – three days of walking.

Guaranteed? Sheep are Everywhere.

The plan is to rest on the 14th day.

Category: Photos, Traveling  Tags: , , ,  4 Comments

Llanthony to Hay-On-Wye – Offa’s Dyke Path

04 Sep 2011 -

 

We woke to the sound of the rooster outside our room this morning. He was crowing the start to another gorgeous day in the Wye Valley.

Breakfast @ The Start

We managed to get down the stairs and tucked into another ‘full’ breakfast at The Start B&B. Once again, there was too much for me to finish off, so they wrapped up my extra hunk of bacon so I could add it to my lunch sandwich.

Llanthony Priory

Luke, from Drover Holidays, picked us up and delivered us back to Llanthony where we had finished the day before. We climbed up, up, up the steep ascent to rejoin Offa’s Dyke Path at the top of the boundary of Brecon Beacons National Park.

On Top of the Ridge

No worries about trying to find signposts, stiles or looking for clues. The path just follows the English/Welsh border and all we had to do was stay on top of the ridge and keep walking and walking and then walking a little more.

But then we had to go down, down, down into Hay-on-Wye; down steep fields, and rocky trails. Nothing like making you pay for that glorious ridge, because going down is w-a-a-a-y harder than going up for the knee joints.  No question about that.

In total, our distance today was around 21 kilometers. We reached Hay-On-Wye just as the weather turned to rain. It’s rather steady out there now. I’m thinking our luck with the weather might have just run out.

Getting Close to Hay-On-Wye

But we got to our hotel before the rain really started and Kevin quickly sought out his cure while I began mine.

They both start with the letter ‘B’. He found Hereford Pale Ale, a local Wye Valley beer in the hotel’s pub, and I began my remedy by filling the big tub so I could soak in a long, hot bath.

Thank you Swan Hotel for having a pub with great beer on tap and a room with a gargantuan tub and lots of hot water.

We just might make another day :)

 

 

Category: Hotels, Traveling  Tags: , , , ,  10 Comments

Chepstow to Monmouth – Offa’s Dyke Path

01 Sep 2011 -

Kevin at one of the turn-stiles

A twenty-one kilometre walk doesn’t sound that far does it?

We walked out the door of our lovely little Castle View Hotel in Wales this morning, hung a sharp right to walk over the River Wye bridge, and once across, there we were in bonnie ol’ England.

We walked through about a million different landscapes; up steep dirt and rock trails, through wide meadows filled with bleating sheep, in forests where we were sure Robin Hood and his Merry Men would leap out any minute and through groves of trees that were only missing Monty Python’s Knights of Ni!

We scared a deer, dozens of pheasant and listened to nothing but the drone of bees and the deepest, greenest silence. We climbed over stiles, though thankfully, most of them have been replaced with the turn-stiles; a remarkable alternative that requires no lifting of screamin’ knees to navigate.

We left Chepstow at 9:30 a.m., found every sign and didn’t take one wrong turn(!) and didn’t stop walking until 5:30 p.m. in Redbrook; a full-days work if ever there was one

At points, I’m quite sure I was lurching more than walking, and the last 67 steps down into Redbrook, well… that just seemed like a rather cruel joke.

I would just like to state that hiking in British Columbia, with all those hills and mountains, was certainly good training, but it does not make this path an easy feat. I have a feeling that if each day’s hike is like today’s struggle, we are going to either be really fit…or dead.

When we were picked up in Redbrook, the taxi took us here to the lovely Bistro Prego (with rooms!) in Monmouth. I’m feeling almost-human again, especially since I had a wonderfully restorative soak in a lovely long tub and just finished a divine meal of fried courgette flowers stuffed with goat cheese followed by sea bass on a bed of spinach and piled with girolles ( which are identical to our chanterelles back home ). YUM!

And in case anyone’s concerned that we got to skip a few miles by getting picked up in Redbrook?

Never fear! Tomorrow morning the remarkably organized team at Drover Holidays has arranged someone to take us back to where we were dropped off, so that we can keep ourselves honest and walk, stagger and lurch, every single foot of this path.

 

Category: Food/Restaurants, Hotels, Photos, Traveling  Tags: , ,  4 Comments
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