May!

After years of longing and months of planning, it's here.  May 2010. The month that we will descend into the Grand Canyon and see for ourselves the beauty, experience the adventure, achieve a goal.

How are we doing in preparation? Guess the answer comes after we complete the hike. Hindsight will be much clearer. For now, we're trying to prepare the best we can.

This week Papa biked 38 miles and Nana, 63 miles. It was one of our last beautiful weeks with perfect biking temps so we had to bike! The strong wind at his back on Thursday gave Papa his record time commuting home from work, 8.5 miles in 29 minutes.

Saturday we opted for a bike day rather than hike. It was beautiful.  We headed about nine miles to a Cinco de Mayo festival hoping to catch Chihuahua races. When we got there it seemed the festival was geared more toward children with crafts and games (the more grown-up stuff happened later in the day but we didn't want to spend the entire day) so we pedaled on to one of our favorites spots, Kokopelli Bistro.

The downtown area, where the Kokopelli Bistro is located, is charming and historic. It was relaxing to sit on the front patio and enjoy a scrumptious lunch while people watching. It could not have been a more picturesque day, with a light breeze that seemed to enhance the peaceful feeling.

After lunch we strolled with our bikes through the downtown and then headed a health foods store a friend had recommended. Yes, after the doctor's visit, Nana felt the need (more later).

Nature's Health is the name of the store. As I mentioned, it was recommended and we would recommend too! They were extremely helpful and knowledgeable. Now it'll be interesting to see if these natural, much more cost effective, remedies work vs. the expensive prescription medication.

We headed back home, completing about 20.5 miles in our loop. Most of the trip I couldn't get the song, "Take a Vacation a Day" by Brad Paisley out of my mind.  Papa and I talked about it and we really need to have a vacation a week. Taking a little time one day a week to explore, experience, renew is so good for overall health.


Back at home Papa started on yard work, so I got back on my bike and headed to the grocery store. It occurred to me as I was riding that over half the miles I rode on the bike this week were on beautiful trails like those pictured. My commute home from work is 10 of the 16.5 miles on trails. It could be up to 14 miles if I opted to continue on the trail closer to home rather than taking to the street. The four miles to the grocery store/farmer's market is all trail but the last half mile. Wow! That sure helps make biking enjoyable.

Good week, wonderful weekend and we're down to a few short weeks before the Canyon.

Now, the doctor. New doctor, new ideas. He seems to think that I have asthma due to the occasional struggle with the ascents while hiking and the low levels on the peak flow breathing test at his office. Not sure about that but we're testing a medication this week and I'll go back later this week to see. That's when I'll get the results on all the other tests, too.

Hate to admit it but I might be getting a little older and maybe need to watch things more. The good news is this awakening that I may not have the continued perfect health I've always enjoyed has made me focus more. Result: more attention to exercise and diet has me back to shedding a few pounds. This week reached the halfway mark on the weight loss with 20 lbs. off. With the help of the great health food store and attention on my part, things will be just fine.