Family

November 30, 2015May 23, 2023

Thanksgiving at Usery Park

Every few years, my mom decides it’s time for a Thanksgiving picnic.

We’re kind of spoiled here in the Phoenix area by almost always having gorgeous weather on Thanksgiving Day. I guess we kind of pay for it with the crazy hot summers.

Anyway, ever since I was a kid, some years we have traditional Thanksgiving with a whole turkey and a dining room table, and other years we have turkey sandwiches at a desert picnic table.

This year, it was just my parents, Phillip, and I. We kept things super simple and picnicked at Usery Mountain Regional Park.

We still had the boisterous, house-full-of-people experience with Phillip’s side of the family the following Saturday.

But Thanksgiving Day was all blue skies and saguaros.

After picnicking, we took a short hike, chatting some and listening to the gravelly trail crunch under our feet, a cactus wren calling to us, and far off coyotes howling. The sun dipped low to backlight the landscape, putting glowing edges around fuzzy chollas and creosote bushes with their tiny, fragrant leaves, and making the evening seem magical.

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October 1, 2015October 1, 2015

Sleeping In in an Anderson, IN. Inn

There are lots of reasons you might be visiting Madison County, Indiana. For me, the biggest reason is family. However, if you don’t have family there (or maybe because you have family there), you can stay at the Best Western Plus in Anderson.

No one will wake you up in the morning by pounding on your door before your travel-weary, west-coast-time-zone bones are ready to stir and shouting “You’re not here for very long, you don’t want to sleep all day!” (You know, the Staying with Family Standard Room Rate.)

But there will be a hot breakfast waiting for you.

I’d get my eggs or yogurt or waffle from the buffet, refill my coffee (after making the first cup with the Keurig in our room), and have breakfast with the birds. They would be outside flapping around one of the feeders, looking for their favorite seeds while I sat inside at a table by a window.

My aunt, uncle, and cousin Allison were in town for the same reunion we were and had chosen the same hotel. Most mornings they’d join us at breakfast, with Allison and her mom teasing my uncle about his snoring. I offered her the foldout couch in the front room of our suite. Even though she didn’t take us up on it (instead opting to kick her dad out of the room entirely and send him to stay with a relative that lives in the area), the point is that an extra couch/bed in your room can come in handy.

So can a microwave and mini fridge. I tend to travel well-supplied with snacks, but you might also want to keep farmers’ market finds cool or heat up an Amish donut.

The hotel is conveniently located right off the freeway and Scatterfield Road, my reference route for getting around Anderson. It was an easy drive to Mounds State Park or downtown.

If you have relatives in the area, chances are, they’re close too. But not as close as Best Western’s indoor pool, twice weekly happy hour, and totally optional wake up calls.

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P.S. Did you spot Mr. Cheeseface?

Thank you to Anderson Madison County Visitor and Convention Bureau! We were their guests at the Best Western Plus Anderson.

August 31, 2015January 3, 2018

Grandma’s Sunburn Remedy

I sunburn easily.

I blame my genes. Basically, I descend from a mélange of peoples, who, I assume, just kept walking north until they got to the regions of Europe that were cold and cloudy enough not to punish their pallid skin.

Generations later, I was born in sunny Phoenix, Arizona, wearing the maladapted melanin of my kin. Here, summer rays can be intense enough to burn a Celtic lass like me within 10 minutes.

My grandma used to tell me to put vinegar on sunburns. “The sooner the better,” she’d say. Being a teenager, I’d roll my eyes and/or ignore her advice.

Then, after one sunburn that left my skin ablaze like a village after a Viking* raid, I finally gave in and tried it. The pain was gone almost instantly. I did smell like vinegar, but I had no intentions of going back outside anytime soon anyway.

Now I wear a moisturizer with sunscreen in it daily. If I do get a sunburn, I have no problem reaching for the vinegar and gently daubing some on. Totally worth smelling like a salad dressing (or maybe a jar of pickles) for a few hours.

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*I also have Viking ancestors. I like to think of them as not the village-destroying type, though. Maybe horned-hat-wearing and fierce – like you wouldn’t want to mess with them – yet somehow kind hearted. (This may not be historically accurate.)

June 29, 2015June 25, 2019

Indypendence Day

I’ve got a family reunion coming up in Indiana over the 4th of July weekend.

I tend to spend a fair amount of time while I’m there sitting on porches, catching up with great aunts and uncles and cousins, sipping sweet tea and eating really delicious pie.

This time, we’ll also be checking out some local sights and craft – and keeping an eye out for sweet corn stands.

If I don’t drown in the humidity, it should be a nice time.

I have posts scheduled to go up here while I’m gone, and you can follow our Indiana fun on Instagram (#heartlandiana).

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