Since I didn't start musing about what might make a good solo Valentine's Day trip until yesterday, these ideas obviously will have to hold until 2012 or beyond.
Solo travelers seeking roses should book a flight to Ecuador, the rose capital of the world. One airline, I don't remember which, handed a large, perfect rose to each woman leaving the airplane. And it wasn't even February.
I've never been to Moscow. Do they celebrate Valentine's Day there? I'm thinking it's either too cold or too dark or the restaurant service is too poor to make it a great place to go out for a romantic dinner. So it would be a good place to avoid the hokey Hallmark nonsense. But it sure is a long way to go to avoid a silly "holiday."
What about a ranch? I've loved all my visits to Arizona ranches. Do cowboys do roses? Either ranch hands will pay special attention to solo female travelers or the day will be celebrated at some kind of big barbecue event with families, couples and singletons. Just like any other day. Either way, I'm guessing there won't be the red-rose twosomeness of a city slicker Valentine's Day.
Those are my rambling thoughts. Any other fun or funny ideas for a solo Valentine vacation? I can collect them for next year.
Backroads, an "active travel company," is ending its singles and solos trips next year. The owners found that more of their solo travelers ended up on regular trips than on solo ones. There weren't getting enough people to make the singles and solo trips fun.
After doing some of Backroads solo trips years back, I realized I prefer a mixed group anyway. It's more relaxed. Less of that meet market feel.
Along with the change, the company has reduced the single room charges. Nice little benefit.
The part I like is where they say, "Just give us a call and we’ll help you find the departure with the most Singles+Solos, if that’s what you are looking for."
That's exactly what I did for my first major solo adventure, a rafting trip. I called Holiday Expeditionsand asked them to find me a trip that other solo travelers had signed up for. I didn't want to be the only person traveling alone. I didn't need a LOT of solo travelers. Just some.
I ended up in a fivesome with one couple, one married guy traveling without his wife (she wasn't much of a rafter, he said), one single guy and me. We became tight as ticks. We hardly made make a move without one another. We simply enjoyed one another's company that much.
I would consider another trip with Backroads. I've taken three with the company. Biking in the Colorado Rockies, biking in the Canadian Rockies and biking and hiking in Bryce, Zion and the Grand Canyon.
They were all run well. And I wouldn't have gotten to those places without joining a group that was already going. None of my friends are that gung ho about biking to plan a week-long trip out West to do so.
And I did things I never expected, including biking 120 miles in one day. (Trust me, there was a lot of downhill. But the 80 mile-day uphill day it took to earn the downhill was a major killer.)
Backroads is not the only company that will provide the service of putting a group together and getting on the phone with you to discuss who is signed up for the trip. On the other hand, I would probably avoid a company that wouldn't be willing to share that information.
I wake up but do not get out of bed. The Iron Girl triathlon was the day before. A .6 mile swim, 17 mile bike and 3.4 mile run. I finished. "To finish is to win," as JT, a fellow triathlon "girl" kept telling the eight of us doing it. I won.
In that sense.But I do not know how my muscles will react to vertical. Instead of throwing my legs over the side of the bed, letting my feet hit the floor and my body go upright, I stay on my back and lift my knees to my chest. And pull. Stretch.
I lower my legs. Lift the left one all the way up. Straight. Then reach it across my body to the right so it's perpendicular to the rest of me. And stretch. I repeat on the right side with my left leg. Feels good.
I continue these stretches and gentle exercises. As many as I can remember.All learned nearly two years ago now, at Devon Hiking Spa. "Fit Health into Life" is the spa's tagline, and this is what I'm doing. Fitting healthy stretching into my morning. (Tucson solo trip stories here. Read in reverse chronological order.)
I don't remember all I learned during my week in Tucson. But I remember how good it felt to contemplate morning instead of diving into it. Instead of rushing and buzzing and scrambling to start the day. As I usually do.
I admit I haven't been doing those exercises every day since that trip. But there are mornings when I remember. Either because something aches. Or I'm not willing to get out of bed too quickly.
I also remember my lessons about eating mindfully, not gorging at meals. Not that I can always follow those either. I try to gauge when I'm starting to feel satisfied and stop eating. It doesn't always work but each time I tend to think about my options and often I succeed at "being good."
It is not essential to finish everything on my plate. Sometimes, I find it fascinating how hard it is to stop eating. To purposely leave just one bite. It's a challenge to the irrational desire to finish what's in front of me, even though if that bite weren't there I wouldn't miss it. Try it. Leave one bite of food on your plate at every meal. Can you do it?
What's my point here? My point is, I traveled alone to a beautiful part of the country because no one was able to go with me. Met a nice group of people to hike, eat and exercise with. The health lessons have stayed with me. I would have missed out if I had passed on this trip.
Instead, I have post-triathlon exercises to do, better eating habits than before and fond memories of red rocks, rushing streams, snow in the desert (it was December), skittering critters and intriguing visions of myriad cacti everywhere.
The only down side was getting just a tad too close to one of those cacti. A nice, big prickly pear. And unwillingly taking a bunch of its cactus spines home with me. But even that turned into an up side. It made for a really great story for friends and family.
And, um, let's just say sharp memories for weeks after, as I'd find a spine here and a needle there. I'd love to go again.
And perhaps, hike just a tad more mindfully when amongst the cacti.
The next spa weeks are in September 2009 and January and May 2010.
This city slicker played rodeo queen once. And it wasn't on Halloween. I was at the Kay El Bar Ranch in Wickenburg, Arizona, which is home to several horse ranches.
I suited up with a neck hankerchief in the ranch's colors and tried my hand, and my horse, at barrel racing, pole bending and a relay race. It was an inter-ranch gymkhana, or dudeo, that was run like a rodeo.
We, and our ranch's horses, all loaded up in cars and trailers to get to the arena at another ranch. And get this. I won a red ribbon in the relay. (However, the credit all goes to the speedy cowboy on my team, and Stormy, my horse, who had no "slow" gear.)
Sad to say, Kay El Bar no longer does the dudeo. It was a hassle and there were safety concerns. Although the women who are at the ranch during Women's Week get to practice their barrel racing and other skills at a neighboring arena. But that doesn't provide the adrenaline of competition.
But "regular guests" still get to sort cattle. If six to eight people are up for it, the ranch can get some cattle sorting teams together. "It's a blast trying to get the horses, riders and cattle all on the same page," says Alyson Smith, the ranch's assistant manager.
Solo guests will be embraced by the ranch and its guests, she says. Even if the guests are all mean and rotten, (she didn't say this)there are always the ranch hands and owners to hang with. "We're still a good place for adventures singles," Smith says. "Everyone becomes part of the family and each person has their story to share."
Due to high waters in the nearby canyons, we do loops around the hotel instead of going out to do a breakfast hike. We end up eating near a waterfall.
Since this whole trip is about healthy eating, breakfast "on the trail" consists of fruit, peanut butter, cottage cheese, fruit, whole grain tortillas, nuts, fruit and more fruit. Good eatin' in a beautiful setting. Though Tucson winter mornings are a tad chilly.
We scurry to get a final hike in. And are rewarded with another great sunny day among the saguaro cactus in Sabino Canyon. Last night at dinner in an Italian restaurant, we received silly awards. Things like the roadrunner award for fastest hiker; the "pushing your personal limits" award for someone who'd never done this kind of hiking; and the most dedicated "spa-er" for someone who dropped out of one hike for a mani/pedi at the hotel spa. She had also come alone on this trip, leaving behind her husband and 14-year-old daughter.
I wish it hadn't taken me slamming into a prickly pear cactus to make a great point about traveling solo, but it did. Here's the sad tale.
In heavy hiking boots, on a trail marked "difficult," I tripped and pitched forward. Under normal circumstances I think I would have been able to right myself. But with boulders planted on the trail, I kept misstepping, never getting my feet under me, until I took the header into the big green vertical bed of needles. A "sider" actually. I finished the spill with my back leaning on the cactus.
Ouch, ouch ouch ouch ouch...and a hundred more ouches. That's the sound of someone having many, many hair-brush sized needles pulled out one at a time from arms, legs, back and other more interesting places. By me, and both my hiking companions.
Bridget, a fellow hiker, had some of us laughing all morning, after she showed us the "Michigan mitten" at breakfast. Someone asked her where she grew up and she held up her right hand and pointed to one side of her palm. "Right here."
Huh? Apparently, Michigan children learn that their state is shaped like a giant hand, or mitten. And they locate their cities on their own palms. Bridget showed us Kalamazoo, where she grew up, and then traced a line with her index finger to Ann Arbor and on to Detroit. She seemed surprised we didn't know about the mitten. Or else she has a very dry sense of humor. Either way, she had us in stitches.
After breakfast, I had a peaceful morning hiking by myself in the northern part of the Santa Catalina Mountains. Well, not totally by myself. It's not a trail I would have braved on my own. Too many risks for a once-in-awhile hiker from out of town to attempt solo. But with people from the group ahead and behind, I felt secure. When the eager hikers set a brisk pace behind the lead guide, I dropped back so I could be on my own and walk at my pace.
Yesterday's hail dusted the mountaintops here in Tucson, changing the desert palette. By this morning it was raining. If I had been out West hiking on my own, I might have spent a lonely day in my room, or hanging around the hotel, today. Maybe I would have gone shopping or to a movie.
But I'm not here alone. I'm with a dozen plus other people I now know. I enjoy their company. And now that we've gotten the "where are you from, what do you do," conversations out of the way, we've moved on to more interesting topics, like religion, adoption and how great the masseuses here have been.
I come and go as I please. This morning I skipped the group exercise circuits at the gym because a nap was more appealing. When I was ready for activity and company, I joined the others for lunch. And then for an afternoon strength class.
That's the point of this hiking spa vacation, says Devon Metz, the owner. "You can focus on yourself, but you also have this group camaraderie." In other words, indulge at will. In massages, classes, meals and friendly company. Or wander off on your own when you'd like.
Tucson in December has its surprises for an East Coast girl:
A loud, heavy hail storm has left quarter-inch balls of white ice on the hotel's lawns and sidewalks.
An old water tank for cattle, which are no longer allowed where we're hiking, is filled with plump, healthy goldfish. Goldfish! In the Sonoran Desert in Arizona.
When an arm of a saguaro cactus is turned downward, it means the cactus is dying. But it can "change its mind," at which point the arm starts growing skyward again.
But about solo travel...today's observations. The people who arrived here alone are more open to mixing and mingling with everyone. The people who arrived here in pairs tend to stick by one another. And I tend not to engage them as much as the solo guests. They are a set. They are self-contained. They go to meals together, go back to their rooms together, look for one another wherever they go. They're a little closed off from the rest of us.
9:30 am, Houston. Having one of those "poor me" moments while rushing to make the connection to Tucson.
Why was I going to all this trouble, flying to join a bunch of strangers at a spa? All alone. I think about home and it seems so cozy and inviting. Typical day one for me. Just have to push through it. I have traveled solo dozens of times and have never regretted it. Yet I always have these first day doubts and crankiness.
I board the second flight and get absorbed in my magazines. Again, wondering who I will be spending the week with.
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