Olesh Oysters: A Blog of Our Life and Adventures

I did it! I have thought about it countless times but never took action. This weekend, I actually went on a solo hiking trip! Oh sure, I’ve hit the trails on many other occasions with my daughters but I have never gone out all by myself. This weekend was a game changer! I absolutely know that this is the beginning of another beautiful chapter in my life!

Why did I wait so long? Part of me acknowledges that I thought that I wouldn’t really enjoy in it if I didn’t have someone to experience it with…..

Another part of me doubted if I could physically navigate the trail. To be clear, I’m 53, overweight and out of shape.

My knees are weak which makes climbing challenging. When hiking with my daughters, I lean on them often to get up and down from different elevations. How could I do this alone?

For years I have seen other hikers on the trail with trekking poles. To be honest, a part of me thought they looked silly and that they were merely using the poles as props. Boy was I wrong!

I did a little research and decided to purchase some trekking poles to see if they lived up to their hype. It took me a mile or two to figure out how to use them but once I did?! Game changer!

Trekking poles became the shoulders that I once leaned on. Hiking alone, they allowed me to navigate safely up and down different elevations and terrains by putting my full weight on the poles, kind of like a crutch. Not only was I able to successfully navigate the terrain, I find myself virtually pain free today. Correctly using the poles reduced the physical impact on my knees and back.

There are many options when it comes to trekking poles. This was my first experience using them but I am extremely happy with my purchase. In case you are wondering, I purchased Trailbuddy Trekking Poles from Amazon. Disclosure: I get absolutely no endorsements of any kind and the opinions expressed here purely on my own.

All told, I hiked over 6 miles and experienced many breathtaking sites along the way. In the early stages of my hike I did feel all alone in the woods and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little scared. Thankfully the feeling didn’t last long .

I regret waiting so long to take that first step but I’m glad that I finally did. It was a totally exhilarating experience and I can’t wait to do it again!

I’m officially in Vacation Mode! What is Vacation Mode you ask?
It means that I’m mentally already on vacation. It means all I can think about is boarding my flight and meeting up with my family in Arizona! It means that I find creative ways to include my upcoming vacation into nearly every conversation so I can talk about it to anyone who will listen! It means that I now spend hours online researching the best hiking trails in Sedona that will get me near a vortex. It means that Amazon packages now arrive daily. It means that I have begun packing my bags. It means that I’ve finally started doing those hiking workouts that I saved on Pinterest months ago…..yikes! Why did I procrastinate?!

Planning for a vacation is half the fun. It allows me to stay in full vacation mode! Since I am literally counting down the days, I thought it would be a good idea to share my pre-vacation checklist:

• Confirm travel reservations (more on this later)
• Confirm pet sitters
• Hold mail
• Set up “out of office” email notification (my FAVORITE step)
• Offload Go Pro pics to my computer to free up disk space
• Pre-pay any bills that will come due while on vacation
• Get mani/pedi
• Read all things related to Vortexes, Sedona and The Grand Canyon
• Pack toiletries
• Pack suitcase
• Verify contents of backpack
• Set intentions
• Replenish first aid kit
• Obsessively check the weather forecast
• Lose 10 lbs
• Create new travel playlist
• Withdraw cash from ATM (I typically don’t carry much)
• Clean out fridge
• Minimize contents of wallet to ID, cash, debit card, one credit card and insurance cards
• Don’t forget the sunscreen!

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from my last year. I can’t wait to get back!

Hey everyone! My name is Lauren, and I am Amy’s daughter and a proud #oleshoyster. I am a writer, an avid reader, as well as a world traveler. It only made sense to combine the two when my mom wanted to start a blog on traveling as well as spirituality! I first started on my path towards spirituality as a child. I always marched to the beat of my own drummer, and also I just KNEW certain things, like who would be important to me in my life, or what was the RIGHT choice in a series of options. Some could chalk it up to great luck. I, however never have.

I had a firm belief in magic (long before the Harry Potter obsession) and it literally led me to my first spiritual mentor. When I was six, my favorite uncle Billy met Jane, and decided to make a date out of taking his nieces (Courtney and me) to fly kites. This was literally their first date, and I looked at her during this time together and said “you know if you marry my Uncle Billy, you would be my Aunt Jane.”

She is still my Aunt Jane to this day, and probably the first person to teach me that SHE in turn practiced REAL MAGIC and that she believed me. She believed everything I ever felt about the mysterious, and she let my sister and I use her magic books to teach ourselves from the ages of three and six. Real magic, like totem cards, healing crystals and herbs, even old spells from the days of Salem to cure hiccups.

My mom not only supported this, but took us to New Age stores and bought us books and the means to make everyday magic. In middle school I remember she found her own. She read The Secret by Rhonda Bynes , and began to use the Law of Attraction. She then began to teach this to us, and would even demonstrate this day after day by winning prize after prize on the radio. She won us tickets to the circus (before we knew it was terrible for the animals) the Nutcracker, to Tony Hawk’s Boom Boom Huck Jam (whatever that was) and we were FLOORED. She would wake up in the morning and hear a prize on the radio and ask us if we wanted to go. In the end I don’t know if she CARED if we wanted to go. That wasn’t the point. So she went on to use that same magic to enhance her career, her living situation, and her entire life. She taught me we create magic just from believing.

I grew up and began to write. I was constantly doing this in all my classes in middle school, losing myself in my stories, and high school seemed far away. I wanted to be like Peter Pan and stay in the world of the mysterious forever. I didn’t know where I was going, career wise, but who does, at age 12? But people ask you all the time! It’s absolutely absurd, and as a kid, you feel as if you are supposed to know. Needless to say I felt a little lost in my head, I needed to pin myself to the ground.

But the universe showed me the way. I found a cool program in my freshman and sophomore year called The Expedition Academy, and it combined hiking and camping trips (including the Appalachian Trail) with Socratic Seminars and sociology and made this incredible, Transcendentalist experience. It entirely recreated my life, and I fell in love again with the magic that was the outdoors, and nature itself. We practiced the art of being present and in the moment, and we took journals each night we fell asleep in our tents. Part of our assignment was an overall reflection of our trips and what we learned, saw, and experienced. We had to turn in a trip reflection. In this class we talked about the things about human nature we didn’t know or understand. It tethered magic to the real moments we experience every day that we need only pay attention to.

Today, I believe we are all a part of that miraculous, and that we can observe this simply from the act of being and believing. The animals and the trees, and all of universe speaks to us if we take a moment to listen. I practice little moments of mindfulness every day. It doesn’t matter where you do it! Just take ONE minute of silence and reflection. Something will speak to you, if you listen.

Yesterday, the miraculous was finding an amazing suspension bridge out in the wilderness when we just happen to gaze over a cliff. Today, it was a fantastic massage with lavander essential oil. Nothing is ever completely silent. The world is a miracle, and I plan to share these whenever I can.

Til next time guys!

Hi let me introduce myself! My name is Amy and planning adventures is my #1 stress reliever! I have a full-time career in sales/management for a large Fortune 500 company. I love my job and appreciate the opportunities that I have been given. Planning and executing are strengths that I have leveraged to help me be successful in my career. But all work and no play makes Amy a dull girl! Fortunately, I’ve found a healthy, creative way to parlay my love of planning with my love of travel. I take great pleasure in researching, scheduling, booking and counting down the days until my next departure. Planning is half the fun!

Planning for any adventure requires that I take stock of the following situations: current finances, travel logistics, required time off work, and my personal fitness level. I’d like to tell you that I’m one of those disciplined travelers that sets a budget, plans accordingly and works within that budget…..but I’d be totally lying to you. And since this our first time meeting, the last thing I want to do is lie to a new friend! Let me put it to you this way, I will never be debt free OR have any unused vacation days at the end of the year.

My idea of budgeting for a vacation is to look up flight information, hotel accommodations, available vacation days and then go from there. I pay for as much as I can up front (credit cards totally count). Then, I just hope that I have enough money left in my savings to pay off my Amex when it comes due! Admittedly not the best strategy, but it’s always worked for me. I think I just heard you gasp so this is probably a good time to point out that this is not a financial blog. Notice that I did not list being financially savvy as a strength in my introduction? That’s because I’m fumbling through life like almost everyone else. I am absolutely not advising that you budget for your vacations the way I do. You do you. Just don’t judge!

Now that I’ve fully disclosed my budgeting strategy, it’s time to get to the good stuff, planning! Airfare and lodging consume a significant percentage of my vacation dollars, so I start by figuring out the logistics. I utilize American Express Travel, Google Flights and Hopper to find the best deals on airfare. Once I have an approximate budget for airfare, I research lodging. I spend a great deal of time on this segment of planning because accommodations can make or break a trip. There’s nothing worse than booking what looks to be a great room online, only to arrive in person to find there’s no central air, the interior hasn’t been updated in years, the room is dank and reeks of stale cigarette smoke, and that the pool is so green with algae that you wouldn’t even consider even dipping in your big toe! ! Experience is a good teacher so I now rely on word of mouth, TripAdviser, andPinterest for suggestions and reviews.

My next big adventure is to Sedona and the Grand Canyon! In less than a month, I will meet up with my daughters, Lauren and Courtney, for 4 days of hiking and biking in Arizona! This will be my second annual trip to the Grand Canyon and first time to Sedona. I actually started planning this trip last year while I was in the Canyon. I have a long standing rule that I have to plan my next vacation while still on my current vacation. This makes leaving so much easier knowing that my next adventure is in the works! Anyway, I digress…… we are flying into Pheonix, renting an SUV, and then heading to Junipine Resorts for the first leg of the trip. I am really looking forward to the Jeep Sunset Vortex Tour in the desert. There are also a few metaphysical shops that to I’m excited to visit. From Sedona, we will head to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. We are staying at the Yavapai Lodge in Grand Canyon Village in order to be close to the trails. I can’t wait to share the details on a future post!

Today, my daughter Lauren and I went on a day trip to the Red River Gorge! We loaded up our backpacks and the GoPro and hit the trail. This was our first trip to Red River Gorge and the experience was nothing short of amazing. We started at the Sky Bridge trailhead and quickly came upon the iconic Sky Bridge Arch. This natural sandstone measures 23 feet high and 75 feet long and is 10,000 years in the making!

Next we headed to Sheltowee Trace and discovered the most beautiful lagoon. After hiking for only about a half mile, we discovered a suspension bridge!

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