300 Days of Sunshine

Happy fall!  The leaves are starting to change and I love the cool air in the mornings.  This time of year invigorates me and I'm ready for a change.  We're getting ready to embark on a family trip to Italy, our first trans-Atlantic travel with kids (wish us luck!).  In the meantime we're enjoying the beginning of fall in Santa Fe.   Ady started Kindergarten a few weeks ago and she's doing great.  She's so much more mature than she was a year ago in PreK and her class is a great fit for her.  She loves reading group at school and riding her bike home from school.  It's so rewarding as a parent to see her discover a new world through reading and to watch her thrive in her after school activities.  Meredith is in the 2s class at daycare and she comes home telling stories about her friends and singing new songs.  The highlight of her week is her Saturday morning swim lessons.   Meredith and I have been doing some Friday morning hikes while Ady is at school.  Toddle

The Dale Ball Trails form an interconnected system of hiking trails that wind around the foothills of Santa Fe, stretching from Camino Cruz Blanc and Upper Canyon Road to Hyde Park Road and the Santa Fe National Forest.  At 7,000-8,000 ft elevation, they are slightly lower than most of the other trails in the Santa Fe mountain area, and thus are accessible to hikers and mountain bikers year-round.  The trail system is well-marked with signs and maps at each intersection, but if you have a specific route or mileage goal in mind and you don't want to have to stop at every intersection to read the map then it's helpful to also have GPS navigation. My last long run before my trail race this summer was a loop through the middle section of Dale Ball, starting at Upper Canyon Road and traveling through the winding trails and switchbacks toward Hyde Park Road, then looping back around counter-clockwise toward Cerro Gordo.  I ended with a short out-and-back toward Picacho Peak, for a to

I have lived in Santa Fe for 11 years and I am still discovering new hiking trails.  I have hiked both Atalaya Mountain and Picacho Peak a number of times, but I had never hiked from one peak to the other until this summer.  Both peaks offer stunning 360 degree views of the surrounding area including the city to the west and the Santa Fe National Forest to the east.  The hospital where I work has east-facing windows with view of both of these mountains, and I often open up the curtains in patients' rooms and set up their chairs to face the windows so they can see the sunrise over the mountains.  There's something healing and meditative about seeing the mountains from a distance, and then hiking to the top of the peak and viewing the world from above.   The hike begins at the St. John College parking lot (although, alternatively, you can begin at Cerro Gordo and go up Picacho Peak first).  It winds through the foothills next to the campus with a few rolling hills until crossing