10'000 Steps

In an effort to stop complaining about the weight I have gained and start losing the weight I have gained, I have decided on a course of action. After much thinking and considering and general laziness, I have decided that since it's summer and I'd like to enjoy my exercise outside, I am going to attempt to walk 10'000 or more steps a day. (A friend and colleague lost considerable weight doing this.) ( I will also be loosely following the South Beach Diet, but whatever, this is about my travels - afoot.)

So, yesterday, I attached my counter to my belt and set about my day. Found all sorts of reasons to walk about the store yesterday and managed to hit the 4000 mark by the time I got home. Clearly, my normal daily activity wasn't enough - and isn't that the point? I decided to re-acquaint myself with the walk I used to take with Savannah before she was unable to take that walk. With ipod in pocket and the new John Mayer Live in my earphones, I set off. It's a few blocks to the river and then a loop through the park along the river, across the bridge and along River Street with all the 1800s houses, and then back up the hill home. At the end of this loop I found I was wanting more, despite the dank humidity and so I trekked along the river and across the bridge a second time and then returned the same way instead of finishing the loop up River Street a second time. (It was much breezier along the river, making for a much more pleasant walk.)

Along my journey, I saw a group of teens/early twenty-somethings filming each other while they did stunts on their skateboards along the brick picnic shelter wall. I saw a rather large snapping turtle sunning on a log pretty close to the edge of the river wall. I took pictures with my camera phone, but I do not know how to get my camera phone pictures to my computer. I saw a mother duck and her four ducklings nipping bugs and algae off the concrete supports for the railroad trestle and walkway bridge. I saw where one of the landowners along the River Road side of the river has let the marsh grass grow along his boat ramp. It appears that there is no boat to launch and no fence to keep from going in the river. And no levee to keep the river from coming up high. I think the marsh grass is meant to be both a visual and physical barrier. I saw a couple making out far across the park where they thought no one could see. I saw a toddler scream at a goose to warn it from coming near her and the goose hiss back at her in protest. I listened to sublime blues guitar and smiled without speaking to more people than I can remember. For the first time in ages, I smiled and was smiled at by people who were not customers. I saw a second mother duck and oddly enough four ducklings nipping at the concrete under the small walking bridge. I saw a duck with loon coloring but the wrong bill hanging with the mallards. I saw a crane preening and cleaning its feathers on a lawn across the river. And where the geese and ducks are always there, it's nice to see unique behaviour and other wildlife.

I returned home around 7:30 or so. Sweaty, hot, but invigorated and determined. It was a good walk.

When I called it a night and climbed in bed, I had walked 10'108 steps yesterday. Pretty good start.

Night Drive

Summer is the best time in the world to drive at night - the heat has cooled and in the country, where the city lights fade, nature takes over. Passing fields of corn and soy, if you look out over the night, you can see them in the thousands, streaking along - the fireflys come out. We used to call them lightning bugs. They look like little floating cities above the fields.

Favorite Drives

On my way home from home a couple of weeks ago, I travelled late in the day after 6:00pm like I used to do when I was in Grad school and would rather spend the day at home than at school. It's a north/south route, so that late puts the sun to the west. Any incoming weather is from the west as well. Driving in the midwest affords you the uninterrupted view of the sky and the weather.

The beginning of my drive was an unobstructed view of the storm that passed over. It was one long rather thin really strip of darkest gray thundercloud that brought with it a 15 minute downpour and then was on it's way. From the car, I could literally see three edges of the cloud and the bright blue sky all around it. I could see exactly the path it was on as well. It looked a little as I would imagine a funnel cloud to look, but was only rain.

Because it's a three hour drive, I was treated to the entirety of the sunset around 8:45 or so. All oranges and pink streaks against bright white and silver clouds. Magnificent really. It made me nostalgic for summer and for a different time when I was freer with my time - unconstrained by duty, fatigue, age or whatever.

Finally, on this same drive, I passed two semi trucks hauling loads of turkeys. At first I thought they were those trash trucks and they were losing bits of paper, but it turned out to be feathers. The semi trailers consisted of stacks of cages with 2-3 turkeys per cage piled the height and length and width of the shape of a semi trailer but without walls. It was so odd. And disturbing. Every turkey was white. The marvels of modern agricultural engineering I suppose. Anyway, an oddity for sure as I have never in all the years I have travelled that route and at all the different times of day I have driven it seen the turkeys. Too bad my camera phone doesn't focus at 80 miles an hour!