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.