Another Beautiful Day

Today my friend and I walked the Aldo Leopold Hiking Trail, which is probably not more than a mile long, but a nice nature trail with signs and a map to explain what we are seeing. Half of the trail is in the open prairie, the other half in the woods. We saw a very strange growth on a balsam tree which I’m hoping to find an answer to on the internet. If I find it I will post it here. I can’t even describe it.

I wouldn’t want to walk that trail on a hot day, but today was just perfect. If I hadn’t tripped on something and gone flat on my patootie, it would have been perfect. I didn’t want to land on my bad knee, so I sprawled gracefully across the trail.

Nothing was hurt but my dignity but now I’m a bit stiffer than usual.

I Keep Forgetting to Blog…

I’ve taken at least two decent walks since I last blogged, but there was a series of really rainy days complete with day-long lightning when I was not inspired to do so.

Yesterday I took the car down to the lake and walked along the shore until the bugs got to me, then walked awhile up the nearest road and back, trying to stay off the big hill. A day or two before that I walked a mile or two with my friend, and I think that will be the plan today as well.

I did see some different vegetation on yesterday’s walk, a Turk’s Cap Lily and lots of Meadow Rue.

Beautiful, Beautiful Day!

Today I woke up at 5 am and tried to go back to sleep but by 5:30 it occurred to me that if I got up right NOW I might get a walk in before it gets too hot.

So I managed to get myself out there by 7, and managed to walk all the way to the top of Maple Hill, where I have not been since early May before I went to Norway. Oh my, how it’s grown. I could hardly find my favorite (and the only) Hemlock tree without a search. I finally found it. It makes me happy just knowing it’s there.

I marched right up the steep part, only stopping once, and didn’t sit on my rock because I was worried about ticks. I did lean on my favorite red pine tree right before the steep part. That one is back in on a driveway that I have never seen a car in, and if there was anybody in the cabin beyond it I’d see a car parked there. It’s a nice spot to stop, take a drink, and enjoy the deep woods feel. I am SO glad I went today.

I walked yesterday too and forgot to blog, because it was in town with my friend who I hadn’t seen in months, along her favorite path along the lakefront, after which we went to lunch and did some garage sales until the rain shut them all down.

I think I’m finally home.

Walked Yesterday and Forgot to Blog

Probably because I walked to work from the car repair place and couldn’t blog from work. It’s a nice 2.5 mile walk into town and then through town on the railroad grade for quite awhile. I need to find where the railroad grade starts so I can get off the highway sooner.

It is beautiful in there, birds and trees and flowers. An American Redstart flew down and flew right past my face then up into a tree where he showed off for several minutes. Not sure if the males help with raising the young, I think they do and there may have been a nest nearby.

So now I’m without a car for 3 days, but I still have my arthritic legs.

Second Day Out

Didn’t walk yesterday, it was 95 in the shade which is scarily unseasonable for Lake Superior. So today I managed to get out there at 7:20 and had a lovely walk. An hour and a half instead of an hour so it’s building back.

I find that I haven’t, after a month off, gone back to where I was when I first started, which is very good. Just not quite ready to face the big hill yet. I wore a regular cap this time which was MUCH better than the straw hat for keeping the sun out.

I saw something on the road that I’d never seen before, a salamander. Oh, how I hope it makes it across the road. I don’t hold out much hope though, at the rate it was going and its tiny size. Looked it up when I got home and I think it was a blue-black salamander, about three inches long and probably recently hatched. May the Source be with it!

Yay! Walking Again!

Well, I went to Norway, and I played my flute in the raggedy little band and we marched up and down the streets of two tiny little Norwegian towns. The big deal for me was that my son was playing the trombone and my grandson was playing cornet.

The bad part was that all of us came down with the flu shortly after my cornet-playing grandson had his confirmation, and so we didn’t go for beautiful walks in the Norwegian mountains. Instead we sat in the living room and watched movies. We watched the entire trilogy of Lord of the Rings on three separate days. And I read many many books.

The march took place between the flu and the stomach stuff I developed later, so it was one of the few days I actually felt good enough to do it. Sick on the airplane, though I made it home all right, only to come down with another cold.

So now I am finally more or less healthy and ready for walking, but oh, how I hate the heat! I walked from 7:30 to 8:30 this morning in an increase of almost ten degrees F. So next time I MUST get out there sooner. And NOT wear my straw hat because the sun comes right through it.

But I felt pretty good, and only turned around because it was hot and I was about to head into an unremitting stretch of pure sunshine. I walked about half – maybe a little more – of my former normal distance with no problems. I just need to get up earlier and get out there while the hot sun is just peeking over the horizon.

A Walk is a Walk is a Walk

I started with the intention of doing a 3 mile hike on this day before I fly off to Norway, but it was simply TOO HOT! Shortly after I got to the bridge… MAYBE half a mile from the house, I realized that I might actually give out from the heat, and turned around and came home.

I had hoped to use the time to get my mind off of worrying about all the what-ifs, and that worked – all I could think about was how miserable I was and whether my water would hold out.

I love how the ground is now dotted with tiny specks of green under the trees, and all the flowers that are blooming. I will probably miss the trilliums, but I guess it is worth it.

I expect to have some lovely and scenic walks in Norway. I will take lots of pictures and will surely try to keep up the blog when possible. I am getting better at putting pictures up, I just need to do it more often.

Another New Spot

Still trying to figure out how best to accommodate my energy level. It seems I become fairly LOW energy after I’ve done the hill. So to honor that, I walked along a very straight path in town, a railroad grade heading out of town, and it was lovely but my knees were hurting and my pedometer fell off shortly after I started so I had no idea how far I’d walked. I am SO glad I paid the extra dollar for the clip thingy so that even if it comes off, it still dangles from the clip.

I was surprised at the different kinds of wildflowers I saw on this path – things I had thought only grew farther south, like Dogtooth Violets and Bloodroot.   Also as the path is between the lake and the highway and open to 4-wheelers, there is a LOT of garbage along the way.

I need to do the hill one more time before I fly off to Norway, but not sure when I can sandwich it in.

The Big Hill Again

This time I found a lightweight camp stool and put it into my widest backpack and carried it with me. It was nice to sit, but hard to get it in and out of the pack. Maybe I need to fasten straps right onto the stool, or get a new stool or some combination of the above.

Knees were fine until about half a mile from home, then they started talking to me but I ignored them and kept walking.

I only stopped three times on the steep part. Trying to walk from telephone pole to telephone pole before stopping. The stool is nice because I can position it at the top of the hill for maximum viewing pleasure. Some day I’ll take the camera up there, the view is quite nice.

Not My Normal Walk

Well, the plan was to climb up the big hill, but last night I was thinking about all the things that might happen at the car place (such as it might not be finished at 1 pm) and suddenly it hit me – I had two hours to use up in between dropping the car off at 8, and starting to work at 10, and the car place is a couple miles out of town. So I walked into town, it was a lovely morning, and I took the scenic route as soon as I could, to get off the highway.

Funny how much more you see when you are walking than you do when driving. It’s almost another world. I used up almost half an hour trying to find the old railroad grade, couldn’t find it and had to come back out to the highway. The next attempt farther down got me on to the railroad grade, which was much prettier, though straight as an arrow, and nobody was on it but me and the birds.

I felt a bit strange in town with my walking stick and baseball cap, but I persevered. Lovely walk but no hill.