A Pretty Long Walk

Today I took advantage of the dry weather and walked to our local library, with the additional motivation that four books were waiting for me on hold.  Whew!  Here’s my route.

Have you ever noticed that the popular mapping sites have walking directions in addition to driving directions?  In Google Maps, after clicking on Directions, you will see a car, a bus, and a little person.  The little person gives walking directions, and for my library, they showed a zigzag diagonal route that is shorter than the way we drive.

A few tips I learned:

·      Take a detailed map of any walking route that is unfamiliar to you.  In our area, it seems there is a Place, Street and Avenue for each street number, and as the streets wind around their names keep changing.  I got a bit lost when the streets on my walking directions no longer matched any of the streets I could see.  A woman coming out of her house was kind enough to point this bedraggled old lady on her way to the library.

·      Check out the elevations of your route.  Had I driven the route first, I might have noticed it went up one side of a small mountain and down the other, although it’s funny how a route that seems flat enough in the car can be quite hilly when walked.  I couldn’t face the hills coming home, so I took the longer but easier route.

·      I think it’s good karma not to pass up a convenient restroom even if the immediate need is not great.

Altogether it was a lovely walk; the weather was nice and some other walkers smiled or nodded along the way.  My right hip complained a bit on the way home so I’m sipping bone broth as I write and I’ll continue doing my physical therapy exercises.

Here are the books I picked up.  As you can see, I’m studying more about blogging.  I keep running into interesting articles from the Huffington Post so that one particularly interests me.  I’ve already looked at the photos in the quilt book and each one came from a quilting blog that I’ll check out.  I read The Girl You Left Behind by Jojo Moyes and liked it a lot, so I’m looking forward to this one.

Happy reading and Happy walking!