Walking Adventures

So, I’ve always been a bit of a walker. No distance is too far, no weather condition is too intimidating, that I, in my infinite wisdom, cannot summarily dismiss as irrelevant and sally forth.

This blithe disregard for reality has, from time to time, gotten me into trouble. Like the time I was 4 miles away from my house, and found a 65 pound, cast-iron, 1940’s sewing machine. I was 12, and I had to have it. So, I bought it, and perforce, had to drag it all the way home. In my defense, it served me faithfully for years.

Another time, I was fifteen, and I got hit with a craving. I needed watermelon. It was 110 degrees out, the grocery store was 5 miles away, down the steepest, longest, most nightmarish hill in town, the humidity was unspeakable, but, this was a craving fit to make pregnant women look tame. I had to have my watermelon. I left, I nearly passed out from heat prostration on the way up the hill, I found out my next trip home that the staff had been taking bets on whether I would make it, and I enjoyed every bite of my twenty pound watermelon.

Now that we’ve covered wacky distances…I don’t think I will mention the time that I went for a multi-mile hike in a sleet storm. Twice. Or, the time I went for a walk in 35 degree weather and got hypothermia. Or the time that I randomly decided to go for a walk at three in the morning in a sleet storm.

So yeah, its kind of sad, but I’m a city girl who can make perambulation a near-death experience.

So, when you think about it, my going on an eleven mile hike through a swamp by myself is downright sane. It was a little long, but it was a lovely hike. I trekked through ankle deep muck, through an origami maze of tree roots, through tangled vines fit to make Indiana Jones wince, and enough low-growing foliage to keep a gross of weedwackers busy for a month. I also spotted three owls, one hawk, a red-headed duck, 15 salamanders, 15 dozen snakes, and 15 million mosquitoes.

I can’t wait to go back.

And to finish my day….I helped build a chicken coop. I have such a varied life.