Walk A New Path..A Joyful Challenge

It’s always nice to change up the walk route. My husband and I have been walking daily for almost three years now. The new route is nine miles. The old route was eight miles, but the new one has fewer cars to contend with, and it’s more secluded. We trek to the pollution control plant and back. In other words, we walk to the poop plant. We can continue on, through the canyon where the picture below was taken, but we discovered that route home is a mile less, and once we’ve walked the longer distance, we feel as if we’re slacking somehow if we take the shorter route.

The town runs its sewage through pipes underneath the canyon floor. There are areas smellier than others, but primarily the canyon is a wonderful place to walk. It’s peaceful and walkers and bicycles share the path. A dog park is at one end where people gather daily to visit and enjoy their pets as they play, and further on, some local high school students painted a lovely mural in a tunnel that goes under a main road by the high school. All in all, the canyon itself is approximately eight miles in length, and walking through at least part of it makes my day.

But then walking anywhere makes my day. There was a time my rheumatoid arthritis was so bad that I used a cane to walk. Even walking from my chair at our shop to the bathroom was excruciating, and I truly never believed I could walk again without a cane let alone nine miles. My husband, at 62, is in better shape now than when we taught karate, as am I at 58. So we walk, even in the snow, although I draw the line at rain unless I have a hat.

It’s a blessing that gives me such pause. And there are times I can’t remember how bad I felt, or how difficult it was for me during those years. But now we plan our vacations around places where we can either hike or walk. We spent our vacation a couple of years ago in Incline Village at Lake Tahoe. Everything is on an incline, hence the name. We had been walking six miles per day at that time, thinking we would be prepared. We were wrong. It was exhausting. But after a week there, six miles at home wasn’t enough. We had no choice but to go further.

I thought my life was over. But then I found cannabis, everything changed, and now I have more energy and more of a life than ever before. When you experience the not-so-good big things, it can be the little things that give us the most joy. Even a nine mile walk to the poop plant and back.

~Blessings to all!