Morning Walks

Even though it's only June, we're well into the heat of summer here in Texas.  It jumped from the 70s to the 90s sometime around the first of May and from what I've heard, this is where we'll hover until August when it will be over 100 degrees every day.  (Hooray for Utah vacations in July!)

Last year, when we moved here in early August, I wondered how I would ever be able to stand being outside longer than the walk from my air conditioned house to my air conditioned car.  But this week, I found a way...you just have to get up early!  


On Monday morning, I started my new "schedule" including a one hour BRISK walk every morning...apparently my summer internal alarm has been adjusted to go off at 7:00am instead of 5:30am.   Fortunately, even though it's blazing hot in Dallas, there's ALWAYS a breeze and it's not humid at all, so it's bearable...sort of.  And at 7:00am it's still only in the 70s so it's the perfect time for a walk. 


Here's what my walk looks like...

 

It's a beautiful, very wide, very well used walking/running/biking path.  This morning it was mostly a dog walking path, but they were friendly dogs, so I didn't mind.   The mostly shaded sidewalks lead from the subdivision to the elementary school to a couple of small bridges over a now-dry creek, past some apartments, and then to another bridge over a not-so-dry creek.  I stop and turn around before I get to that last bridge because that's about the 30 minute mark and because I'm not a huge fan of bridges.

And here's the best part!  I've never been big on doing things by myself, and up until now, I've had one of a handful of walking buddies available whenever I felt the need to exercise.  But with summer here, they're all busy or out of town, or not willing to get up at 7:00am,  so I decided that if I was going to walk this summer, I either needed a new plan or a new companion.  

I found one...

Have I already mentioned how much I LOVE my BFF Droid??...Every day my relationship with this thing gets better and better.  This week (I know, I'm totally slow...) I realized that I could play the music from the playlist on this blog while I'm walking!   AND I have the security of a phone (just in case one of those bridges gives out), AND the convenience of a camera, AND I can track how far I've walked AND see what time it is, AND I'm sure the thing could even take my pulse and calculate the calories I burned, too, if I could find apps for those things.  And it's all RIGHT IN MY HAND, so it's the perfect walking companion.  It's going to be difficult to re-work all those walking buddies into my new exclusive relationship with my Droid.

Back to the trail...
 
This morning I saw a huge snake on one of the smaller bridges, so I took Mack back there this afternoon for a bike ride to see if we could find it.  We didn't...but we did stop to taste his first ever honeysuckle!  He asked if we could pick all the flowers and put all the "honey" into a little jar to take home.  We decided that might take too long. 

I love that trail and I love those morning walks and I LOVE that there's always a way...even when things seem like they're impossible (exercising in hot weather.)  Even when seasons change...even when there's some obstacle (no walking buddies, bridges, snakes), there's ALWAYS a way to make things work if you have a heartfelt desire and enough motivation (and a Droid doesn't hurt.)