Category: Community

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July Walks: Barefoot

July 22,2024

While the political landscape shifts and turns, I’m happy to have my commitment to walking in Nature to shape my day. Walking on my familiar path, greeted with sounds, smells, colors, and tastes, felt reassuring and literally grounding. In fact, I walked, sat on a few logs, and talked on the phone with my sister for all of four hours in my familiar woods. What luxury and assurance it was! I even walked barefoot off and on! The trail was wet from last night’s rain. The dark brown mud felt cool and squishy, adding a mindful quality to my walk through the forest and along the river. read more

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July Walks: No Politics Here

July 16, 2024

I am half way through my month of “walking every day” feeling grateful to myself for setting that intention, noticing that even though I KNOW that walking in Nature always calms me and brings nourishing experiences and feelings, I have to remind myself of that inevitable result to get myself out the door to start my walk.

On my walk this morning, the park seemed like a different world than the one where political drama is seething! I wondered, “Does the blue heron know about this? Does the mother duck need her ducklings to be wary? Are the rhythmic processes of photosynthesis and leaf pigmentation affected by recent events in the political arena?” read more

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July Walks: New Friend at Decade’s End

July 12,2024

This evening’s walk is noteable as a completion walk to my 70th journey around the sun. Tomorrow, I begin a new decade! I walked as the sun set on the 3.4 mile Orange loop at Taylorsville Metropark, Vandalia, Ohio. It winds around ridges along SR 40, then down to the Great Miami River and back up through an old deciduous forest that is allowed to cycle naturally. All the layers of the forest thrive, from seedlings to massive mature trees to decaying logs.

I was treated to meeting a delightful woman who also walks regularly here to walk off her workdays as a bakery supervisor at Costco. She described connecting with the forest as a supportive place to enliven her soul – just like me! We exchanged numbers to be in touch to share walks here and in Germantown Metropark, my next park to explore. read more

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July Walks: Unfamiliar Trails

July 11,2024

This has been another two-walk day. What was different was that both walks were on unfamiliar trails where I had not yet walked. In the morning, I met my new friend Antoinette at Rentschler Forest Preserve near Hamilton, OH. That’s close to her and on my way to an appointment with a chiropractor I like.
I have been walking solo so much during the past year that I had forgotten the joy and ease of walking with a friend, sharing conversation, exploring our life stories and challenges too, stopping at scenic spots to listen and watch in silence.  We agreed that we must meet again! read more

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July Walks: Collaboration Celebration

July 10, 2024

Today was graced with both morning and evening walks. Yesterday evening’s breeze precluded nightlong wind and rain, even a brief power outage this morning. I am always grateful to myself for ignoring the “I’m too tired for a walk” inner voice when I arrive at the trail. 20 minutes into my evening walk, I’m breathing deeply and drinking in the colors, patterns, and the “wild wind.” I’m celebrating that Lynette and Martha will be working with me for the next few months to craft their fulfilling walks! I can accommodate a few more! read more

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July Walks: Inner Voice

July 8,2024

I took two walks today, morning and early evening. I felt deep gratitude for listening to my inner walking voice instead of my cynical voice that would have gone straight home after visiting my Mom, giving in to the discouraged bewilderment of the assisted living environment.

“Go walk,” said my inner walker, who knew that 45 minutes of walking on an undulating trail through woods would breathe out my frustration and remind my brain of balance and beauty. I’m enjoying pretending I’m on the Appalachian Trail by carrying my pack and sitting at a picnic table under the expansive sky rejoicing in my walk. read more

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Oregon Coast Trail: Journal Anthology

September 29, 2019

“Done is better than perfect”

Read my Oregon Coast Trail anthology:
Oregon Coast Trail Beach Walking Discovery

Since John and I completed the Oregon Coast Trail and drove south through  California to Borrego Springs and our winter home at Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, I’ve been compiling the blogposts that I wrote during our journey. I’ve edited the glaring errors caused by “autocorrect” and attempted to arrange the content and pictures in a book draft form.

It’s not perfect and I wanted to send it to you in case you’d like to read it as an anthology of my journal of the walk.   I’m willing to let this go for now because today I start my sixth season as Park Interpretive Specialist at Anza-Borrego Desert State Park!  There will be plenty of projects to work on there! read more

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Oregon Coast Trail: Amanda

August 28, 2019

Although I have been disappointed by the roadwalking along 101, my suffering pales to that of Amanda, the Yachats woman, and the thousands of others, who were cheated out of their homeland here, tortured, murdered, and forced to walk along the lava rock coast to an encampment. It would have taken great foresight to preserve a natural coastal corridor for our trail, yes. Even better would have been to ratify the treaty in 1855 giving the original people their twenty-mile wide coastal area. read more

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Oregon Coast Trail: Whale of a Day

August 25, 2019

On which we walked big miles, made a big leap in our thruhiking style, and saw some really big creatures!

Adding a few more words or phrases to the words above, like in one of those grammar games, we walked something like sixteen miles, starting our day at 5 a.m. at Devil’s Lake State Park and ending at 7:30 p.m. at Beverly Beach State Park. We made a big leap in our thruhiking style by catching the Lincoln County bus to skip four miles of walking on US 101 between Taft and Gleneden, making our day’s trip miles jump to 20. And, for our first time on this trip and over several hours of our day, from Boiler Bay south to Cape Foulweather, we saw whales – Gray Whales! Mostly, we saw the spouts of water sprayed from whales, and sometimes the backs of whales, to the tune of about 20 sightings in four to six spots along the coast. We just caught a glimpse of one whale between two houses as we walked down residential Coast Street in the southern streets of Depoe Bay. It was a whale of a day! read more

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Oregon Coast Trail: Stamina

August 24, 2019

I awoke with gratitude for being in the quiet green spaciousness of the Cascade Head rainforest. Our choice to stop our forced march to the Sea Echo Motel in Lincoln City and sleep in this forest was a good one! This is what we needed! The stop also broke up our road walk on US 101 into two days instead of one very long, arduous one! With my spirit renewed by a night in the woods, I could bolster my courage and tolerance and walk on the road again. We still had 3.7 miles to go to Lincoln City, where we could shop at Safeway and return to the beach for a short walk to Devil’s Lake State Park Campground. We got away from our camp at a leisurely 8:40 a.m. We still had an hour’s walk in the forest. This time, I paid attention to its beauty! read more