…flows, does not push, moves with grace to meet a goal
Recently I saw a new, to me, sign with an important message!
I was in Nashville, Tennessee and saw this sign while standing at a road intersection. The traffic light would soon change and the walk light will come on counting down the seconds for me to cross the road. However, this sign reminds all of us of the importance in looking into the driver’s eyes to see that he or she sees you. I came to realize that an electrical box was blocking their view of me! Glad I looked!
Exercising while traveling has its challenges. Yet older travelers may say, as we age, exercising anytime has its challenges. It’s surely not like what we accomplished decades ago. When we travel though, our daily timeline varies so much we need to work at finding time to fit in any exercise … and that’s not always easy!
Our cardio days, strength training days, and rest day per week becomes a jumbled mess while traveling. A poor night’s sleep, driving weariness, change in eating plan, dehydration and whatever else can lead to lack of interest in doing a workout of any sort, let alone trying to find time to fit it in!
But here are a few of ideas to consider if you want to do any exercise/workout. At least these are what I tell myself to consider … as I have this challenge too:
Realizing that maintaining a level of fitness while we travel is a challenge is an important start. Sitting/driving a vehicle for hours, often eating more food and not getting our best sleep is often part of travel. But our bodies need to be active, hydrated and strong to travel as we wish!
My goal is to travel the world, thus I need a healthy body for the miles ahead! I’ll find time each day to do something active. Of course, I love trips where I bicycle or hike each day. Unfortunately my upcoming 2 month road trip will not include any bicycling, but maybe some hikes. What exercise(s) do you do when you travel? How do you stay active? Got a favorite full body exercise? Please share!
PS. I am reminded of an 84 year old woman who walked a half hour before breakfast every morning as she travelled for 6 weeks with our tour group. Why can’t I do that for starters! Our group was in awe of her and she motivated us to get moving in the morning! That’s a start!
The new pedestrian bridge has been here for a year and I wondered if you have seen or made use of it? People who walk or bicycle ride on the Huckelberry Loop now have a faster way to get across the Santa Cruz River. It’s near Sweetwater Wetlands and Danny Lopez Park. For people on the west side of town, this bridge provides a safe way to travel from one segment of the loop to another. It’s called Suzanne Shields Pedestrian Bridge. Who was Suzanne Shields?
Suzanne Shields was Pima County Flood Control District’s first hydrologist in 1979 and the first director of the flood control district when formed in 2005. The bridge was not only built for recreational activities, walking and cycling, but also to maintain the Santa Cruz River. Construction crews raised the bank protection so the bridge had enough height allowing flood waters to go unimpeded below. It is the first bridge flood control built over the Santa Cruz River spanning over 300 feet and 18 feet wide. We’re having hot days now; few people were there today. I’ll bet early morning hours and once temperatures cool down there will be many enjoying the safe pathway. See you there!
Anza-Borrego Desert State Park is large … 600,000 acres and the largest state park in California … with the town of Borrego Springs in the middle of it! Last month we decided to check out this park and hike a couple of trails. The weather was perfect, but if you decide to hike here during summer months, remember, you MUST have water, and sun protection for your skin and eyes! Any time of the year, a day pass is required. It can be bought at the visitor center or pay boxes at parking lots.
As you drive to the park’s visitor center, one could wonder what is so interesting about a place that looks so desolate. Rock, with no topsoil on it; no vegetation; no animals walking around; no flowers this time of year! This “badland’ area is of interest to geologists who study the layers of land here from the past. Those sedimentary rock layers hide past life as scientists discover and uncover fossils. We were not here for that this day … off to do a hike or two!
After an informative stop at the visitor center, we drove to the Borrego Palm Canyon Nature Trail. Normally this would be a high-trafficked trail, but mid-week in the winter, not so much! It’s a rocky trail, couple of miles, with not much of an elevation gain. The trail continues to an overlook where one can see the post-fire recovery of the fan palms and can make your hike a bit longer. (More about fan vs date palms in a future post.)
In January 2020, a fire was carelessly set destroying many fan palms found in the canyon; basically the area was an oasis! This area of the trail is currently closed. Recovery takes time and we’ll hope many of the fan palms survive and grow again, along with the return of bighorn sheep, reptiles, insects and amphibians.
We decided to hike the “alternate” signed trail for our return, to the parking lot, and not simply backtrack on the main trail. Thankfully we used the “All Trails” app, trail downloaded when contemplating to do this hike… thus prior to stepping foot on the trail. It helped us decipher between the “alternate” trail and the other many social trails as we returned to our vehicle! It’s not a long trail, but remember your water!
When hiking in Arizona, one cannot help but notice how varied the landscapes are in this state. On this day we chose to hike in the Rincon Mountain area, one of the 5 mountain ranges surrounding Tucson Arizona. An easy ten mile drive brings us to Saguaro National Park East off Speedway Road. Our plan was to combine some trails and loop around for a 4 – 5 mile hike.
A good portion of the hike was in washes and on horse trails. Wildflowers were starting to bloom, Saguaro cacti were numerous and birds were seen every so often. It was sunny day with a constant breeze and blue sky. We followed our plan with a map and were happy to see good signage at the various trail intersections. Our only challenge came toward the end of the hike when the exit was to walk through a wash. This wash actually had a few inches of water in it! We made no plan for water crossings or wading through water so we made a slight change in our plan, and walked another trail out. Great hiking day …. 5.5 miles in just under 3 hours.
Here are some photos from the day:
Wild Horse Trail did have some people riding horses on it!
Saguaro cacti are throughout the park; however, to see a “crested” or “cristate” saguaro is rare since there are only about 2,000 crested saguaros in the Sonoran Desert region … growing in this national park in an isolated and rugged area.
We could not help but notice remaining effects of the power of water. This cliffside has been swept aside after many seasons of water flow and we can see tree roots hanging on. Some trails were also like trenches due to water erosion and the horses and people who have traveled the trail for hundreds of years.
The landscape is beautiful:
This was the craziest thing, to find a mailbox in the middle of a wash! You always hear to not mess around with mailboxes, especially the mail within them. So how does a mailbox end up in the middle of a wash more than a third of a mile from any road? Heavy rain, strong water flow, and nothing to stop its movement!
We checked the direction of water flow through the wash and think we know which way it floated in. There was no mail in the mailbox. We were happy about that! We understood when a mailbox is installed and ready for use, it is considered federal property and the homeowner doesn’t legally own his or her mailbox. In this wash, it belongs to no one at the moment. The mailbox seemed to come from the opposite direction we were walking, so we left the mailbox where it was in the wash.
Is anyone looking for a missing mailbox? As we walked away from it, we even wondered if anyone else has ventured down this wash and had an idea where it may have come from? To actually know the owner? How cool would that be to figure out where the mailbox owner lives and report their missing mailbox to them? It would be interesting to see the look on their face! Or maybe it would only be interesting to me. (If mail had been in the box though, we would know the owner … was not meant to be.)
Meditation, awake mindfulness, occurs different ways for each of us. My attentiveness to the present moment is while quietly walking through a landscape and time. It can be a wetland, a grassland, a forest; I simply want to be in the now with minutes to use my senses and be present. Nature provides me with the place to move my body, lift my mood, and connect with the land.
Often I walk on paths thousands have also walked upon, but then I look across a valley and see land I wonder if anyone, person or animal, has ever walked upon it! I have great respect for the air, water, land and cultural traditions joined with my stewardship of the place where I walk.
My stress melts away while I am attentive to moments in nature with no judgment. While the flower, bird, butterfly, squirrel and rabbit are part of the local land, they offer me connectedness to the present place and moment. These mindful pauses with nature are powerful for me. As a result, I love my walking meditations!
Seven thousand feet elevation is slightly different than where we live, so we hoped to see different birds while on our hike. The ponderosa pine trees were majestic and wildflowers were beginning to bloom. We walked the Sandy Seep Trail uphill, about 1.3 miles, till it met other trails heading off in other directions. It is an out-and-back trail but we decided to hike a social trail back to the parking lot. At first, we did miss which social trail to take to return to our car. Thanks to the AllTrails app we knew exactly where we were and walked through a beautiful area observing birds, hearing an over-ambitious woodpecker hammering on a tree, and just before leaving the trail we saw a man on his horse. He seemed to be training his horse to not be startled by the lasso whirling by its head.
Birds seen: mountain chickadees, green-tailed towhee, Steller’s jay, ravens, Virginia’s warbler.
I was searching for a particular grebe. While I did not find the bird I was looking for, I did get to visit Sahuarita Lake Park in Sahuarita, Arizona, so I guess that was a plus. This manmade 10 acre lake opened in 2001 is enjoyed by many people. You’ll see people walking, fishing ….need a license… boating (no motor, and only sunrise to sunset) and enjoying the outdoor space. There are restrooms, ramadas and an outdoor amphitheater most likely used frequently when we are not in a pandemic. The lake is slightly more than a mile in length and 12 feet deep at the max, yet the fisherman are catching catfish, trout, bass and sunfish. Be sure to check what the fishing regulations are so you are not reported.
I did observe pied-billed grebe, ruddy duck, American coot and rock pigeon. In researching rock pigeon, I added a new word to my vocabulary: cere. Rock pigeons have this off-white deposit of calcified keratin protein above their nostrils where the cere meets the feathers of their face. I did not find the bird I wanted, but I learned something new today and know I will return to this area another time.
Often, I never know what I will discover when I go on some of my wanderings. I do ask myself if there is anything in particular I am searching for. And it is not always about birds, but life in general. Have you recently asked yourself what you are searching for? The start of a new year is a good time to do so, but not a necessity. Ask yourself, what are you searching for, and then go for it! Even if you do not find it, you may discover something else … and that is not really so bad, most the time! A new year can have some new looks! Take joy in the newness. Keep your life fresh!
I only took one photo of the park since I had a zoom lens on my camera for bird photography. But here’s a nice look while I stood along the walking trail about halfway down the side of the lake. If you are in the area of Sahuarita, Arizona, stop in. I wish you a safe and healthy new year
It’s an interesting piece of equipment on the bicycle loop in Tucson. It records the number of cyclists and pedestrians, which would include roller-bladers, joggers, runners, along with walkers all passing the counter each day and provides totals for the year. This is definitely one of the busier spots where people are on the loop. Kudos to all using this multi-use path! (You may even see some wildlife while out there. I bet the roadrunner wished to be counted!)
