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feel those obliques In an effort to shake up my routine a little, I went exploring after work. The thought of walking seemed like a good idea to me so I headed south of where I live to see what I could find. Under a sky that promised rain I looked at the houses with their recently cut lawns. Most of them I would guess were built within the last five to ten years. Obviously my new home town is growing, which in my mind has its good and bad points. On the one hand it isn't a sprawling metropolis, but at the same time it isn't a ghost town with people leaving on a regular basis. It should be interesting to see what has and hasn't changed in five years if I am still living here. It seems odd to be talking about my life in terms of five year segments, but maybe I've reached that point in my life now. I don't know. I mean there are time when I can't say what I am going to be next week and here I am making decisions about something that is years away. Then again nothing is truly certain in life. Oh, well back to my walk. As I reached the bottom of the slope, I saw something that looked like a bike trail so I left the fledgling subdivisions behind and started off on the crushed gravel path. I suspect that this was probably a railroad line at one time, but I wasn't sure. The path was new and familiar to me at the same time. Wisconsin has a large network of these trails crisscrossing the state and I've ridden my bicycle on a number of them. The format was the same. Sometimes there are houses near the trail, then suddenly all of that gives way to farmland. I kept heading east with a mixture of curiosity and determination. Honestly it was fun to be somewhere new and I kept wondering what I would see as I walked along the trail. I had a vague idea of where I was heading, but the signs along the trail never had a map on them. All that they gave was the name of the trail and a warning to people who wanted to use motorized vehicles on the trail. For the most part the trail was mine. Every so often someone would be seen walking west and I would say hello as we passed one another. I, however, seemed to be one of the few people going east. Eventually I decided that I had had enough and needed to turn around and go home. I didn't want to get caught in the rain on my way back and I knew that I was getting tired. The true deciding factor however was a sign telling me what road I had reached and when I saw it I knew that I had gone miles from home. As I made my way up the last hill to where I live, I could hear voices. A soccer game was being held in the small park located behind my place. I stopped for a moment and watched them move up and down the grass as people shouted encouragement from the side of the field. Maybe there was a future Mia Hamm out there. I don't know. ... It felt good to be outside that long and I plan on making that more of a habit this summer. Next time I'll take my bike though. Walking is nice enough, but I like the rhythm of pedaling as I move through the countryside. Plus I can cover more distance in less time.
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