I didn't really feel like typing out all the details of yesterday again, so I copied this off of my blog on MySpace about my "adventures":
"It's a wonder I even managed to pull it off. I've been sitting on my ass nearly all summer, sprinkling the vacation with little outings and visits here and there, but there's always been a car involved somehow. Now it seems I've not only gotten up, I've taken my heart rate to an entirely new level; not to mention the strength in my legs.
You see, I just took THE longest walk I have ever taken in my life. Ed came by the day before yesterday looking for someone to take along to a folk-dancing circle. I did very little folk dancing, and instead played on the awesome structure in the park beyond (built for children, I know, but fun nonetheless). Somewhere in between talk about inventing a play-structure like that for adults (oh, come on, you know you want one), and Harry Potter, we agreed to go to the portion of the Green Belt in Wheat Ridge to walk as far as we could in a day.
That turned out to be a good ten miles.
Now, that might not seem like a lot to people with a good sense of the distance you can go in a day, but for someone like me, who really has no business being athletic at all... It was an experience. The amazing thing was that even as my legs and feet started to hurt and cramp, I forced myself to keep going. I'd convinced myself that this was the kind of thing I needed, an adventure, if you will, and I was going to suck it up, no matter how painful it got for me.
It turns out that a great majority of the trip wasn't painful at all. We took some off-route neighborhood streets to get from Arvada to Wheat Ridge, which took a little under two hours. Ed wasn't very happy about it, but eventually we had to take Kipling a little way to get to the apartments I used to live in, so we could take a path to a place I knew well from when I lived there.
By the time we made it to the place I really loved along the trail, it was ten o'clock, and we hung around for a little while just to relax before the real work began.
We went further up the trail, to a lake, across a bridge, and then back down to Kipling, where we had lunch. Then, when we crossed the street, we found a stray basset hound that had no collar. Ed supposed he had a chip, but that didn't make either of us any happier. Chips can only be accessed through technology held by shelter workers. If a dog has tags, it can be brought home by anyone who can read.
This dog, though it had short legs, followed us all the way to Wadsworth. On the way, Ed used my phone to call several people; first his mother, then his sister (who has a car) who gave him the number for a shelter. The people at the shelter said they would send someone down to the park nearest Wadsworth on the Green Belt to pick up the dog, so we sat at a picnic table and waited for a little while before the shelter employee showed up.
Luckily, he was able to tell us that the dog DID have a chip, and that he would most likely be returned home safely.
A little while after we left the park, Ed got out a golf ball, and while he walked backwards (he likes to do that fairly often) we bounced the ball off the concrete path toward eachother until we hit a road. We didn't continue our game when we came back on the path, but Ed DID manage to find a fairly good staff lying in the river. He didn't want it; said the height wasn't right for him, so he gave it to me, and we went on.
When we hit Sheridan, that's when the path crossed the Ralston Creek Trail, and we took that all the way back into Arvada, leading right toward the park across the street from my house. We saw a crowd gathering at an accident along the way, but we didn't stop to look ourselves, and my feet really started to hurt during that final stretch, but all in all, I'd say that it was a fairly fulfilling day. "
How's THAT for an excursion?
SesshyFan-Girl
Interesting
jadehorse77
Sorry, who's Ed?
Lyssandra
Ed would be a friend that you guys don't know. I often find him good company at college.
