Hiking for colors and distance...

Surprise ... 

Surprise...

I finally feel like I got my physical mojo back.

I don't want to brag, but heck, I'm going to anyway. 

I went back to my map my hike and also tallied up the miles I've hiked since June when I got a pretty plain smart Garmin watch.

Miles hiked this year? 698! I have not been tracking it each day or month. In fact, I figured with all the heat and humidity and BUGS we had this year, that my hiking would be pretty lame. I had two weeks that I did not walk or hike at all when I was sick.

So what am I doing with that Mojo? 

I'm moving again. If I can't go to the Reserve and hike, Charlie and I head out to the wilds next door. 600 acres of wild woods with old cattle trails that are now faint deer trails. If I can't find a trail, I wait and let the Trail Master find the easiest path.

We cross ravines, dry washes, and hike up and down steep hills.

OH Come ON Ma!

The fall colors are not always so prevelant inside the deep woods as many of the trees are fairly drab. Portions of the woods have been heavily logged for the really good trees. What is left in the understory are some pretty junk trees along with invasive barberry brush. 

Hint: If you walk here with me, wear heavy long pants so the barberry doesn't poke you so hard!

Photo of one of our hiking areas through barberry 'prickles'.
Charlie can find the deer path through this.

Hunting fall colors can be frustrating when you walk through a thick forest. Since we live in an area of steep hills and valleys...

Wonderful landscape views are rare here unless you can get on top of a bluff or you can stay on top of a ridge.

That has probably influenced my photography quite a bit.

It also means that I hike and hike miles to find a pretty shot or perhaps something very tiny to see. 

So what is the point of keeping track of how far I hike? Well, I don't know but it is fun to have a goal to reach.

Of course, I take Mini-me and Mini Charlie along. We love our outdoor time. The hikes in the forest next door will end in a few weeks when the gun hunters invade. 

But until then we will stack up the miles or as I call it...

time spent breathing air and chilling out.

Meanwhile, Charlie and I are going to see if we can reach a 1,000 miles by December 31st. 

Interesting data

Oh my.

When I started to keep track of my mileage in January, I thought it would be a fun experiment to see how much I do move and how far I walk for a year. I didn't expect it to amount to much, but today I thought I'd look up the stats.

Now a word about that. I am not obsessed really too much. For the first 6 months, I just kept track of hikes/walks that I remembered to track. I had to manually start the app on the phone and let it do its thing. That really was impressive though.

I remembered enough times to chalk up 173 miles in the first half of the year.

When I got the Vivosmart 5 Watch from Garmin, I also tracked certain hikes I wanted to recall and to my surprise, when I forget, the watch buzzes me and tells me I've been moving for 5 minutes and it is going to record it as an 'official' walk. 

Neat. Since I am often walking all over the place just to check on the animals and move them from place to place, I don't have to think about 'recording' it. I found that on average each morning and evening that I walk a quarter of a mile while just doing chores. Interesting! 

This smarty watch also has a sleep thing on it. I don't know how accurate it is so I don't look at it too often. One night I went to bed early and it said I slept something like nearly 8 hours. Well, for a good part of that night, I was awake, lying still and thinking. 

You know--those 2AM thoughts when you solve the world's problems and rearrange rooms and dig new gardens in your head?

So I stopped looking at the sleep stats. When we had that huge storm on Monday night, I was up with Charlie who freaks out at storms. My sleep thingy said I was having very light sleep. NO kidding! 

So I use that guide more or less as entertainment value. If I awaken and feel refreshed, I've had a good sleep. If I feel like crap, I didn't. 

I'm not sure how the measurements on a wrist can tell whether a person is sleeping soundly or lightly. But I'm sure technology will prevail eventually.

The details from the different screens tell me that I use too much energy. Duh. I knew that. Still. 

So how far have I gone to date? 

423 miles? Seems impossible. But I am on the move all of the time...unless it is too hot and humid, I am taking many walks on our gravel road or around through the woods to just peer at things and observe nature. I also go on intended hikes and other times, just wander about looking for something to take a photo of.

During the month of July with all of the heat and humidity, I did not 'walk' a lot. I avoided that heat and humidity as it made me feel wiped out. Hiking in the forest or at KVR was not recommended due to the monster skeeters and deerflies.

The wonders of technology are pretty interesting. I did compare the phone app to the watch and to a measured distance and found it fairly spot on. 

Enough of that. 

I do like some of the convivences of this technical world. Especially digital cameras!

Yesterday's morning view from the porch....