walking_wendy

- I'm not an ardent Consumer of Goods, but live modestly by American standards.
- I ride my bike to work (weather permitting), but for selfish reasons: because I enjoy it.  Still, it cuts down on gasoline consumption and vehicle emissions.
- When I get a skinny latte every morning from a nearby espresso stand, I use my own ceramic mug, rather than a paper cup and plastic lid that must be discarded afterward.
- I subscribe to the local newspaper and always recycle the paper.  I also recycle aluminum cans.  We don't have curbside recycling, so I take these things myself to recycling bins by the grocery store.
- Not only in my own yard do I pick up litter and pull up invasive weeds like dandelions and bird vetch.
- I avoid fast food restaurants and seldom eat hamburgers.  Much of the beef for American fast foods, I've heard, comes from South America where people have destroyed rain forest in order to raise beef cattle to satisfy Americans' artificially manufactured lust for hamburgers.
- I have two, nice shopping bags which I use instead of taking bags from the grocery store every time I shop.

After a long hiatus, where I lost interest in the blog, because I wasn't hiding Squiggly any more, I've decided to get back on the horse.  (Hmm, maybe a bad metaphor, since I'm Walking Wendy, not Riding Wendy)  Anyhoo, here I am, and we'll see what happens.

Although the UA walking program is itself now in hiatus, I continue to wear my pedometer and walk and get other exercise, which I log on an Excel spreadsheet daily.  This keeps me remembering the need for exercise to stay healthy.

I have acquired an exercise buddy, Marsha, who meets me at the weight room or the pool during lunch times about twice a week.  We always shoot for more often, but it usually works out (<< hey, works out -- that's what we do together) to only twice a week.  Still, it helps to have someone else to motivate me to do it.  Today, for instance, we'd both rather just go out to lunch.  However, we're helping each other to be strong and Do the Right Thing.  We'll meet at the weight room at noon to try interval training: combining Nautilus machines with aerobics equipment.

I go to my first new IHP (individualized health plan) meeting this afternoon with a new counselor/advisor/whatever.  I've brought my daily calorie count journal with me.  This is something I created (an Excel spreadsheet with colored columns for what time I ate what in what amounts, totaling how many calories and grams of protein; also, types of food, like fruit, vegetable, dairy, meat, etc.) and use sporadically.  I'll do it for weeks at a time, then slough off.  I can go for months and months without counting calories.  However, I know that only by being honest with myself about how many calories I'm putting into my mouth can I get some control and cut back.  The tediousness of doing it is often what stops me, along with the need to hide it when I have company, because it includes logging my weight, which must remain a big secret; it's too embarrassing.

This is a never-ending battle, isn't it?  Actually, the exercise business has become a pleasant part of my life, not a  battle.  I rode my bike to work often this summer and really enjoyed it, logging over 300 miles on my bike, the most ever for an Alaskan season of bike-riding.  (I don't ride in winter on snow and ice.)  Having been mostly a couch potato most of my life, not having participated in sports in school because I was/am such a klutz, I started regular exercise late in life; it's as a relatively new habit for me.  I enjoy it and like how it makes me feel.  Despite my obesity, my exercise makes me look as if I weigh less than I really do; I have muscle tone as well as fat.

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On another topic, maybe this will be the year I'll finally attempt NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month).  There's a feminist sci-fi novel I started about thirty years ago (That's right, folks, thirty years -- back when I was thirty) that I've always wanted to finish.  I guess it's cheating to use something I already started.  However, so much time has passed, that I'm sure what I already wrote needs rewriting, anyway.  I just want this to give me the impetus to DO IT.  I like the main character.  If you want to check me out, I'm WishMeLuck on the NaNoWriMo site http://www.nanowrimo.org.

Even though my energy level was low from the time I got up Wednesday morning (and everyone else I talked to felt the same -- Was it a low pressure system or something?), I wanted Maggie to get some exercise, so I took her out after work.  I rode my bike around three sides of East High School and back through Russian Jack Springs Park to my house.  Walking slowly along by the fence on the south side of East High was a large bull moose with one big rack on the left side of his head and a small one on the right.  I crossed the street and hoped that Maggie wouldn't raise a fuss.  She hardly noticed.

Last night, however, I'd left her on the balcony.  I heard her barking ferociously and went out to shush her.  Down in my yard, a mama moose and two babies were munching on my little, previously-munched Mountain Ash.  Pitiful little tree!  I yelled and pounded the balcony railing, which startled the moose into running across the street to munch on the neighbors' greenery.

I went bicycling on the Coastal Trail yesterday afternoon with a friend, since it was a sunny Sunday.  I stopped to check on Squiggly and was disappointed to see that not one person has been out there to find him and write down their name.  Has everyone lost interest in finding Squiggly?  Have schedules become too busy, now that fall semester has started?  Have I put Squiggly in too inconvenient a spot?  What is it?

Only four people found Squiggly in August.  By the way, THE AUGUST DRAWING WINNER IS KATHERINE STAPLES.

People frequently slack off on exercise programs after a while.  We lose momentum.  We lose interest.  I suspect that "reaching Istanbul" gave some people an excuse to quit wearing their pedometers and logging their steps online.  What I think might help keep people involved would be better prizes, cool enough prizes to actually motivate people in the program to go out and find Squiggly.  I'm thinking gift certificates to REI, Skinny Raven, etc.  What do you think?  Please respond with a comment here.  Thanks.

All right, you Squiggly seekers, I moved Squiggly from Russian Jack Park to near Point Woronzof.

Drive down Northern Lights as far as you can go, past Postmark Drive, past what looks like a sentry post, up and then down and to the left.  You'll see the parking lot.  Pull in and park.

Walk back the way you drove in and turn right on the multi-use trail, heading for. . .

TA-DA!
. . . the sewage plant.  Just keep to the trail. 
This will be a sensual walk:
low-flying planes to deafen you in the parking lot,
the smell of sewage to accost your nose at some point,
and autumn's colors to catch your eye.

Keep following the trail.

At the end of a long straight-away, the trail will turn left, but you'll see a sort of turnout with two benches separated by trees and weeds.  Here's the first bench:

Here's the second:

If you sit down at the end of the second bench with the inlet on your right, you'll be facing this grove of trees, and that's where I hid Squiggly.

Step bravely into the grove and look at the leftmost tree. 
Squiggly is on the ground, next to the trunk.

When you're standing where I stood when I took the photo above,
the trail will look like this:

(unless you're out there in the dead of night - heh!)
So write your name and the date, take a chip, and head back.
Of course, you might want to walk further.  I love the woods
on this part of the Coastal Trail.

Maggie was scared of this dark tree stump.  (I feel certain that her eyesight isn't the best; she growls and stares at things like this or garbage cans out in fields.)  I encouraged her to check it out.

I took about 2,000 steps from the Woronzof parking lot to where Squiggly is now, and back to my car.

The sun was low, so I stayed a while to enjoy the beautiful view before heading home.

I hope you enjoy the view, too.

All week, I kept calling the National Weather Service phone number to check weekend weather for Seward.  All week the weatherman kept saying "sunny."  Then Thursday evening, that changed to "rain."  Well, thanks a lot for leading me on!  My friend, Denise, and I were planning to go camping.  Friday, I called the NOAA line and Fairbanks was the only place it wasn't going to be raining -- at least not on Friday night and Saturday.  We didn't want to spend six hours driving up and six hours driving back on a two-day weekend, so we gave up our camping plans and went to dinner at Simon and Seafort's.
    The next day, we drove out to Girdwood and took Maggie on a walk, then hung out in the Prince Alyeska bar for a short time, enjoying the view.  (Denise had a drink; I didn't, since I was driving.)  Back in Anchorage, we made the sandwiches we'd have eaten while camping, then went to a movie. 
     It was nothing like camping, but we had fun.

     Today was gloomy, and I got lots of housework done.  In late afternoon, the sun tried to come through for a while, so I drove down to Valley of the Moon and hooked Maggie up to the bike.  Before we took off, though, some guy showed up with a Real border collie (papered and all).  Maggie was surprisingly interested in his dog.  More often than not, she doesn't want to play with other dogs, or when she does, she seems shy and keeps coming back to me.  She must have recognized this dog as one of her own kind, because she wanted to run after it when it chased the Frisbee.  The other dog didn't pay her much attention, but you'd have thought Maggie had found a long-lost sibling.  She was really excited.
     After I talked with the guy a while, and Maggie chased his dog chasing the Frisbee, Maggie and I went down the Coastal Trail to that beautiful meadow where a creek comes winding down to the inlet.  That's where we turned and started back.  I left Maggie in the car when we reached Valley of the Moon and pedaled upstream--so to speak--a ways, then back to the car, to get some aerobic exercise.  I have to go slowly when Maggie's with me.

Off Boniface, between DeBarr and Northern Lights, is an entrance to Russian Jack Springs Park.  This entrance is accessible only from the southbound lane and is easy to miss.  It's rather close to the corner of DeBarr and Boniface.

Right up that slope is a parking lot.  Park there. . .

(The sign reads: "Dogs must be on leash.")
. . . and go down into the field with picnic tables.

Walk straight through the field to the far side

where a dirt path goes off into the woods.

Follow it as it slopes gradually downhill
until you come to this fork.

A log is across the trail to the right.

Step over the log and turn around.  Squiggly is hidden
against the log to the left of the path.


To keep him from being so obvious to people approaching from that side, I pulled some tall grass to lay over him.  Please do the same when you've taken your chip and written down your name and the date.  (Oh, by the way, in my eagerness to rehide Squiggly, I forgot to change chip colors.  Oh, well.  I'd still like to have a poker game at my house when The Orient Express is done, using Squiggly chips.)

Here's Maggie in the field near the parking lot on the way back.  Since the program is about getting steps in for health and enjoyment, why not explore some more?  You can follow dirt trails or take the paved trail next to the parking lot.  Russian Jack Springs is a lovely park.

Let me know if and when you find Squiggly.  I like to hear from you.
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I took these shots with my digital camera.  However, I forgot that I had set it on "remember the settings I last used," and it was set for closeups.  When I got into Photoshop and looked at the picture of the entrance sign, at first I couldn't figure out why it was just as illegible as the one I took with my cell phone at Cheney Lake.  Then I realized that it was probably due to the closeup setting.  So I cheated.  These pictures are as big as 30" wide, so I maximized that one and traced the words on the sign with a pencil tool.  It was funny, because I was so slow and awkward, often having to erase; I was just like a little kid, learning to print.  It was that clumsy and painstaking.  However, once I shrank the shot down to a fraction of its original size, the letters looked okay. 
Did I fool you?

I didn't record my steps for five days, Thursday - Monday.  Having returned from a one-night camping trip to Seward, I just put in my steps by dividing the big total by five, then adding in the steps I got for biking Friday and Saturday, which I kept track of separately.  That put me over the top.   YAY!!  (It also put me ahead of Kathleen and Sabrina, my co-workers and competitors.  Read 'em and weep, gals!)  I ordered the windbreaker and was "told" by the website that I'd receive it by email soon.  That should be interesting.

Sunday was gorgeous, and the drive down to Seward was great.  Seward is awesome.  Maggie went with me, of course.  At bedtime, I tied her to a long lead which allowed her to just reach my tent.  When late travelers showed up and began pitching their tent in the next site, Maggie started barking and wouldn't come to me.  Becoming very irritated, I opened the rain fly and saw that she had wound the lead around some tiny stumps and was stuck very near the new campers.  No wonder she was barking and wouldn't come!  I got out of my sleeping bag and let her into the tent with me. 

Good thing I did, because, just like the last time I went camping, I woke the next day to light rain and low clouds.  Grr!  I spent quite a bit of time today in Resurrect Art & Coffeehouse, reading, then playing my guitar and singing up on the podium--this former church has absolutely wonderful acoustics--then reading again.  In between, I took Maggie for walks.

Back home, I got lots of steps, many of them on my stairs, unpacking and doing laundry.

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Someone asked about last month's Squiggly drawing winner.  Katherine Anderson of the Small Business Development Center was the June winner.  I've sent her two e-mails about being the June winner, but she didn't respond.  I'll call her.

Where shall I hide Squiggly next?  I wonder. . .

Maggie and I went to check on Squiggly this morning at Cheney Lake.

These are the flowers Maggie's in, closer up.

Squiggly's there and fine.  You should go find him!

It was around 7:00 a.m., and I saw ducks and grebes on the lake with their babies trailing after them.  I saw a lone loon gliding and diving.  Best of all, though, I saw a moose near the edge of the lake to the east of the peninsula.  Watching her, I finally noticed that, on the shore, two babies were grazing in the tall grasses.  (My phone camera, not having a lens for distant objects, took pitiful pictures of them.) 

I put yellow dots all around her; she's the dark thing against the green grass on the far shore.

I decided against walking all the way around the lake with Maggie, since we'd have had to go somewhat near them.