1500 in three years

Two big events today.

One is that we passed 1500 hiking miles since we left on road trip 1 in January of 2012. In those miles we have accumulated 42 miles of elevation gain. We have walked up over 42 miles? And down over 42 miles?

In 21 different states.

We believe that we know our country in ways that are special. Instead of knowing our cities and settled areas, we know the places that are, to the extent possible, still like they were many years ago.

For us, there is no alternative. We have to keep doing what we are doing as long as we can. There is no way we would have accumulated the health benefits of those 1500 miles by doing anything else. We won't go to a gym, or exercise on a machine. We might ride our bikes when the weather is good (and we do, accumulating over 5300 miles in this same time frame on our bikes), but most of the time in the Pacific Northwest the weather isn't good enough to have fun riding bikes.

Our road trips, and the hiking we do, is essential for our physical, and therefore our emotional, health. Further, we both have serious problems with arthritis, and nothing is a good for arthritis than exercise.

This is our life, out in nature, fulfilling dreams we both had as children where we were free to roam far and wide in undeveloped areas. The planning and organization needed to be gone from home for months at a time is staggering. But we make it fun, and almost everything works out.

Of course we miss people, the special people we love. Life is the trade off game, though, and if we didn't do what we do, we would become unhealthy and sad. That is no good for anyone.

The other good news for today? We found the bear spray I lost. Using our GPS we traced the route we had taken two days ago through about an acre of bushes with 2-inch stickers, and found it before some bear did and used it on us.

 

 

 

Posted with Blogsy