Sunday, February 07, 2016

A 12-Mile Journey - 2/6/16

It's been too long since I last posted anything. How many times has a blog post begun with that sentence? It probably numbers in the thousands, maybe even millions. Regardless, I am back. Since my last entry from November, much has happened. The holidays rolled in and dominated the calendar as they do every year, but the bigger event was we moved to a new place. It's not far from the old place geographically, but the difference in lifestyle is huge. We went from a little beach bungalow to a high-rise condo on the fifteenth floor. I'll save the details of all the differences between the two places and how I felt about moving for another time.

Today I want to share with you a twelve-mile hike I did from my new address on Saturday, February 6, 2016. I decided to document my journey by shooting a photo every mile as I did last August in a post called, "My Eight Mile". My new location is prefect for hiking as there's a variety of environments to explore from the beach out front to the forest in First Landing State Park. My training will also benefit from living on the fifteenth floor, as I will take the stairs down and up when I go out for a hike. You can check out this outings stats and see it plotted on a map here on Endomondo. I've been using Endomondo for a couple of years now and have found it to be easy to use and reliable. If you're on there too, feel free to connect with me. It's fun to encourage each other and see what hikes and runs other folks are doing.

On to yesterday's 12-mile journey. It was a cold and clear day, perfect for hiking, so I filled my CamelBak and headed out...


Mile Zero - Heading down the stairs from the fifteenth floor.
Mile One - The Cape Henry Bike Path looking east.
Mile Two - Still on the Cape Henry Bike Path heading east.
Mile Three - First Landing State Park on the Long Creek Trail. There's lots of Spanish Moss in the park.
Mile Four - There is no shortage of Pine Cones here.
Mile Five - Alone on the White Hill Lake Trail. I only saw two other people on this trail.
Mile Six - Where the White Hill Lake Trail meets the Cape Henry Bike Path.
Mile Seven - A always feel better walking in the woods.
Mile Eight - Found art - This dead, graffiti covered tree looks like modern art to me.
Mile Nine - More nature-based abstract art.
Mile Ten - This house along the Cape Henry Bike Path has some cool sculptures. I always love to see this skeleton and the flying man in the trees to the left.
Mile Eleven - I started the hike with long pants, but it warmed-up enough for me to convert to shorts.
Mile Twelve - Heading back up the stairs. This was from the fifth floor stairwell window.
The End - My front door.