and actually passed him, even though it was quite an
uphill!
This weekend is turning out to be a great opportunity to burn off the huge Thanksgiving meal as well as a chance to get in four days of back to back hiking, something I haven't done since Camino!
Thursday morning, I did my 4.8 mile loop around Cooper River Park and it felt great to get in a little exercise before dinner. I was hoping to possibly get in a little walk after dinner but my friend Carol's neighborhood, at whose home I ate an incredibly good meal, wasn't really conducive to walking in the dark.
Yesterday, I went on an Outdoor Club hike at Wells Mills Park in Waretown, my very favorite hiking spot in the Pine Barrens. This nature area is different than most spots in the Pine Barrens, it's full of little hills and is very up and down for the most part. Even the flatter sections are pretty scenic, lots of cedar marsh, a running creek and a large lake. Just a little more than scrub pine and wild blueberry bushes!
This is the first time since I've resumed hiking in October that I've hiked at a place where my Camino companions and I did one of our training hikes. I remembered much of the areas in which we hiked but two spots along the way really brought back some snapshot style memories. The first was the spot where we stopped and had lunch, it was at the point where the park property ends and a Boy Scout camp begins. We actually lunched on some downed logs on the Boy Scout property, one of our very typical socal lunches with meals heated up on stoves and lots of laughing. Yesterday, when I glanced back at those logs, still in the same place - no one moved them, I felt a bit wistful. It was a glimpse into a different place in a different time. Another spot brought back another memory but at least that one was captured on film - it was the spot where Joe videotaped us on his camera. I posted it on You Tube and here's the link!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2raQXF3wigY
Anyway, what a difference a year makes, in so many ways! I remember how I suffered on our Wells Mills hike early this year. I suffered on most of our training hikes really. I was the slow one. I also had a bad case of vertigo, a souvenier of a car accident back in 1993 when I broke my condyle, that's the one that connects the jaw bone to the bead bone, and also sustained some inner ear damage that effected my sense of balance. So whenever we walked on narrow boardwalks or near the edge of a rise, I would nearly freeze. I called it The Vortex, I felt as if I were being pulled over the edge.
Things changed on Camino, in just about every way possible! Of the many changes, I no longer have my vertigo. That miraculously vanished on the Camino, it was on a Thursday when I wound up walking alone. Another thing that still amazes me when I do the Outdoor Club hikes is that I am at the very front of the pack, right behind the leader. I flew up those hills at Wells Mills Park yesterday and never felt winded at all. I don't know if I've gotten faster or stronger or if it's just that now, I'm hiking with people who hike at my pace. Whatever it is, it feels really good.
Well, it's time to get ready for today's hike. Another by the Outdoor Club out in Bryden Byrne State Forest, which I still think of as Lenanon State Forest! I'll never get used to that name change. Should be a good one, 10 to 12 miles on another unmarked trail!
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