14-1

Two fun walks to start the new year!

One with 4 generations to begin the celebration of Willyne's birthday

and one for the tortoise to get his exercise.  Please click below for more pictures, maps, and some tunes to introduce the tortoise's walking plans for the new year.

Create Maps or search from 80 million at Humana Fit

and one for the tortoise to get his exercise

Create Maps or search from 80 million at Humana Fit

Here's what it looks like from above ...

I started at the turnoff from Highway 59 for the new Olympus Academy

(at the former site of Diamond Ranch Academy)

and began walking a little over a mile down that road to the Gould's trailhead

Near the cattle guard most of the way to the trailhead, I found some cows

Attempting to eat.  Not clear what they found.  Several crossed the road,

I'm sure in the hope of finding something better on the other side

I'm confident Benjamin would have enjoyed the view :-)

Now I leave the academy access road and start walking the Gould trail

Like the JEM trail that is also part of the Hurricane Cliffs trail system,

this is more a mountain bike trail than a walking one, though I didn't

see any bikes today.

And here we are at the end of the Gould trail at Highway 59.

The JEM trailhead and parking area is directly across the highway.

Proof that I made it back to my car while it was still light :-)

So, after all, it's a new year.  If you're wondering what the tortoise has in mind this year (why, of course you are!), take a listen at 0:47, add a mile, and you'll have it.  An hour a day, 3 1/4 miles on average, hopefully with a little climbing to get my heart rate to the 125 Dr. Carter is looking for when I do this, on as many of the 313 non-Sundays in 2014 as I can manage.  I get a smile every time I hear or see these fellows, so please enjoy them with me ...

The stats for today:

4.19 miles walked (total of both walks), which contributed 0.42% of my 2014 goal.
1:35:16 hours walked (again, total), which is 0.51% of my 2014 goal
397 total feet climbed
690 calories burned
Tortoise rating for the entire second walk (so a full hour plus at this level):  4.8.

0.32% of the year has passed.  The purpose of the percentages, is I want to have a higher percentage of distance and time walked than I have of the year passing.  This tells me I am on track.

I'm sure this is more numbers than you are interested in, all I can say is I'm really good at setting high goals and having them slip away because I don't do them every, every day.

I have other goals too, of course, and you might just find some of them on my other blogs if I haven't bored you to tears already with these goals.

Cheerio!