Monday Walk

I did a long walk today. It didn't all go as planned, but I did get in about 16 to 17 miles of fast walking in today.

Joel and I were driving into town together. The plan was that I would drop my car off at the Community College and Joel would drive me to the downtown depot. About 2 miles from home, I realized I was loosing control of the car's steering. I pulled over and found I had a flat front tire. Joel and I drove back home, picked up another car and continued with the plan. Just as we dropped off the car at the Community College, we drove under a freeway overpass. A rock came off the overpass and fell on the windshield of Joel's newest car. It left an inch gash in the window. He has been told the windshield on the car can't be replaced - so there was unhappiness.

To the walk...

Joel dropped me off at the Santa Fe depot. I walked through town. The walk through the city was really interesting. I walked through some pretty dangerous neighborhoods, and by some really fancy homes. I walked through industrial areas, past the 2nd Street Brewery, and on a beautiful paved trail that heads south of Sringo Rd.

These pictures are some of my favorite houses that I pass all the time on the trail south of Santa Fe.



This is my favorite house on the trail. I think it will have a nice green lawn area if we ever get any rain. The house has these big westward facing windows and the house is pretty close to the railroad tracks. They have a huge horse barn. It seems like a good house to live in and never leave!



This is a strange looking house I just saw recently. It is near the area where the rail trail meets the spur trail. Even looking at this picture I am not sure what is going on with this house. It seems to have a bit of adobe and then the dome and a pyramid. Quite colorful.



This house is on the rail trail, south of the spur trail. I like this part of the trail because the path flattens out. The area north of this house is really hilly. I like this house because it looks kind of like a Frank Lloyd Wright house in the desert. To be more "Santa Fe" and more "Frank Lloyd Wright" the house would be brown - but it is blue. It has giant windows and beautiful views.



This is an adobe Quonset hut that sits above the rail road. When ever I pass this house, it always seems like there is something interesting going on at the top of the hill - something just out of view.

Along with walking and taking pictures of houses, I listened to my favorite recently found radio show, This American Life. It is an amazing show - witty, hilarious, heart wrenching, and intellectual. It was a good thing I was mostly alone on the trail yesterday - I was laughing and crying the whole time. There were so many great thing I heard yesterday... A story about a rock band from Detroit that was hired to play gigs all last summer at public libraries in Michigan, stories told by people who thought the were going to die (the program starts out with stories from a recent Jet Blue flight landing without its landing gear). The funniest story I heard yesterday was interviews with people who had made it into adulthood with a childhood belief - that the Nelson Ratings were all done by families with the last name Nelson, that unicorns live in Africa. All great! The archived shows are all online.

I turned around at mile marker 8. A storm was developing and I wanted to get home before it started. Unfortunately I didn't get home before the storm, but I did get home before it became terrible. I walked for about 10 minutes in heavy winds and driving rains coming from the east. Most of the time I could see lightning, but it was way in the distance. About half a mile from the car, the lightning started to hit close - so I ran the last half mile back to the car. Not a relaxing end to a long walk!