Sunday Walkabout

I've been walking somewhat regularly to improve my cardiovascular fitness and help lose weight for about 3 years now. And, for much of that time, I've made my Sunday walk a little bit longer to help build up my endurance and burn a few extra calories. For much of the last couple years, that has meant getting out of my neighborhood and hiking out around the nearby Albuquerque Academy.

But, this year I've started getting out there 2 or 3 times a week, so it's not such a stretch any more. Recently I discovered a good walking path around the Arroyo del Oso Golf Course south of my house. So, today I decided to head down a bit further south than I usually go and swing west to check out the route.

On the way, I spotted these flowers growing on someone's concrete block wall by the sidewalk!

A small park at the corner of Osuna made a convenient stop to drink some water and munch on some dried cherries. The park has a little demonstration xeriscape garden, but I couldn't see most of the labeled plants. I'll try again in a couple months and hope they have been set out. The yuccas you can see in this picture don't need much help. I have a few in my front yard.

This park near the Arroyo del Oso (Bear Canyon) has several soccer fields and tennis courts. They have added this walking bridge to cross the arroyo.

The path is used by walkers, joggers and cyclists. I saw an older couple in matching yellow outfits on bicycles today!

The golf course is open to the public and has a nice view of the Sandia Mountains to the east and north.

After circling the golf course and taking another bridge back across the arroyo, I headed up a side street towards home. Unlike my usual route, most of the last mile and a half on this course is up hill! That made it a bit tougher than I would have guessed from the slight extra distance. My thighs didn't hurt, but weren't really up for more calisthenics when I got home!

Whether by intent or otherwise, several homes now feature large growths of prickly pear cactus in their landscaping!

Not much to look at, but this picture shows (sub)urban renewal in process. This chunk of land a little west of my house is a half mile long and perhaps a quarter mile wide. It used to have mobile home spaces, but the renters were not allowed to renew their leases. That makes it one of the few large spaces in the area available for development. Now, the western end has been rebuilt with new apartments. You can just see the tops of them in the back of this picture. Some of this eastern part will be redeveloped into an assisted and senior living center.

Another "not much to see" picture, but this concrete lined arroyo is where I had to retrieve one of our dogs a few times after she sneaked out the front door to go exploring! After greeting several of the neighborhood dogs, she would slow down when she got stickers in one of her paws and I would have to climb out on the ledge to pick them out and bring her home.

Fortunately, she always made it home successfully and is a little less adventurous now. But, she still likes to greet the neighborhood dogs!

International Tabletop Day - Better Late Than Never!

One of my Google+ friends posted a notice a few months ago about International Tabletop Day. Having played a lot of games over the years with my fellow students, co-workers, siblings and children, I decided to use this as motivation/excuse to dig out one of my games and play it with my son. A lot of my games are buried away in boxes and some of the ones that are accessible take a long time to play.

But, I was able to find a couple starter packs for the original Star Wars trading card game. So, I dug them out and opened them up to enjoy with my son.

Like most kids in the 90's, my kids played several of these games, especially Pokemon. But, I particularly enjoyed playing the Star Wars game and the Lord of the Rings game that came out later. Star Wars is a one-on-one game, but I particularly enjoyed it because you could build customized decks for different locations and sets of characters. This gave each deck a special set of possible strategies for winning and made it interesting to pit them against each other. The game could however take a lot of space for all the locations in play and, if there wasn't a good match up between the decks, it could turn into shadow-boxing with the sides never directly confronting each other.

The LOTR game was more suitable for a small group since multiple players could play at once. The strategy was more of a race to get to the final location first, assuming your ring-bearer survived!

And, the rules for these became quite extensive and I paid for a lot of library printouts to keep up with the changes since I didn't have an internet-capable computer at the time.

But, for this fun session, we just used the basic rules that came with the game decks and fumbled our way through!

My son played the Light Side while I played the Dark Side!

We fumbled around, made some mistakes, gradually figured out the main rules and just had some fun together. It was a close finish, but I won.

Today was back to studying as we move into the last week of class work and then Finals Week!

Do any of you still have any collectible card games?

Are there any other tabletop games you particularly like?

Thanks to all of you who stop in and check out my musings.

National Walking Day

Today is the American Heart Association's National Walking Day.

As someone who has been walking regularly to improve their general fitness and help lose weight for a few years, I like this day!

Unfortunately, this is a class day so I usually limit my walking to a 10 minute stroll between the parking lot and the classroom before and after class.

But, since the challenge is to get out and just walk for 30 minutes, I may try to sneak in another little stroll some time.

Aerobic exercise such as walking has many benefits including improving your cardiovascular fitness such as improving lung capacity and strengthening your heart. These help lower your blood pressure and reduce your resting pulse rate. They also reduce the risk of a heart attack or stroke.

So, as someone who wishes all my friends could be healthy and live longer, I think this is a good idea!

 There are lots of good ways to get aerobic exercise, but walking is cheap, easy and convenient for most people. And, it's easy to start out walking a short distance a few times a week and gradually build up your strength and endurance by adding a little distance to your walk every week or two.

Eventually, you'll find you feel better and look better and have more energy.

And, you don't have to do it every day. But, about five times a week is good. If you miss a day, don't stress out and worry about it. If you don't have time or energy for your usual long walk (which I often don't), just do what you can. A little bit is better than nothing.

Or as the Texas Tornados put it:

A Little Bit is Better Than Nada!

And, since I ate two enchiladas for lunch, I'd better have two little bits.

All the best to each of you!