Yesterday morning John and I took a walk together. This probably isn’t newsworthy information from most couples but it’s a pretty big deal for us. We’ve never been walkers. Although I started walking for exercise a few months ago I haven’t quite convinced John that we should do it together yet; until yesterday.
It was a perfect day outside as far as the weather goes, cool and sunny. This, I knew, would work in my favor when trying to convince my husband how much fun a little trek outside would be. And thus, I invited him to join me in my daily walk. (Well, nearly daily walk. O.K., maybe not so very close to daily but a few days a week, when things are going well. Whatever.) I asked him to join me and explained that this was more of a walk than a stroll. I wanted to make sure he was aware of my expectations to get at least a little exercise out of the deal. John generally prefers a slower pace than I do and trust me, my pace is not all that fast. To be honest, I was rather surprised when he agreed to come with me.
We chose a route that would take us along the trail adjacent to the river in our little town and off we headed to enjoy the morning and the scenery. Of course, right away I’m a little uncomfortable because I realize that most people who regularly attend church would actually be in church about this time so I start to feel as though I was playing hooky despite the fact we’d gone to church the night before. And wow, there must have been a lot of people who went to church on Saturday night.
Our walk started off at a pretty good clip. I mean, we wouldn’t win any fast walking awards but we weren’t strolling either. It wasn’t long, however, before we came across some ducklings along the river’s edge. Well, we had to stop and look, of course. But wait. I don’t stop to enjoy the sights when I’m out for exercise. This is serious, people! Stops don’t keep your heart rate up. But, oh well, the ducklings were cute and we were on our way soon enough – for about an eighth of mile. That’s when we passed the Veteran’s Memorial that’s being built in the city park. John wanted to check it out. Hmmmm. . . . .
Fifty yards further down the trail we found a couple of guys fishing and, as you might guess, we couldn’t just pass them by without asking if they’d caught anything. They hadn’t but they were just getting started.
From there it was pretty smooth sailing (or walking as the case may be) until we got to another park and found some benches that looked appealing to John. They overlooked the river’s bend and indeed it was a beautiful location. So, at our ¾ mile mark, we stopped to enjoy the peacefulness of the river, and listen to another excited angler yell, “I got one!”
We managed to get to the end of our walk with just one more stop at the duck pond to see if there were any trout living there. There are. By then I’d pretty much given up on the “exercise” aspect of our walk and had decided to just enjoy the time with my husband. He seemed to have a good time, too. At lunch, when I asked him how he’d enjoyed the walk he said, “It was good, it inspired me to go fishing.”
At least he’ll have something to do while I’m out for a walk.