Endorphin Highs

Just came back from a brisk invigorating absolutely marvelous walk on the trails with Dr. Jensen, a Newstart guest from Poland, and Michael. It was great!!!

I was trying to figure out how to get in my walk this afternoon, and when Michael mentioned he was going to go on the nature walk with Dr. Jensen and the Newstart guests, I thought that would be a brilliant idea. For the first hour we wandered around the Loop (can you imagine, a whole hour walking half a mile!) and learned about Japanese maple, sugar pine, ponderosa pine, gingko biloba, dogwood, redwood, magnolia and liquid amber trees. I found out that a certain spot by the cafeteria always smells like an open sewer line, especially when it's been raining, because of the fruit of the female ginkgo biloba tree.

After our leisurely stroll, Dr. Jensen asked who would be interested in going on a longer walk and only one guest took her up on the offer, nevertheless we hurried out onto the trails and hit Coyote Creek and several other bits and pieces of trail, ending up at the swing. We stayed there about 15 minutes as she swung peacefully back and forth, I pushed her, and we all listened to her instruct from the swing! We got to see three Canadian geese fly over the sewer ponds, but they changed their mind about landing, so we carried on home.

I'm feeling good after that brisk walk :) And slightly irritated (okay, a lot irritated) because it sounds like someone is training for the trampoline Olympics upstairs in the Inn and I can't figure out if it is the dryer going or someone running around up there. Most of the time it doesn't bother me, but there are days when I get extremely frustrated and seriously question my living down here, whether it's worth the trouble. The light streams in from the Inn so it's never properly dark, even with blinds fully shut, there is always someone upstairs either running the washing machine or dryer or bouncing up and down like they're on a sugar high, I can't open my window at night because I'm on the ground floor and don't feel safe doing that, parts of my place "mold" real quickly so I have to constantly keep wiping down things (probably because the air doesn't circulate as well since I don't have my windows open all the time), and I can't play music unless my window is closed. Oh well, I shall plug in my headphones and watch some Top Chef now!