What a beautiful day for a walk... wait - what?

It's a paper doll icon. I think it's in reference to John Green's Paper Towns, but I can't be certain anymore.






Ha! How appropriate that this noxyism would show up during my blog about walking. When I save these noxyisms, they go in to a folder, and are named by me hitting random keys - because all noxyisms are the same name, and so I need to save them with different names - so noxyisms are called things like "iufgew" and "dtrgd". The thumbnails are too small for me to read, so I just grab at random. Hee.




So yeah! It feels like it's been FOREVER since I've blogged, but in reality it's been less than a week. ROFL. I guess it's the fact that I spent a couple weeks straight blogging every day, so when I stopped, it didn't feel right. But I didn't have anything to talk about! Sooo not my fault. Or, well, okay, so it is my fault. Oh well. ANYHOO. I do have things to talk about now. Three things total, but today will only feature one. I'm pacing myself. lol.


Yesterday, as usual, I went to the gym. It was around 3am. Normally, I'll walk 3.5miles while reading. That takes an hour and five minutes. Then I'll leave. Why the precise time? Because the treadmill automatically gives one hour as the time limit, then proceeds with a 5 minute cool down. Works for me. During these walks, which is on the faster side of "walk", I read. It's actually been the only time I've been reading. I was about halfway through The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud when I started yesterday... and one hour, five minutes further in, I could. Not. Stop. So I hit the "Quick Start" again, and read for another hour and five minutes. It was SUCH a great book, I didn't want to wait until the next day to finish it. And perfectly, I finished it just as the second hour rolled by. Things would be so much easier if I could read faster. lol. But yeah, so that meant I just doubled the amount of time I normally walk. I was like, ooooh yeah, that's awesome.

Then once home I checked my library because upon finishing the book I immediately wanted to read more Ben Sherwood. But when I logged in, I noticed one of the books I was in queue to put on hold was ON hold for ME to pick up. They're supposed to CALL me when things are ready darn it. I swear, I think they're getting sick of me putting books on hold. I put three different books on hold, at three different times. The site is kind enough to show me what position I am in the queue line. Three different positions. But I end up with ALL THREE at the same damn time? Uh... huh... sounds suspicious to me! In case anyone's wondering, the three were Charlie St. Cloud, Eat Pray Love, and the Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake. I've only read the first so far, and will be starting the second soonly. So yeah, the site tells me that a book is ready for me to pick up. But all this week, my dad's borrowing my car. Which means, I do not have a car to pick up ze book! WHAT WILL I DO??!?!

I had the bright idea to walk. I'm telling you, no matter how close a place is, I've never had the idea to walk there before.

The library is only minutes away when driving. But, that's driving. At an average of 30 miles an hour. And I walk 3.5 miles an hour. So basically, you times the driving time by like... 8 and a half minutes? A math problem I had only just thought of, but looking back, it's almost accurate.

So yeah, I went. For a walk. In the morning. Yeah, with the sun up and everything. In case you don't know, I'm a night person. I prefer night. I prefer darkness. I hate the sun. I named the sun Alistair and I curse at Alistair whenever it attacks me with it's hot stare. I avoid Alistair at all costs. I also tend to avoid situations that might force me to encounter bugs. I've gone on night walks before, but they were before mosquitoes and the like started feasting in the season. So there I was, 8:30 in the morning, deciding to go on a walk. *insane*

It never even occurred to me that it might be hot out. The only thing in my mind was "gosh I hope I don't get bit by mosquitoes. No - wait - no, don't think about it, you'll jinx yourself. Get the mosquitoes out of your mind. Stop thinking about mosquitoes. What's wrong with you. When do mosquitoes go away for the year? STOP THINKING ABOUT THEM!!!!" Luckily, it wasn't hot out at all. It was a very comfortable temperature, with a light breeze. I'm think that had it been hot, I would have turned around immediately and chosen to go to the library some other time.

I took over 150 pictures on my walk to and from the library. ROFL. I did not realize I'd taken so many. For that reason I will not be sharing the entire selection, but I will share some, or a lot... halfish?? Photo heavy post anyone?

COME ON A WALK WITH ME!!! ....Yay. :)





We begin our walk. This is about two minutes in to the walk, when I remember I brought my camera.


I realize that a normal person would think this is a beautiful day for a walk. Bright and sunny, not too hot, bright and sunny, birds chirping, bright and sunny, cicadas being loud, bright and sunny, light breeze, bright and sunny. Geeze, was it bright out.


Riddle me this, what on earth is the point of this bricked out corner? There's no bench to sit on or anything... it's like they accidentally started that little stone wall too far away from the corner of the sidewalk, so they fixed it by making the sidewalk bigger. But they didn't want to just pour concrete - that would look tacky. In my opinion... this serves no purpose and so should not be here. I do not believe it adds to the landscape at all. But eh, maybe that's why I'll never be a landscaper.



There are lots of ponds in this subdivision. (This is not my subdivision, but rather the one right next to it.) It's to help prevent flooding houses in case of massive amounts of rain. And they're pretty. Two points for Bigelow Homes. (Company who built this subdivision.)


Geese.







As much as I love the look of this bridge, I cannot accredit it to Bigelow Homes. They bought this land after another company had started building houses. Since this bridge is at the very beginning of the sub division, I'm going to go ahead and assume it was not the work of Bigelow Homes. No point for you.


You know... spider webs can be quite pretty.... so long as there aren't any spiders on them. My dad says there's a 7-legged spider outside his window at work... he's named him Otto. *shudders*



A mini stop sign!!!! I have an urge to STEAL THIS SIGN!! But I'm afraid I'll get caught. I've wanted a stop sign for forever. I was going to go steal one once, because I saw it just sitting in a barn in an open door... but when I got to the opening, I realized that A: the "open door" was actually an open window, and was a lot higher than it looked (damn that tall grass throwing off my perception) and 2: the stop sign itself was much LARGER than a normal stop sign. (damn my inability to judge perception AT ALL. Also, "A/2" done on purpose. Don't judge me.) So it was a sad night for me. I had to walk through all that stupid tall grass to get there for nothing. Sigh.



There are two bridges across this lake. A road with a sidewalk next to it, and a bike path. I'm not entirely sure why a bike path and a sidewalk is needed. But yep. This picture was taken from the bike path and it looking towards the road/sidewalk.


Check it out. Do you see it? Right near the middle there?


Here, how bout now? Yep. Shoes. I always wonder about shoes like this. Is it... hard to get shoes strung up like so? If you miss... especially since this happens to be a bridge and there's a river below... do you grab another pair of shoes? Or do you go for a swim and retrieve the ones you missed? Hmmm....



Sorry folks. All metal park benches located on the bike path are chained down. No stealy. I know when *I'm* on my bike, the first thing I want to do is steal all the park benches near me. Of course, I'd need to plan ahead... would probably need a bike basket to put the bench in while I'm riding off in to the sunset giggling madly.


The little entrance ways to the park closer down to the river are pretty.




I. Want. That. Bug. Teehee. Yet another bug I can tolerate.


This is a memorial in front of the library. I have reached my destination. Took only five minutes to get the book I had on hold, and return 2 of the 7 books I have already checked out. It would have taken less time, but they have these self checkouts, and all you have to do is place the book on a pad and BAM, it registers it. But it wasn't BAMMING. So I had to flip the book over, then I took the rubber band off, then tried to flip it over again... finally I just used the scanner thing. Stupid new technology.


I went down a different way back. This is the back of the memorial. And a park bench that's not chained down. Thus I've concluded that the path I'm on is not a bike path.


Poor dead tree. What made you so different? Why wouldn't the others let you live??? Tree discrimination. *shakes head sadly*



I do not know why I chose to take this picture.


The sign said no trespassing, but oooooh how I wanted to! It looked interesting down there! Must be why they put the sign up.


This was my view when I looked straight up.



This house looked so cute. The sign says "This House Matters". Not sure why it does, but yeah. It's also for rent. ANyone interested? lol.


I'm um... not too big a fan of its garage though....



Yay for abandoned buildings!! I reeeeally wanted to wander inside, but I couldn't find a way in.



Oh. What's that? Yep... in front of the abandoned building...


More shoes. Boots this time. These must have been easier to get up though, because they're not above a river, so you could easily have more than one try. They actually look kinda cute too. I wanted to get them down to look at them better. lol.


The main entrance to the park near the river.



SQUIRREL!!!


I then took a picture of some flowers.


And a tree. But really, I was distracted. By the



SQUIRREL!!!!



Oooooh yeah Mr. Squirrel. I gots you on camera. I was a few feet away, and used zoom, cuz I didn't want to scare it off. I can't say exactly how far away I was, because, well, my perception sucks.

Zoomed again. Whatever the heck it's eating, must be good.


Zoom again! Sitting in the shadows munchin' on num nums. Sounds like my kind of squirrel.

EXTREME SQUIRRELLY CLOSE UP!!!!

That was as close a zoom as my camera goes. When in full zoom and looking at something so far away, the slightest nudge of the camera sends you faaaar away from the subject in question.

I had to zoom out to find Mr. Squirrel again. Which, is when I realized... he was no longer eating.



He was just looking at me. I experienced a fleeting moment of panic as I imagined EXTREME SQUIRRELLY WRATH


Lucky for me though, Mr. Squirrel instead decided he was done posing for a camera and hid behind a tree instead.



See? SEE?? THIS brick laid down is a PATH. Not a completely useless corner next to a sidewalk.

Yay playground.



A piece of trash. McDonald's fries. Really? Really?? There are two McDonald's near us, and they're both about 5 miles in opposite directions of here. Are you kidding me? WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE TRASH?! Ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as the fact that there are NO TRASH CANS ON THIS SIDEWALK. Sigh.


And here's a picture of me on the sidewalk looking over at the bike path bridge.



This picture makes me feel really short. I don't remember judging the railing... was it really that tall?


As you can see it's now 9:30.







Thought you'd enjoy some pics in silence. That, or I had nothing to add.


Geese.


Geese on the bike path = showdown. DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNN.


Them geese high-tailed it outta there by the time I got closer. I WIN! WOOT!


This is the other side of the bridge. The stone one above that I like? It's a stone bridge, and one one side there's a bike path attached, so here's the railing for the path.


If you know Bigelow Homes, then you know these houses. They use the same models/style. The reason I know them is because before we moved to this town, we lived in a Bigelow Homes subdivision for almost ten years. And when we moved, I still worked at a cafe within that subdivision. I was very familiar with these houses.


Yay clouds for providing me with shade from Alistair!!


When I first passed, I acknowledged this ambulance with not much more than a passing glance. Upon further inspection, I've noticed that aside from the red line around it, it has no makings. No "ECNALUBMA" written across the front of the hood, nor is there anything on it's side or back. Do they sell used ambulances? And if they do, why would you want one? Pretend Paramedic?


This was a pretty spot. And the furniture wasn't chained down either.



Dunno if you can see it very well, but someone spray painted some purple on to this fire hydrant. That someone was on to something. Purple fire hydrants sound way cool to me.


Check out the kid shoe chillin' on this thinger-whatsit. What are these called???? Crocs? Right?


Another shot of one of the ponds I showed earlier.


Taking the previous shot made me notice the plane. You can't really see it here, but it's sorta right "on" that biggish cloud near the middle of the picture. Oh my gosh, I am so amazingly good at describing whereabouts. I have discovered my calling.


There we go. The plane made me uneasy. It felt way too low. Before we moved to this area, we lived in Des Plaines, which was maybe five minutes away from O'Hare Airport. So I was used to the low flying planes and all the noise. But we're about an hour away from that now. So seeing a low plane is weird.


Don't worry, our walk's almost done here. Pretty white flowers.


I took one as a souvenir of my walk. Lol. And there you see the stupid freckle on my finger. I'm still not used to it. It showed up a couple years ago I think. So it's still "new" compared to all the other freckles, which are, you know, like over TWENTY YEARS OLD. I keep mistaking this freckle for a speck of dirt, and have to keep reminding myself it won't wash off.


Last picture:
Lawn flamingos are awesome.


Yep, so there we have it. Thanks for coming along as I relived my walk. lol. It took over an hour there and back. All in all, pretty successful. I walked in to one spiderweb, which sucked and made me think that people don't use that sidewalk near the road bridge thing very often. They must all use the bike path. Blech. And best part? NO MOSQUITO BITES!!! YAAAAAAAY!!!

That also means I walked a total of THREE hours yesterday. Which, is a lot. And my legs are sore. I didn't go to the gym today, but I do plan on going tomorrow.