American Discovery Trail: Pushing Through Injury

Corn

I first posted about my hip injury on the 12th of this month, but I suspect by then that it had already been hurting for at least a week. It was the kind of injury that happens sometimes now - I have no idea what caused it, but one day something started to hurt, just because. It is healing very slowly. I tried to keep walking, but I noticed several times that when I walk, it aggravates my hip. It does not bother me much as I walk, but when I finish walking a good distance, I can barely bend over and then straighten up again.

Because of that, I have cut my walking back to six or seven thousand steps per day, and that helps. Nevertheless, the healing is very slow.

This segment of the trail goes south and west from Waterloo, Iowa to Marshalltown. In between, we pass through Hudson, Voorhies, Reinbeck, Morrison, Grundy Center, Beaman, and Conrad. Combined population of the seven towns, per the Internet, is about 8,350, hence the picture of a cornfield.

My total steps per day, since day one, are sliding down close to 10,000 per day (now at 10,200), but hey, I'm getting older, and it's getting harder. I'm going to get past this hip thing and get those numbers back up.

 

American Discovery Trail: Way Up North

Conway Pedestrian Bridge

The northernmost point of the American Discovery Trail is in George Wyth Memorial State Park in Waterloo, Iowa, where we find ourselves this week. How far north is it? For Pacific Coast residents, it is at about the same latitude as Grants Pass in southern Oregon. Not so far north I would say, as I live a day's drive north of Grants Pass. The trail goes east to west much more than it wanders north or south.

So where is the southernmost point, you ask? Well, if you take the southern route through Missouri and Kansas, it looks like the southernmost point is somewhere in Kansas. The way we are headed, though, the southern point will be in Bears Ears National Monument in southern Utah. Bears Ears looks to be just a tad farther south than San Francisco, a day's drive south from Grants Pass.

I just finished segment 28 of the trail, leaving 40 to go. At 1,750 miles and 3.875 million steps, I am 36% of the way along, making good progress.

The Conway Pedestrian Bridge, by the way, crosses the Cedar River at the 4th Street Bridge in Waterloo. Unfortunately, our route does not take us across it.

Actual walking is coming to that depressing time of year. This morning it was 40 degrees when Arlo and I left the house, and it will just get colder from here. We have not seen the sun all day, and this too will be normal for a few months. Also, it starts to get dark around 4:00 now, and of course the shortest day of the year is more than a month away. So, we hunker down and stick it out until late January or maybe February, when the world starts to get warmer and to lighten up again. It's a good time to play lots of bridge.

Fairy-tale mushrooms*, and seemingly every other type of mushroom, love this weather. I am not sure what gets them going, but it has rained a lot - and given where I live, rained a lot means a lot - so maybe that is the key. In any case, I have never seen so many mushrooms of various colors, shapes, and sizes.

*Not a scientific name. I made it up. Actually, these appear to be Orange Fly Agaric mushrooms. "Highly poisonous."

American Discovery Trail: Near Brandon, Iowa

Ocean Shores, Washington

Population 341, and home to the world's largest frying pan. I do not have a picture of the frying pan here, because that seems like a dubious honor. Seems a little gimmicky, but maybe that's just me.

My walking continues, but continues to be lackluster. I have two excuses though: First, I played a lot of bridge this week, and though I took long walks on the beach on Wednesday and Thursday, bridge does not naturally lend itself to lots of walking, so other days my steps were low. Second, my hip continues to bother me, although it is slowly getting better, so I have cut back on my distances. On days when I walk a long way (I put in almost 15,000 steps on Wednesday, mostly on the beach), the hip begins to ache, so I am trying to rest it while still putting in some steps, balancing exercise versus rest.

The bridge is going well - I am not sure that I can keep up this pace, but if I do, I will make it to Life Master in about two years. The tournament in Ocean Shores this week was a huge success, leaving me with over 42 gold points out of the 50 I need for Life Master, so I have earned 42 this year and need 8 more in the next two years. Really, it's going well.

American Discovery Trail: Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Cedar Rapids

The river that runs through Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is the Cedar River, which looks like a pretty good-sized river. It runs into the Iowa River, which then flows to the Mississippi not long after.

At 136,000 people, Cedar Rapids is the second-largest town in Iowa. Over three million people live in Iowa, but I guess they all live in small towns.

Cedar Rapids is the end of a segment of the trail, so 27 down, only 41 to go. This is the farthest north we have been on the American Discovery Trail, though we are only about 200 miles north of our starting point in Delaware, and we will go farther north for one more segment before we reach the northernmost point of the trail.

I have now covered 3,750,000 steps, and if every 250,000 steps could be considered a milestone, I only have 28 more milestones to go.

Last month, I walked a paltry 257,000 steps in 31 days, but this last week I have rededicated myself to getting 10,000 steps minimum each day, and we are moving along at a good pace again. Next week, bridge will interfere, but I will try to work around it.

On the way to Cedar Rapids, the Hoover Library at West Branch, Iowa.

Stone Academy, a one-room schoolhouse built in 1842, in Solon, Iowa.

In keeping with the idea that Iowa is mostly cornfields, an agricultural scene near Ely, Iowa.