Changing Goals

I have not gotten tired of the balloons yet, and I take a picture or three almost every day. This one flew almost straight over the house. Yesterday and today were the first days we have seen balloons launched in the afternoon, and some of those launched from a site very near us.

For those of you who read my blog on occasion - I think that there are at least three of you based on the feedback I get occasionally - you may have noticed that I have not posted about walking much lately. I would give two reasons for that: one, I have gotten tired of trying to get 10,000 steps every day, and two, I have been moving for the last seven months, and that has consumed my energies.

Well, I am ready to declare the moving over. It isn't really, but there is always stuff to do even when we are not moving, and we have settled in enough to call it done. As for the 10,000 steps, I am scaling back, setting a new, much more modest goal, of 6,000 steps per day. The trip from Washington to Miami that I finished in 2023 was really amazing, and I can hardly believe I did it, but it is not like me to sustain my interest at that level forever. And after all, I am four years older than I was when I started that walk. Anyway, 6,000 steps is not such a bad goal.

Now that we are settled in, Arlo and I take a 4,000-step walk, more or less, each day, and the other 2,000 steps cone from normal activities. So, with that goal in mind, my current streak is - 4 days! Even that won't continue too long, because I have a bridge tournament next weekend, and it's hard to get steps in when you sit at a table and play cards all day.

Today was the first time in months that I have looked at the American Discovery Trail website to track my progress, and it turns out that they have revamped the website. The new look is much better, with more consistent and up-to-date descriptions of the trail segments, so I should have a better idea of where I am and what sites I am passing. It turns out that I am past Denver, Colorado, in the portion of the trail that crosses four passes over 12,000 feet in elevation, including Argentine Pass, the highest point of the trail at 13,107 feet, at the Continental Divide.

My next goal is to make my way west of my current location in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, and this point is still about 200 miles down the trail, somewhere west of Winfield, Colorado. Sometime next year...

Some of the walls in my neighborhood are decorated.

The Sandia Mountains from my neighborhood. The Sandias stand up to the east of Albuquerque, more than 5,000 feet over the city, which is at 5,000 feet elevation. They are not the tallest mountains in New Mexico, but around here they dominate the landscape.