More specifically, I said I would, “Here are some of the specific things I’d like to add to my 26 in 2026 list: Purchase a conservation area pass and visit all 11 local conservation areas plus the Luther Marsh, one per month, and a provincial park pass with the goal of visiting 6 new ones this year.”
This weekend, most other family members are off outdoor adventuring. Mallory and Gwen are backcountry canoe camping in Algonquin, Sarah is off with family in Prince Edward County, Jeff and Susan are both in Nova Scotia, and Miles, mum, and I are home sick. Blerg.
But even when you’re sick, the dogs still need walking, so we ventured out in the car to check out a new-to-us conservation area, Elora Gorge. (That’s different from the Elora Quarry where Catherine and I went swimming a couple of years ago.)
We had so much fun that on Sunday we did it again. This time we went further afield to Shade’s Mills Conservation area in nearby Cambridge. It’s more of a lakefront beach for families, less hiking. Cheddar went in the water for a bit to beat the heat, It got up to 30 degrees and we got heat alerts on our phones. That felt extra strange after the midweek frost alert.
Both days we logged more than 10k steps and enjoyed our days, talking, and hanging with the dogs.
Goal: 11 conservation areas + Luther Marsh
So far we’ve visited Rockwood, Shade’s Mills, and the Elora Gorge, and I feel like I’m getting to know the area better.
Elora Gorge Walk with Cheddar, Chase, and Miles
2. Shades’s Mills Conservation Area with Cheddar, Chase and Miles
Retirement: arrived, approaching, or not yet on the radar — wherever you are, how is it shaping your fitness life right now? We talk a lot about fitness at mid-life, but retirement reshapes the whole picture: time, income, identity, care responsibilities, and the body itself. Where are you on that journey, and how is it changing your relationship with movement and health?
Diane
I’m almost two years post-retirement, and it’s a weird fitness time for me right now. I was very active until a year ago, then scaled back on cycling after I was diagnosed with a heart murmur. I kept up my other activities and was proud to redo my lifeguard fitness testing just three weeks before surgery to repair my wonky valve.
Now, three weeks post-surgery, I’m back on my bike for short rides, walking a lot, and eagerly looking forward to getting back into the dance studio and the pool.
The best part about retirement is that I have the freedom to do daytime dance classes, or early morning swims, or go for a bike ride or a walk with friends in the middle of the day.
The worst part is that am increasingly prone to injury. Or maybe I just have the luxury of time to pay more attention to what my body is telling me when I overdo things.
Cate
I am moving to a small community with a lot more inbuilt movement — ie, my house is at the top of a steep hill. The theory was that this would shift gradually into less working but at the moment I seem to be super super busy. I am trying to remain quasi active with a modified couch to 5k (inspired by Tracy) and by making little videos for a friend who is just getting into movement. Check back in in September!
Mina
I wish retirement were on my radar!! Then I’d sleep later and have time to do proper stretching and mindful movement, instead of just early morning workouts with a rushed flavour.
Tracy
As I approach retirement (officially at the end of 2026 but on half time right now with the majority of heavy lifting behind me) I can’t believe how much more I’m “feeling my age” than I was 14 years ago when we started the blog. My fitness goals are more modest—keep running, do some resistance training, add swimming after I finish the Couch to 5K running program, and get back to yoga, which I think will be more important than ever. My objective is to stay energetic and agile for as long as possible so I can enjoy the “go” period of early retirement, travelling and taking photos. My camera gear is heavy and photography is more active than it seems.
Sam
Two years from now, if all goes to plan, I’ll be on research leave — reading, writing, travelling, and riding my bike. But right now? I’m a dean with two years left in my term, and it’s a big busy job with long days and lots of responsibility.
I plan to take leave after finishing my second term in May 2028, and then return to a life of teaching and research in the Philosophy department, with maybe some part-time consulting on the side. I’m excited about all that. Leave will be the reset when I’ll have more time for writing. After that, I’m genuinely looking forward to the flexibility of a regular faculty member’s schedule. I suspect I’ll keep outdoor adventuring, and that having more time will mean a return to some bigger fitness/distance goals.
The fitness activities I manage right now, I have to struggle to fit in — early mornings, lunch hours, the occasional weekend longer ride. I love my job and still find the work genuinely exciting, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t already imagining what it feels like to train without all the pressure and busyness. The challenge right now is finding time for all the things. The dream, two years out, is that “all the things” shifts to mean something different — that movement stops being what I fit in and becomes part of how the day is shaped.
Of course, a lot could change. Health, caregiving responsibilities, the unexpected. Any of these could rewrite the plan entirely. But all being well, I’m not ready to wind down just yet. I’m more interested in what opens up.
Catherine
I’m looking at potentially retiring in 2031; I have a sabbatical coming up fall of 2029 and have to work another year after that. I’ve been in a less active period for a while now, which I think is due to several causes: I’m being more research-active, with a couple of new projects, I’m paying more attention to teaching (a good thing) and putting in more time with and for students, my ADHD/anxiety symptoms have increased (I think), and I’m just more tired than I used to be. Of course, physical activity helps with ADHD and anxiety, but it’s the inner activation that I’m working on. How? By slowing things down, reluctantly but intentionally. Summer is here, and I’m slowing down my days. I have the luxury of picking activities like cycling, swimming, yoga, kayaking, walking– alone or with friends. I’ll be reporting on how things go. In the meantime, intentional everyday activity is helping.
My pie-in-the-sky aspirations are to get recertified in Scuba and go do volunteer environmental Scuba projects in Florida and elsewhere. Also, to get in better condition on the bike to take multi-day bike trips in the US and Canada. The Scuba course will be my 65th birthday present to myself next year. And I’m doing a 4–5 day bike trip with a friend this summer.
Nat
I’m caught up in a bit of a whirlwind just two weeks into retirement. How did I have time to do paid work?
I’m loving having time to go to the grocery store during the day. I can meal plan around what is on the reduced rack to get more bang for my grocery buck.
I continue to walk daily with Michel and Lucy.
I’m adding short yoga routines at home.
My plan is to get on my bicycle daily but I haven’t made that happen yet.
I am seeing my physiotherapist for my lower back. It’s stubbornly still achy.
I continue to get regular massages and chiropractic care.
And my garden is definitely appreciative of my time.
The biggest surprise is how many friends were just waiting for my retirement to spend more time together doing things.
I’ve been following the hantavirus outbreak with great interest and a little trepidation. Great interest because my day job– public health ethicist– means I want to see how this is being handled to think, write and teach about it; a little trepidation because, well, it’s an an outbreak of a scary virus on a large moving vessel (the MV Honius) driving around the ocean with 175 people aboard. Yeah.
There is overall good news coming out of reliable sources (e.g. the World Health Organization websites, public health substacks like Your Local Epidemiologist, which I read and trust). That news is that the case count as of May 13 was 11 cases and 3 deaths. The passengers have all disembarked, and their countries have made arrangements for their sequestration and/or surveillance during the roughly 6-week incubation period.
But I think we need to know what’s working well and what’s not in public health these days. After COVID, we learned a lot. But some lessons we still keep having to go back to, again and again.
Bad news/good news one: The bad news is that a hantavirus outbreak on a ship was not on anyone’s radar. Yale epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina said on this podcast on her substack that this scenario was not on her top-100 list of Bad Things to Happen on a Cruise Ship.
The good news is that as soon as hantavirus was confirmed in one of the sick passengers, the WHO swung into action, coordinating reporting to health authorities, sharing knowledge, helping arrange safe dockage for the ship, and contact tracing for the 34 passengers who had disembarked after the virus came aboard.
Bad news/good news two: Where was the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) in all this? Well, pretty much in the dark because
Trump fired or forced out many/most of the senior scientists who have leadership experience in infectious disease;
Trump pulled out of the WHO, so the CDC isn’t officially in the loop on their activities (the Your Local Epidemiologist folks said that US public health people were getting info from WHO friends as a favor to them);
current leadership of the CDC isn’t even requiring the American passengers from the cruise ship to quarantine at home during the 42-day incubation period. According to this article, “the CDC is currently taking a “conservative approach” that involves “encouraging” people to stay home during the monitoring period.”
But but… what about the good news? Here it is: state and local public health authorities are on the scene, and they are monitoring the passengers, communicating regularly with the communities where the affected passengers are staying, and being completely transparent about the processes they are using the manage the crisis. This happens every day, all day, for all manner of infectious diseases, including flu, pertussis, measles hepatitis, all over the world. Local public health folks deserve a yearly parade. And yes, my sister of one of those folks– she’s a public health epidemiology nurse, working hard in an understaffed agency (also thanks to Trump and RFK). If it weren’t a major privacy violation, I’d ask you all to send her a thank-you card…
Bad news/good news three: Cruise ships and viruses– man, this just keeps happening! Yes, it’s true that cruise ships seem to be floating petri dishes for nasty bugs like norovirus. E coli outbreaks happen, too. But, in this case, the MV Honius folks did everything they could to minimize health and environmental impact of their travel (other than being an energy-intensive mode of transportation): they had sanitation protocols designed to keep contaminating biomatter from leaving or entering the ship, especially as their destinations are often fragile ecosystems. It was just a very unfortunate happenstance that the only form of hantavirus with human-to-human contact showed up from two passengers who likely contracted it in Argentina. The ship authorities responded promptly and fully, cooperating with the WHO and affected countries.
Bad news/good news four: there is no treatment for hantavirus (other than supportive care), and it has a case fatality rate of 25–40%. Oh, and this variant– the Andes version– is the only known one with human-to-human contact. Okay, let’s make sure to breathe here. The good news is Andes virus outbreaks have happened before and been stopped through old-fashioned public health means of isolation and contact tracing. Also, this virus isn’t highly contagious– it’s much less contagious than COVID.
Bad news/good news five: with the CDC in a leadership and knowledge vacuum and political leadship refusing to back up or fund public health infrastructure, it’s harder than ever to get accurate and relevant and trustworthy information. Yes, that’s true. But the good news is that there are both official sites (like the WHO, international news outlets) and substacks are out there and on the job (like Your Local Epidemiologist and dozens of others by conscientious experts who care about the public’s physical health and emotional well-being when crises happen). I posted this clear and reassuring flow chart on FB that the YLE folks made. It reassured me, and I hope it will reassure you.
Flow chart assessing anyone’s risk from the hantavirus. Upshot: if you weren’t on the boat or spending a lot of time with someone who was, you’re likely totally fine.
As always, your trusty FIFI bloggers will keep you apprised of whatever comes our way. Now, go out and enjoy the lovely May day…
If all goes well by the time this post publishes, I will be driving from Orangeville to Schomberg . I have been awake since yesterday at 5 am. So tired.
A map showing the route from London to Coburg with 435 km distance and 2,888 meters of elevation.
I’m supporting my friends’ team Chamois & Shenanigans for the 24 hour Flèche event.
A green team badge shows 5 cyclists and an SUV labeled SAG WAGON.
It’s my third time providing Support And Gear (SAG) for this event. It is a rare team event in a sport, Randonneuring, that is usually about individual efforts and self sufficiency.
There are strict rules about the support I can provide. Only at controls, pre-set resupply points, can I provide food, mechanical and first aid.
I adore this group of athletes that I lovingly call “fools”. Fred, Jim, Marc, Michel and Mike appreciate the support and recognize how I contribute to the team’s success.
I also see my role as Social Media Strategist. I document and post their progress. This reassures loved ones that everything is going well. I refer to these posts as “proof of life”. Sometimes I am too focused on a quick turnaround and forget to take pictures. Oops!
I’m thrilled that this year there is also an all women’s team, Flèche Fatales. Brenda, Jessica, Lorelei and Natalia are receiving SAG from Corina and Maria.
The team badge for Flèche Fatales shows 4 cyclists bracketed by 2 cars.
The best part of the event is all teams arriving at the destination from a variety of starting points and routes. It’s really lovely to see old friends, enjoy great food and celebrate everyone’s accomplishments.
Volunteering is crucial to amateur athletics. If you get the chance, definitely help out events in your area. The athletes are so appreciative.
4 bicycles lined up against the exterior wall of a McDonalds before 6 am.
I find all the talk about aging fascinating. We seem to worry about the aging process almost as much as we worry about climate change. And yet, as a very old man always said when I asked him how he was, “It beats the alternative!” I discovered this blog when I was already well past 50; it began after I was fifty, with Sam’s & Tracy’s stated goal of achieving great fitness by the time they reached that landmark age. I have been reading it steadily ever since, and realize I am quite a bit farther on the aging path than the other contributors. So, I thought I’d share a few of the things I have experienced and observed.
In my first post, The Origins of My Surprising Fitness Journey, I described my brain cancer experience: I was told at age 46 that I was lucky; I could reasonably expect to live 10 to 15 years, but that didn’t feel very lucky to me. So I made ever-increasing forays into fitness. I’m 74, and honestly, I feel stronger and better than I did at 35. Yes, there are a few changes I don’t love: one knee, which was diagnosed with bone-on-bone arthritis about 15 years ago, has very recently made it clear that running is not a reasonable choice anymore. OK, I never really liked running much. I just used it as cross-training for a day or two most weeks, never went farther than the 7 miles (12k) of San Francisco’s (in)famous Bay to Breakers run.
And I wasn’t doing so many push-ups. Hmm. I got back to work on those and am back up to about 10 & still increasing, so no aging problem there. Balance? Nope, with all the dance classes I take, I can claim to have better balance than all the silly tests we keep seeing think a 30-year-old should have. Endurance? My bike rides right now are maxing out at about 30 miles, but I fully expect to work back up to 50 over the next month or two.
We moved four years ago to a Lifetime Care Community, a place that offers independent living, where you pretty much get on with whatever you were doing before you got there, assisted living if/when the need arises, skilled nursing (primarily for recovery periods when you’ve been released from the hospital but can’t quite be on your own yet), and memory care. Sounds sort of, well, weird, to want to live at such a place when we are still so healthy and active, right?
This community has taught me more about aging than I ever thought to learn, and I have never regretted our move. That is only a tiny bit due to one silly little thing: I never expected to go around saying, well, I’m only 70! I have met dozens of people here who are in their 90s and still taking brisk, hilly walks pretty much every day. I have learned about technology, history, sustainability… the list is long. People here are vigorous, intellectually challenging and fun to be around. And this is a feminist blog, so I can happily add that women are, on average, holding things together longer than men. Which brings me to a concept I read about before I moved here.
Squaring the Aging Curve.
I get a weekly bicycle newsletter in which one of the writers pushed the concept. He had believed that we can keep right on doing a lot of the active things we enjoy. We just might have to slow down a bit. Or maybe not. He didn’t think it would extend our years, but rather than it would keep us feeling better longer, with perhaps a steep drop off at the end. In fact, that is exactly what happened to him. He was still riding his bike in mountainous terrain when he died suddenly. I admit I don’t know much about the science behind this. I don’t even know if it has been tested in any way. We do know that people who exercise more tend to be quite a bit healthier than people who don’t move much. I do see that people who contribute to my community intellectually, musically, artistically, and who are often to be seen at the gym or out walking, seem to be a lot better off than I ever dreamed I’d be if I reach their ages. I plan to follow that thought for as long as I can!
I admit to being a chronic optimist. To prove that I don’t go too far in that direction, I will comment on a few elements of aging I could do without: getting up to visit the bathroom most nights; sagging, sensitive skin (I don’t burn at all easily & have had a hard time accepting sunscreen – but have grudgingly done it), plus there are more saddle sores; fussier vision, including reading glasses & cataract surgery; dreaded colonoscopy, but lots of years between them.
Sure, it’s not all easy. With a little luck, though, I think we can breeze through it longer than I expected. I see the fitness everyone here aspires to as an amazing head start to a great old age.
Bio
I am a lifelong Californian. My mother and father were not born here but moved to the state as small children. I have two grown daughters and five wonderful grandchildren. I spent my working life working at, and eventually running, the family insurance business. My father had introduced many employee benefits – sabbatical starting in 1970, optional four-day work week in 1972, elimination of all official work time rules in 1974. Adults like to be treated as adults, and people tended to stay a long time, so it was a very pleasant working environment with key elements of trust and respect. I also served on a couple of independent school boards, one a strong academic school serving grades 6-12, one a school designed to start helping city kids who had suffered the ongoing effects of racism & poverty to find opportunities they might not as easily discover without support. I live at a Lifetime Care Community where I serve on the finance committee and chair the sustainability committee. I also plan to join the newly formed fitness committee. And for fun, I have ridden my bicycle across North America. Twice.
Cardio rehab involves a lot of walking. It started with two six-minute walks on the first day I was released from hospital, and now I’m up to nearly an hour a day.
It’s necessary, but oh so boring for someone who loves to do other activities that aren’t yet permitted. Especially with the cold, damp spring we have been having. I’m getting flashbacks to the COVID lockdown days when we all walked because that was what was available.
Image: a grumpy looking bald eagle stomps through the water for its stupid physical and mental health
I have mapped out various routes around the neighborhood and am slowly checking them off as my distances get longer: grocery store, pharmacy, church, community garden, the Pond, the cemetery (it’s huge and full of trilliums this time of year). Tonight I am seriously considering walking downtown to see a ballet, if it isn’t too rainy.
The best was going to the tulip festival with my friend Florence. It was delightful to get out of my immediate neighborhood and see something new.
Left: Florence and I get our picture taken through one of the scenic frames set up to show off the tulip beds. Right: a particularly colourful bed of red, yellow, purple and white tulips with trees and a brilliant blue sky in the background.
Finally, finals are over, and I’m doing a bushel of grading. The bulk of it is logic exams, which we now give on paper because otherwise, students would cheat using GenAI tools.
Argh. Sigh.
Speaking of logic, though, I’m reminded of one of my favorite cognitive biases: the Dunning-Kruger effect. This cognitive bias happens when we wildly overestimate our own knowledge or competence when we ourselves have very limited knowledge or abilities in some area.
I’ve used this graph when I teach this bias in class. What it lacks in technical jargon it makes up for in humor and clarity.
This graph whimsically shows beginners climbing the peak of Mount Stupid.
My favorite example of this is a result from 2019, where a poll showed that 1 in 8 British men (12%) believed that they could take a point off Serena Williams in play. By contrast, only 3% of British women polled held this belief. What explains the difference?
This article from 2025 on overconfidence in beginner sports players offers a few insights. The bad combo of overconfidence and low self-awareness alongside low competence that some beginners have results in low performance (and sometimes injuries or accidents).
But what about so-called “beginner’s mind”? Isn’t being a beginner supposed to free us from expectations and limitations? This article explains:
It’s dropping our expectations and preconceived ideas about something, and seeing things with an open mind, fresh eyes, just like a beginner. If you’ve ever learned something new, you can remember what that’s like: you’re probably confused, because you don’t know how to do whatever you’re learning, but you’re also looking at everything as if it’s brand new, perhaps with curiosity and wonder. That’s beginner’s mind.
In yoga classes, I try to maintain beginner’s mind (to go along with my beginner’s ability), even though I’ve been practicing for years. It’s just more fun for me, taking it one pose at a time, exploring what it’s like (including the difficulties and physical limitations of my own musculature and range of flexibility) to do some pose or other.
Except for hero pose. I cannot now, nor have I ever been able to do that one. Go ahead, judge me.
This post came about not just because I’m trying to distract myself from grading, by the way. I saw this YouGov poll in which Americans were asked if they thought they could beat Donald Trump in a fistfight. Turns out that more Democratic women respondents believe they could beat Trump in a fight than Republican men respondents. Here’s the data:
71% of Democrat women think they could beat Trump in a fight, compared to 46% of Republican men and 19% of Republican women.
So my question I leave you with, dear readers is: Is this Dunning-Kruger effect, some form of beginner’s mindset, or are lots of women fed up with Trump and locked and loaded for a one-on-one showdown? You make the call…
Khalee and I have been working on a walking challenge – The Great Sniffari 2026 – and I chose for us to walk 21km over the first 10 days of May.
Often when I try to take photo of Khalee, she steps out of the way. This time she kind of photobombed my photo of this fallen tree with the roots exposed and a ‘witch broom’ tangle of branches on it. Image description: a photo of Khalee, my medium-sized dog with short, light-brown hair on most of her body and white paws, tail, and face, wearing a jaunty green bandana with cartoon bugs on it. She is looking to the right in the photo and her neck is foreshortened because of the angle so she looks a little squished. Behind her is a fallen tree with the roots exposed.
The challenge seemed like it would be fairly easy at the outset – a small extra effort on top of our usual walks – but things went a bit awry and I realized last Thursday that I was going to have to do a bit of a push to finish on time.
So on Thursday we walked 2.78km, on Friday we did 2.81, Saturday was 3km which technically brought us to the end of our challenge.* (In fact, we only needed .29km on Saturday to finish.)
I say technically because I didn’t realize the settings in the app wouldn’t carry over from my other, year-long, challenge and the Sniffari was pulling Apple Health step data.
I didn’t actually want to include steps from things like walking around the house or the grocery store but because they automatically uploaded at the end of each day, I didn’t realize they were being rolled into my total and I was surprised to find out that I was finished.
Once I figured out why I had finished a day early, I calculated my actual distances and then added extra amounts to my daily walks for the next few days to match the way I wanted things to play out.
No matter the details of the challenge, on Saturday I realized something important.
These longer walks were making me feel great.
I mean, I generally enjoy going for a walk – even when I have to drag myself out for them – but this was a different kind of enjoyment.
I was starting to feel those kind of intangible benefits I get when I exercise regularly – a looser feeling in my hips, a certain ease of movement, an overall feeling of wellbeing – after only 3 days of extra effort.
That seemed kind of quick but I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in its proverbial mouth here. Instead, I decided to keep building momentum.
So, on Sunday, we walked 4.42km and, on Monday, we walked 4.08km, and it felt purposeful, straightforward, and kind of tiring – but in a good way.
And, on top of that, all of this extra movement seems to have flipped a mental switch for me and I have found myself doing a bit more yoga, a few more strength training exercises, taking a few extra trips up the stairs, and adding mobility exercises while I am doing things around the house.
So, it seems that, like the title says, moving more makes me want to move more.
And I like it!
Of course, I know that this has happened to me before – I’ve gotten into an exercise routine, started to feel the effects, been enjoying myself, and then something has gone sideways and I lost momentum or had to change gears.
So, I have told myself to keep an eye out for when that happens and in the meantime I am developing some backup plans.
I’ll let you know how it all goes, obviously. 🙂
a photo of Khalee, my medium-sized dog with short, light-brown hair on most of her body and white paws, tail, and face, standing next to a river on a bright, sunny day. She is sort of side on and she’s facing the left side of the photo. She has a harness and leash on. She’s standing on dried grass and mud, the river next to her is filled with brownish red rocks and there are trees and more dried grass and mud on the other side of the river.
I know that the blog used to be an angrier place. These days, we’re mostly pretty chill. We’ve been there and done that for most fitnessy things and trends. We’re still very much a feminist fitness blog, but I’ve noted there’s less feminist outrage around the place these days.
And yet, sometimes, some days I encounter things in the fitness world that make me go grrr.
Both of these examples come from my fancy gym, which is really quite a lovely, inclusive place. I don’t have very many feminist complaints.
But this, my friends, bugs me. It’s the lighter, smaller bar at the gym. It’s 35 lbs, rather than the usual 45 lbs, and it’s a little narrower for smaller hands.
And it’s PINK! Because of course it is. Some people, though not our personal trainer, call it the women’s bar. I’ve written before about why gender specific anything is likely a bad idea. See Why “women’s specific” anything is likely a bad idea.
It’s great that there’s a smaller bar, but there is zero reason to call it the women’s bar or paint it pink. Lots of men might prefer a 35 lb bar.
Exhibit A
The second thing is a motivational saying stenciled on a weighted bag that you carry when doing weighted lunges. I think it’s a slogan meant to push you through the hard reps.
“Don’t quit. Ever.”
Oh, gym. We need to talk.
Because here at Fit Is a Feminist Issue, we have a whole different relationship with quitting. We’ve celebrated Quitting Day with an entire series of posts. Several of us are on the record as proudly, thoughtfully pro-quitting.
Quitting isn’t failure dressed up in cowardly clothes. Sometimes quitting is the clear-eyed, courageous, correct choice. When something no longer serves you — your body, your joy, your actual life — walking away isn’t weakness. It’s judgment.
“Don’t quit. Ever.” is the kind of advice that sounds tough but is really just oversimplification. It flattens a genuinely complex decision into a bumper sticker. Not every pursuit deserves your forever. Some things deserve a graceful exit. It’s sometimes okay to quit.
But still — I love my gym
And yet, here I am, back tomorrow for personal training and maybe aquafit later in the day. Despite the pink bar and the over-the-top motivational sayings, it really is a good gym.
This month’s camping trip, at the Pinery, would normally also be about bikes, but instead we brought Cheddar along. Cheddar loves the beach. Who was on the trip?: Sarah and me, my eldest adult child Mallory and her friend Sarah, and Cheddar the beach dog!
Mallory and friend Sarah went for a swim (brrr!) but Sarah and I mostly walked along the beach, admired the sunset and the waves. It still sometimes amazes me that Lake Huron is a lake and not an ocean.
Since I’m pretty committed to not driving around the park–and it’s a very large park–that meant a lot of walking. More than 16k steps of walking. My feet are sore, but my knees are fine. This sore feet thing is new. For years, it’s been my knees that limit how far I can walk.
What else to tell you about our weekend away camping trip? We borrowed the middle kid’s luxury tent. Thanks, Gwen, Cheddar loves having room for his own bed. I love the Pinery at this time of year when it’s only partly open. So quiet. So beautiful. (Okay, also cold. It went down to 3 C at night.) We played CrossCrib, and Wizard, and Mallory’s new Library game.
10/10 recommend. Will definitely go again. We stayed in Dunes Area 1, site 79, right next to the path to the beach.
