KG here - Greetings from Rogersville Alabama where we attended yet another day of our “Looper” conference. We have been furiously taking notes about the route from here down to the Gulf, around Florida and all the way up to Norfolk, VA. Additionally we’ve been answering lots of questions from attendees who have not started the loop yet, and are trying to figure out whether they can-or even want to-do it. I’ve been impressed by the wealth of knowledge of our presenters and have enjoyed helping people figure out whether this is the right adventure for them, despite the fact that a little over 2 months ago I barely understood what I was in for.
We are enjoying this lovely park - here are some of our favorite views from today:
However, both Tony and I are eager to get underway and back to our adventure. We miss the chance to see new vistas every day, and the teamwork that comes with relying on each other to get through a day with a sense of accomplishment sans major stress.
This week I have had a few reminders of the lessons the universe is trying to teach me on what I like to think of as my year of transition - those being: 1. embrace the slow life 2. you have to take care of yourself in order to be useful to others and 3. be present it whatever you’re doing now - stop living in the past/future.
I was trying to get too much packed into our conference day when luckily I spotted this snail moving slowly across the road. It stopped me up short long enough to take its picture:
but I was too jazzed to reflect and so the universe decided to be a little more forceful. I started off on a run through Joe Wheeler State Park hoping to see a new section of this amazing park where they have a whole host of facilities for day use. One of the things I’ve been really careful of in running this fall is to watch the path in front of me because often there is very uneven ground at the sides of these rural roads I’m running on and because of all of the large nuts that are littered along the roads/paths of these southern state parks.
As I was running, I was really feeling strong and celebrating the fact that as we started the loop I had a goal to be able to run a 10K by Thanksgiving (since my ACL reconstruction I have barely been able to run 3 miles). I ran my first 10K last week, ahead of schedule. Instead of maintaining my usual vigilance I attempted to multi-task, daydreaming to try to come up with my next goal to start on tomorrow and suddenly my heel came down on a very large nut on the side of the road, twisting and spraining my ankle pretty significantly. It’s bad enough to injure joints when you live in a “dirt home” where you can walk (or limp) on level ground but the success of our trip depends on us maintaining our health and strength so that we can clamber up onto the bow as we go through locks (we have 14 left to go through to get to the Gulf) and also to tie up the boat when docking.
Thankfully my brilliant sister with her DPT is always available for a remote consult and as I learned with my knee surgery, the sooner you start the PT the better. I’m also grateful to one of my new Looper friends who provided me with some amazing hands on therapy here during the conference. I’m happy to say I’m stubbornly on the road to recovery. We are getting underway tomorrow and we’re going to have to adapt our methods to get through the two locks that we will pass through on our way back to Florence, AL during the day. And all I have to say is:
OK UNIVERSE - MESSAGE RECEIVED.
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