Wildwood Walk

It's been rainy here for the last week.  I was planning on going to the gym after work, but when I left for the day the sun was peeking out of the clouds.  Thoughts of walking on a treadmill within a artificially-lit building flew out the window. I did NOT want to be inside!

Before I left the parking lot I tried to think of outdoor places I could walk.  Many of the park trails I use aren't paved, so they'd be a muddy mess (and not worth it).  Then I remembered the asphalt trail I'd seen paralleling Manchester Road in Wildwood, a city several miles west of where I was.  I decided to try it out.

When we moved to the city of Manchester 25 years ago the area that's now Wildwood was predominantly farm land.  Now there's quite a bit of development, but they've made an effort to keep the green space, too.  I wasn't sure where the trail started, but when I saw a black pedestrian bridge over Manchester I knew I was close.  I parked the car in a far corner of a strip mall lot, found the trail, and headed west.

The trail was a ribbon of asphalt with not much shade.  It would be hot in the summer, but today it was perfect.  The sun was in and out of the clouds. A stiff breeze was blowing, which created extra resistance for my exercise.  At first I was walking at street level, but eventually the trail sloped up an incline so the trail looked down on the road.  There were a couple of streets that intersected the trail, but there was no traffic at any of them so I didn't have to stop.  The side of the trail contained the normal roadside and field weeds, but in the distance I saw manicured lawns and dogwoods blooming.  Even the critters seemed to be enjoying the nice weather.  I spied butterflies flitting among the spring blooms, and a single deer in a clearing.

I walked about a mile and a half, then turned around and backtracked to the starting point.  At one spot on the way back no one else was around to see, so I stopped and leaned against a pole to do some triceps presses and a few leg stretches before I continued.  That way I could say I did all my exercise, not just the aerobic part.