The first change in my life is that my roommate got a dog. This will be my first time living with a large pet EVER. I'm allergic to cats, and we never had dogs growing up, so this is indeed a huge change for me!
Her name is Tonks and she is a BUSY, active lady. And while I may be adjusting to life with a dog in general, something I do really enjoy is our walks together, especially our long evening walks after the heat of the day goes down. Whether we walk for a half hour or more, it's good exercise, is getting me acquainted with my neighborhood, and gives me a lot of peace of mind time. It is also making sure that I am getting out of the house and moving a little this summer!
Another thing keeping me moving is my fundraising hike for CureSearch:
Please consider donating to this cause! I've pledged to raise $2,500!
This has been a bit of a challenge for me too! Not only am I doing some summer hiking, which this year has been pretty atrocious, I am also getting used to hiking in a group! There is a wonderful group of people doing the St. Louis chapter of this fundraising hike, and we've been training together for a couple weeks now. I find hiking in a group difficult... I love hiking on my own, and have rarely hiked with more than one or two other people at a time. But these people are great and there's a really good feeling to the team effort of training together, pushing each other, and knowing that we're all going through the same thing!
We've started out pretty slow, but did some walking and hiking at Tower Grove Park, Creve Coeur Lake, West Tyson County Park, and tomorrow we'll hike at Castlewood. We are slowly working our way up in mileage and difficulty, and should do a few 20 miles hikes before tackling the big one!!!
West Tyson park was new for me... we did part of the Chubb Trail and part of the Flint Quarry Trail, combining for about 7 miles. While I've done more than 7 miles before, this was a TOUGH tough hike!!!! It started out in a light-moderate drizzle, but that was actually the best weather the whole time! It was so muggy and hot that I don't think I've ever sweat so much in my entire life. I was EXHAUSTED, physically and mentally by the end. I seriously went home, showered, devoured food, and passed out on the couch. The trail was gorgeous with lots of ups and downs and changes in difficulty, which made it both great and super challenging in the mugginess. The trails were marked well enough when they crossed, but I only saw mile markers on the Flint Quarry Trail, not the Chubb. The rain over the past two days had made the trail incredibly, incredibly muddy and slick, which added to the challenge of the overall hike.
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