Exploring

After a rainy Saturday, we've had absolutely spectacular weather -- sunny, not muggy, cool in the morning and warm but not hot in the afternoon. It actually feels more like my ideal October than May, so I know my body will be whimpering when it gets hotter instead of cooler, but I'll take it while I can get it. I took advantage of it yesterday to go on a very long walk. I'd heard that they'd finally opened up the link between my neighborhood and the riverside hike/bike trails, so I headed out to find it.

And, yes, now I can get to the river by walking! There's a nice little park right on the edge of my neighborhood, with a path from the neighborhood up over the levee. The park serves as the trailhead for the hike/bike trail that runs a good two miles down the river, and which passes under all the surface streets and highways. Before, I had to drive to get to the trail because walking there would be death-defying.

However, it's about a half-hour walk from my house to the park where the riverside trail begins, so it's not as though I can just head over there for a quick daily exercise kind of walk. It's more of a thing to pack a lunch and a bottle of water in my backpack and make a day out of it. I kind of wish I had a bicycle because it would be a quick spin over there and then a great place to ride, and the place was crawling with bikes. At any rate, now I have easy access to nature, which is wonderful because while I do occasionally really enjoy being outdoors, there hasn't been a lot to do outdoors, and now when I do have a perfect outdoors kind of day, I have a way to enjoy it.

Plus, on the walk back, I took a bit of a shortcut and took surface streets instead of the walking path and then cut across the parking lot of the nearby shopping center, and I learned that the big Indian bazaar/market/import shop there will be opening in two weeks. I may have to learn to cook Indian food since I'll have ready access to the ingredients. And if I can make it to the Browncoat Ball this year, I should be able to find some good accessories for my outfit. Then I found that there's a new takeout curry place in that same shopping center, so I finally have takeout food in walking distance. I've never really done the takeout thing unless I'm coming home from a long day out and about and pick up something on the way home. If I'm already at home, it's more trouble to go out and get food than to cook if it requires getting in the car, mostly because all the takeout places are of the "you can't get there from here/can't get here from there" variety, thanks to a lot of one-way and divided roads. But now I can walk about a block and get takeout curry.

Today is so very nice that if I'd had a more productive weekend, work-wise, I'd be very, very tempted to just head out to the river and enjoy myself, but I do need to work and my legs are a little tired from yesterday's hike. I also have a homeowners association meeting tonight, so I can't goof off during the day with the promise that I'll work at night.