I started Early - Took my Dog

I'm trying to maintain a regular habit of walking. When you have a young dog like Jack, it's pretty easy to get motivated.

Each morning I try to get out at 7:00 am. The street our house is on is almost exactly one mile long. It runs like a strand of cooked spaghetti dropped onto a crumpled table cloth - it twists and loops and doubles back on itself, high in places and sagging low into the wrinkled surface of the mountainside.

Our house is at the .8 mile mark, and the road is actually above the roofline of the house. From here, you can see across the canyon to the morning sun on the other side. Each morning, I walk down the course, looping down through shady oak groves, past homes and past driveways leading in to houses hidden in the trees.

The neighborhood used to be - it's said - a mountain resort for Los Angelenos who wanted a hideaway for deer and quail hunting, drinking, gambling and consorting with women of ill repute. A cluster of houses on our road, alongside the creek, are rumored to have been part of this hunting-cabin/speakeasy/brothel, and you can tell which ones they are - 1920s era clapboard cottages. The rest of the housing stock dates mostly from the 1960s - like our house - and the 1970s, a handful of assymetrical redwood structures with cathedral ceilings and hot tubs.

Jack and I walk down to the .3 mile mark, and then turn and walk back to our house. That's a mile each morning. 

I need to work up to more, though. Beyond the .3 mile mark, the street drops steeply down a hill, then rolls up and over until it meets the main road. I could walk down that hill, go to the main road, and then return - that would be a two-mile walk.

Maybe someday! This is my challenge for the next month! For now, a mile a day is what I can do.