Well, that was interesting

For this post to make sense I need to give you a little back story. Point 1: Gus is now 9 years old and Llelo is 5. During walks Gus tends to dawdle, follow along, and be the pokey little puppy. Llelo is much more energetic, always at the extreme front of the leash, trying to drag us along faster. Point 2: As a New Christmakahstice gift Rachel gave me a fitbit. It's a nifty little thing, kind of like a pedometer on steroids. It's got an altimeter so it can measure the number of flights of stairs you have climbed in addition to steps. It also estimates number of calories burned and you can measure your sleep efficiency, too! And for those not in the know New Christmakahstice is a mash up of New Years, Christmas, Chanukah, and Solstice. ;) Point 3: It's a dark, rainy, winter evening in the Pacific Northwets (started as a typo, but somehow seems appropriate!).

I've been wearing my fitbit daily since I got it. It's really cool. And today after I got off the bus this morning I took the stairs up to the office, fitbit read 11 flights for the day so far and I hadn't even gotten to my desk yet! I've been wanting to get Llelo on a proper walk for a while now. After our potty walk I decided to drop Gus back in the house while Llelo and I went walking. I managed to grab my reflective vest as we scooted out the door. Llelo was stoked, fast walkies, awesome!!!

We got down to the main street and headed north up to the stop sign and then another right up the hill. I hate hills, they piss off my knees and I huff and puff my way up. Turns out this hill was a little steeper than I'd realized but we kept on going. At one point, maybe a third of the way up the hill, I pulled out my phone to look at a map. It occurred to me I wasn't very familiar with the neighborhoods behind the new condo so I wanted to look at the map and get my bearings. My goal was to do a big loop around, I'd work towards my 10k steps per day and Llelo would get some exercise.

We finally make it to the top of the hill, the very, very steep hill. Still need to pass a few streets before we can take our right turn. Well, there are no sidewalks at the top of the hill. And there really aren't any streetlights, either. We cross the street to be able to walk towards on coming traffic. I am so glad I am wearing my reflector vest, but I'm still nervous given the speeds the cars are going. We plod along and come to the sharp right turn. I'm a bit spooked, there is no shoulder, no sidewalk, no lights, and plenty of fast moving traffic. We make the turn and continue southbound until we make it to the stop sign, then turn left. Once I realize we are about to head down another sizable hill I decide to scrap the mission and head us home the way we came. Of course, by then it's started to rain, not really hard, but definitely steady. Back through the hellish corner only this time there were dogs barking at us, yay! Then back down the hill. Finally, back into the world of sidewalks and streetlights! My knees are screeming 'WTF are you thinking, first you make me go up the hill, now down?!? Surely you are joking!' Finally we reach the bottom of the hill and then it's only a few blocks back to the condo.

After drying a very damp Llelo off I take stock of my own situation. Jeans soaked through, sopping hair, sweated through my t-shirt. Jacket under rain shell very wet, too, I think not having the hood up added to that one. Sneaks soaked because I took a short cut across some grass at the very start. Then I pulled up gmaps to see how many miles we'd traveled, must have been at least 4 or 5, at least. Well, gmaps said it was about 2.5 miles round trip! Really?!? That's it??? The fitbit confirmed it, though. Sigh. The part that blew my mind was number of flights of stairs: 58!!! Tells you how steep that frickin' hill was! Holy cow!

I've now had a shower and got warm dry clothes on. Llelo is sacked out on the couch. And Gus is laying next to my chair, still a bit miffed that he was left behind. I think it's been a good exercise day and it's now time for supper!