Walking

Yesterday I walked 18,921 steps—from morning house projects through hunting-season detours to late-night trudges home from the bar. But the most important steps weren't measured by my fitness tracker. They happened over lunch at Tacovore, where a casual conversation about Starbucks closing might have just sparked the solution our neighborhood needs. Sometimes the best walks are the ones that lead you to unexpected opportunities, whether they're measured in miles or ideas.

Miles of Motion, Layers of Progress

The morning unfolded in that productive rhythm of small accomplishments—house projects tackled, email processed, the steady work of maintaining both physical and digital infrastructure. These modest tasks form the substrate of ordinary life, the necessary tending that keeps everything functional.

But the real progress happened in the travel photo organization project, which finally crystallized into something that feels right. Detailed labeled sets for each day, organized by location or activity as the day demands. The worthy images flow into picflow with subgalleries and sections creating natural navigation through thirty-one days of industrial heritage. The architecture of digital memory, carefully constructed.

The migration from Patreon to Blogger represents more than platform preference—it's about integration, about creating a coherent narrative that weaves travel writing into the larger fabric of life documentation. Patreon works, but it never felt natural. Blogger lets the pieces connect the way they should, each journey part of the ongoing story rather than isolated episodes.

Lunch at Tacovore carried a dual purpose—food and the hope of seeing John. When he appeared, a realization crystallized: Starbucks's departure has created an opportunity disguised as a problem. There's now no breakfast option anywhere within a thirty-minute walk of the Timberhill shopping center. The gap in the market sits there, obvious and unexploited. John took my suggestion seriously, turning it over in his mind with the practiced consideration of someone who actually knows how to make restaurants work. I found myself genuinely hoping it's possible, that the economics and logistics align. If anyone could fill that void with something better than what we lost, it would be someone who understands both food and community.

Afternoon brought the recognition that I needed movement, needed steps, needed to translate digital organization into physical motion. E.E. Wilson called with its promise of ripe fruit, but hunting season had other ideas. The sound of distant gunfire reminded me that some risks aren't worth taking for the sake of a pleasant walk. Discretion won out, redirecting me to Peavy Arboretum instead.

From yesterday's walk

The Woodlands Trail became my primary route, followed by meandering through the Forest Discovery Trail and other paths crisscrossing the arboretum. Reasonable distances without being particularly ambitious. The landscape offered more contemplation than photography—sometimes places are for walking through rather than capturing, for experiencing rather than documenting. This time of year, the arboretum simply existed, neither spectacular nor disappointing, just present.

The walk to Suds was calculated necessity disguised as social intention. Aaron provided the destination, but the steps were the real goal. The bus schedule didn't cooperate, so walking became the default. By evening, when the buses had stopped running entirely, walking home felt like the natural continuation of the day's theme. Sometimes you don't choose walking; walking chooses you.

Home welcomed me with the particular exhaustion that comes from sustained motion. No elaborate evening ritual—just the surrender to sleep that follows genuine physical depletion. Eight hours of unconsciousness, a luxury so rare it deserves acknowledgment. 18,921 steps earned that rest, each one a small investment in the body's basic need for movement.

Today brings a different kind of navigation—attempting to influence the development landscaping plan below my house. The current design is thoughtful but potentially shortsighted from my perspective. In two decades, those planned trees will transform my newly opened view back into a forest cave. There are worse fates, certainly, but now is the moment for advocacy, for making the case that views, once created, deserve consideration in planning. Whether they'll listen remains unknown, but the attempt itself matters. Sometimes you have to speak up for the light you want to preserve, even if the trees haven't been planted yet.

The day ahead holds that particular energy of potential influence, of trying to shape outcomes before they're fixed in soil and time. After all that walking yesterday, today calls for a different kind of movement—the careful steps of negotiation and persuasion.