Walkin'

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

For someone who is self-employed and living in central Austin (with a bus stop in my front yard, no less), I drive entirely too much. I've never really given much thought to energy or oil (except to shake my fist at the gas prices), but I started reading The Omnivore's Dilemma this weekend, and all the talk about energy and oil is starting to get to me. Today was one of those typical 90 degree November days so I decided to give the keys a rest and walk anywhere I needed to go.

Trip #1: The coffee shop on the lake. Okay, this is kind of cheating. I walk to the coffee shop regularly. It's just down the hill from our house and we probably couldn't park any closer, so I tend to hoof it when I go. But today I took a little detour and followed the footpath down to the lake. After all, if I can't take advantage of my starving artisthood on a beautiful day, then what's the point.

Trip #2: The library. When I finished the morning's reading and writing, I went back home for lunch and then decided to return Suite Franciase to the library. The book wasn't due for another three days so I could have blown it off, but in the interest in being a better earth citizen, I decided to return the book on foot.

This was a tougher walk than I counted on for two reasons. First, my tennis shoes are cuter than they are comfortable. Second, on my way back home, I tried to take an alternate route which lead me straight up one of the hidden neighborhood hills. Walking, I could handle, but walking uphill, even for just a small stretch, was a bit of a challenge.

Trip # 3: Central Market (FAIL!) And just as soon as I made it back from the library, I realized that I'd put off getting whole wheat bread crumbs because I was pretty sure the only place to get them would be from Central Market or Whole Foods. And thus, failure. Sure, I could have looked up the appropriate bus maps, but it was going on 5 o'clock and it was much easier to concede failure than attempt to cross the town on public transit during rush hour.

So it didn't exactly work out as planned, but according to MapMyRun.com, I walked a total of 2.79 miles today. Not too shabby. Perhaps I'll retire the car keys more often.