Evening Ambles

After a couple months of inactivity (I was under doctor's orders to stop exercising after a December infection, and never returned...) a week or so we started evening walks in the neighborhood. I've got a quickie that is about 3/4 mile and another that is about 2 miles. Melinda has been game for the shorter distance, but calls the longer one "a deathmarch". My pace is a little faster than hers, but she also has circulation issues, so I'm a little understanding. Regardless, a regular exercise routine would be good for both of us.


As Melinda blogged earlier, it was the warmest day of the year so far - the 5pm weather said it got up to 97F, but our thermometer said 104+F. As we were leaving the house tonight, it had cooled to 95F, and the humidity was 3%! The dew point was 4F - in other words, if you had a glass of ice water, it was far too dry for any humidity to condense on the outside of the glass! It felt pretty comfortable, though, and I brought the camera to catch any cacti blooms we might cross.


We ran into neighbor Jack, also on his walk. He works as a landscaper with his sons, and with the onset of warm weather, heads in to work at 5am, and is off by lunchtime. The other day he pointed out some of his cacti buds about to pop, and you may see some of the results here soon.


Melinda opted for the quickie walk, and I continued on, partially to see the progress construction crews had accomplished at our nearest major intersection (Prince/Mountain), that was actually shut down for installing new sewer lines all weekend. Even with signs up for days, people were driving through our cul-de-sac all weekend looking for the secret shortcut around construction (there aren't any). It will be about 6 months of heck around here as work continues.


The walk continued, and I finally tried a couple self-portraits while walking with the camera and monopod... Normally the walk is later and I get to see the stars come out and Mercury reign in the northwestern sky, so I've rarely seen my shadow while walking. Will work on getting one of the two of us soon... No cacti shots tonight, but I've got a good supply built up - check back soon!