Walks without the Secret the Wonder Pup

This week I have tried to continue walking daily but there have been a few things that have come up that have made my goal of hiking not possible. So 2 days this week I've walked in my own neighborhood to keep up my challenge of staying active. And like I've mentioned before, it's a pretty picturesque walk with Signal Mountain looming down at us on a regular basis. And you never know what you might see when you are on a walk in my neighborhood!

Yesterday being Independence Day, I got a quick morning walk in because we were having friends and family over to celebrate. Secret the Wonder Pup spent much of the day running around the pool because she often feels like she is a lifeguard (albeit a lifeguard that doesn't like to swim). This morning when she woke up she could hardly walk due to the pads of her feet being raw from the concrete and her hip being a bit sore. She's not a young dog anymore but these are some of her favorite days! She loves people, stealing food off of forgotten plates of food, and getting lots of attention.

So Secret the Wonder Pup got a day off from hiking and a dose of medicine to make her feel better.  Today I drove to White Oak Park, opened by the city of Red Bank in a former landfill location in 2003. The park also includes the Red Bank Dog Park, picnic pavilions, wide open spaces, and a playground. It's another example of the Chattanooga area rebeautifying something ugly to something useful and green in Chattanooga for it's people. Being a long time Chattanooga resident, I remember when the area was a landfill. It's amazing to see what the area looks like now. The paths are wide and paved with very small parts of it in the shade. It's rolling hills make it a good challenging exercise if you increase your heart rate. As I was walking along a little later in the day than I usually do, it was extremely warm. The heat of the day had made the blooming mimosa trees (pink poofs looking like they are straight out of Dr. Seuss book) extremely fragrant. The lack of moving air and high humidity as seem to make me fairly fragrant as well- but not in a good way. That's when I thought, "this is the smell of summer in the south." Fresh cut grass, mimosa trees, magnolia blossoms on the infrequent wind mingled with the scent of sweating southerners glistening in the humidity of our summers.

At one point I looked up to my right and realized there was a huge steep hill that would have been an amazing place to ride a sled in the wintertime (that's how we southerners push ourselves to exercise in July, we think about the winter)! I also imagined it could be a great place for grass surfing with a piece of cardboard...but that was not even something I would have considered doing on this hot day. But maybe some other time!