Thursday, October 6, 2011

Walking Across America

TransAmerica Beginning

Yep, I’m still here.  And I’m still working on the weight loss.  It now seems clear that I won’t make my goal by the end of the year, but I’m not as bothered by that as I would’ve expected.  I’m still moving along, slowly but surely, and I’m down 48 pounds from January.

So, in keeping with the slow but sure approach, I’m going to give a TransAmerica hike a go.  Of course, I’m still horribly out of shape, and I haven’t won the lottery to allow me to quit my job and sightsee non-stop, so this is going to be a virtual undertaking.  I’ve been turned on to a website that allows you to use the distance you accumulate throughout your normal daily steps to “walk” from Virginia to Oregon.  It’s a total of 4361 miles, and right now, my daily movement is about 5 miles, so this little jaunt is going to take me over two years, but I’m not bothered by that, either.  It’ll be interesting to me to see how long it really does take (as my plan is to increase my daily activity over time), and it will be interesting to see what I see. (The website shows you a picture of where you are each time you enter your mileage.)  Today I started in York, VA, and moved about 7 miles down a tree-lined road, so I should reach Williamsburg tomorrow.  How fun is that?  I’ll be sure to keep you posted on anything interesting along the way.

Oh, and I should mention that I track my distance with a handy little device called a fitbit.  I love this tiny gadget, and could go on about it for quite a while, but that’s for another day.