I Was Just Trying to be Healthy!

We finally had rain!

Today’s Exploit:

Last night I went for a walk. I was going to see if a two-track along a fence line met up with a road on the other side of the property. 

Turns out it did. I had to wade through cows a few times, but mostly they’re noisy and smelly and only dangerous if you get between them and their babies who are rarely more than 3.123 feet away. Therefore, not something that is likely to happen. 

I walked and walked, and talked on the phone a bit, and walked some more. Then I came back to our main road near the gate guards. I talked to them about weather, and maybe their granddaughter - the one that they bring up every time I talk to them. 

Then I decided, Hey I still have some light, I’ll do another loop on this new path I’ve found.

About halfway into another loop I realized that this thing is about 4 miles long, and then I have another mile to go to get back to the rig. That means that I have 40 minutes of light and 3 miles to go (I have a very hard time walking faster than a 20 minute mile pace). And I’ve already done nearly 5 miles. Also, my toes are starting to chafe, my back is aching from actually standing with my shoulders back and I am very aware of that place where my shorts are touching my skin. Thankfully that ant bite finally stopped hurting.

Oh well, what can you do? Turning around to go back will take just as long as continuing forward. 

I got to the main road and picked up the pace, because packed gravel and dirt is far easier than cow cratered mud and scrub. The wind was nice and cool and the bugs were out. In force. Naturally the wind was aiming straight into my face, and the bugs were small. 

I walked through about 15 swarms that I could not see until they were pelting into my face and making their way down my shirt. 

The last mile and a half was spent spluttering and waving at the air in front of my face in an effort to divert the bugs around me, when I wasn’t doing that I was trying to brush them off every surface that they could possibly land on. 

I somehow managed to make it back to the rig before all the daylight was gone, scaring a couple whitetail deer and a couple unknown ungulates that were a bit larger (not that this means much, the deer here are minuscule). They were about the size of normal deer, but I could only see legs, the rest of their bodies were against a dark backdrop and I didn’t have enough light. 

The bugs had a large role in getting me moving, and I walked a total of 21002 steps and approximately 8.898 miles. I don’t want to move today because I have sneaky little chafe areas that walking normally or awkwardly does not relieve. Also my blisters think it’s funny to give me a nice twinge every so often, to be sure I don’t forget them. Good thing my job requires very little movement, I suppose.