Walks, past and present

When I lived in Paris, Washington (D.C.), and in Champaign-Urbana (Illinois), I spent a good part of my day, every day, walking. In all those places, I could walk to work every day, and walk back home at night. We're talking about the years from 1971 until 1986.

You can tell these are old pictures, because that's Callie the collie in the one above. She died last June.

Wow, 15 years. Now we've lived in Saint-Aignan for nearly 15 years, and I still take a long walk every day — with the dog. An afternoon walk one day, and then a morning walk the next. Repeat repeat repeat.

We walk down and around — which means walking back up.

In the years from 1986 to 2003, we lived in the San Francisco area in California. For most of those years — at least 15 out of the 17 or more we spent out there — it seems like all I did was drive around in my car. Commuting. The scenery was a freeway and thousands of cars, not vines and woods. I grew to despise that life.

On some mornings we see a nice sunrise.

I'll tell you: walking is better. It's less dangerous, to start with. It's less expensive (though you might go through many pairs of shoes). And you feel better about your life and your health. The pictures here show you some scenes from my daily walks.

Finally, here's a map of the short walk I plan to take with Natasha in a few minutes. It starts at the back door of our house and ends at the front door. It's only about a kilometer (six-tenths of a mile) — a loop around our hamlet and a couple of vineyard plots. Many of our walks are longer, but this will do for today.