Painful Choices

7/18/23 #wherewerv, #solTuesdays, #grateful, #whynotcamping

In planning our Epic Western Journey, we’ve already made some painful choices about what to leave out. For example, we decided we won’t make it the whole way to the west coast. If we are lucky to be able to make a second trip at some point, that would be my goal. For this spring’s trip, we are heading no farther west than Utah/Montana.

We have the stops planned, and are making reservations as the windows become available. This requires an up-to-date list and calendar reminders. So far this hasn’t been too bad, as we’ve been able to get the reservations we wanted. We still have many more to go, so fingers crossed!

I think the next step in the planning process will be harder. We need to research each of the parks we will visit, and try to identify our top picks for what to do. Neither of us have been to most of our stops, so we don’t know a lot about what are the best hikes, or drives, or museums. We don’t know where are the must-eat-at places, or where we should really rent a kayak. (We aren’t packing ours as they take up a lot of space and we don’t know how much use we would get out of them, especially since I don’t like to kayak on moving water. We figure we can rent at some of the lakes if we want to kayak.) Trying to use other people’s “MSUT DO!” lists can be hard. We hope to avoid some of the overcrowded places, too, but those are often the most well-known. I see us pulling up multiple lists and trying to make a master list from that. Then once we get there, we can hopefully check in with the park rangers to see what their recommendations would be.

We don’t know how much stamina we will have for hiking, either. Our last trip showed me that my legs are gonna HURT. Ironically, they were fine while we were hiking. It was the next 5 days where anytime I moved them, my calves felt like I had attached 500 pound boulders to them.

I already try to exercise 5-6 days a week, and vary what I do. Some days I do shorter walks, and some days are longer. Sometimes I do more “hip-y” things (think Zumba at home), and twice a week I reluctantly go to the gym. I’ve already added biking for 30-40 minutes to get my thighs more actively involved in getting me moving. (I’ve been told I tend to walk with mainly my calf muscles. I thought I had changed that. Apparently not!) My last gym visit I did use the dreaded stair stepper for 20 minutes. I will say I stayed on it longer than I ever have before (and could have kept on it, but I had limited time that day). Maybe the biking is helping with that. However, I am fairly certain that 20 minutes (even twice a week) on a stair-stepper is not enough to get my legs ready for 3 months of walking/hiking/biking.

What do I need to add to my twice-a-week gym visits to get my legs ready for three months of hiking? And, does anybody know of an effective not-too-smelly muscle cream??

Places our legs have taken us this year. I am grateful I can do this, even when my legs ache!