Too Festive to Falter

On a day like yesterday the sauntering must go on. It wasn’t out on city streets, however, this time we traveled by car to the lovely Fenner Nature Center. Yesterday was their annual Applebutter Festival. It runs today from 11:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. and with sunny weather with a high of 66 degrees I would think there is no better place to be.  With at least three separate places to park there is no need to stress. Some are a walk from the actual festivities but on a weekend like this it should be quite enjoyable. They’ve stretch the festivities out a bit by moving the applebutter cooking pot out “through the meadow” which is down one of the main trails.If you attend the Maple Syrup Festival then it’s where the syrup is collected from the Sugar Maples. Back at the center you can enjoy apple tasting (my favorite thing to do. There’s an apple that tastes like a banana!). Please watch for the bees. If you don’t swat they won’t sting but with the apples all cut up right there I had bees flying into my face. There is live entertainment, Boy Scout troops sawing logs, facepainting and pumpkin carving areas. Inside is the typical Greater Lansing Potter’s Guild making pottery, natural products and lace weaving. They’ve moved the little store to the back area where they use to do demonstrations and have animal pelts. It’s a much more open area. Downstairs there are the normal food; popcorn, donuts, cider and ice-cream sandwiches. Bring bills not quarters. The little bake sale area was sorely missed. My street sauntering might finally be over but with a place like Fenner and days like we’re having there is no reason to stop the fall trail sauntering.

A new 18 acre prairie area! 

My Walking Marathon

Post dated from October 3, 2013

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary one of the definitions of marathon is; “something (such as an event or activity) that lasts an extremely long time or that requires great effort”. I think this very much describes my City Saunter Project. For three years I’ve strategically made my way from Haslett to Lansing and walked on the public streets for a given amount of time. While walking I carried with me my full sized dslr Canon camera, extra lens, notebooks, sometimes water, and my phone (after November 2012). I carried all of these supplies in a messenger bag with Velcro closures. As I walked the motion rubbed my clothing to the level that most of my pants now have a frayed spot on the left thigh. I even bought a new shirt and the metal brackets on the bag wore a mark on this brand new shirt. I wore my way through 5 separate pair of shoes. I think in this last month alone I put 300 miles on my car driving to the south side of Lansing. There were the summer days when I left my kids sitting in front of the television and rushed off to get a few miles in. As I type this, my word counter has just surpassed 10,000 words. I rolled my camera 4 times with probably a quarter to a third of those photos being City Saunter photos. To complete this project by my gallery opening date I really started walking a lot more than normal.  My combined walking for this summer’s months is 200.9597 miles; all the months (years) up to that equal 333.7674. This project of walking every street in Lansing totaled 534.7271 miles walked. On October 3, 2013 I walked the most miles I had ever walked in my life. I did not train. I did not stretch. I really did nothing right yet by the grace of God was I able to walk from 8:30 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. with only a 20 minute break to buy a little food at Meijer. The total for this walk was 29.43 miles. I biked a small amount of this but also neglected to calculate biking from a finished spot back to my car or another walking location. I estimate I also biked another 3-4 miles on top of the walk. A marathon, I walked a marathon! I marked it on my map in orange instead of my typical hot pink highlighter. It’s quite impressive, if you don’t mind me saying. It’s even more impressive if you add in that the weekend before I was bedridden with a fever, sore throat and swollen glands. Yet it was done. Because of that extraordinary feat I was able to complete the project the next day just as I had planned (hoped). 

Some of my finds from this long walk:

My walks

First; Second; Third; Fourth; Fifth; Sixth; Seventh; Eighth; Ninth