Doing 25

Out of the last four days I have walked three of those days and traveled over 25 walking miles. I also have clocked some biking miles since I am using my bike to help me move around quicker after walking the streets I need to walk (it’s not cheating, I checked). These twenty five miles took me to the south eastern corner of Lansing. This very large area was south of Holmes, north of Jolly between Pennsylvania and Cedar. Then I used my bike to get to some straggler streets out on Miller and Aurelius. I rode my bike 7 more miles on top of the 9-11 mile walks. I am starting to get tired. Sometimes I feel bad about pushing through this quickly. I think it wouldn’t be my preferred method. However, I am still walking with the same interest to my surroundings that I’ve always had, I am just walking farther. When I first started in 2010 I was only able to walk about a mile (20 minutes) before I became winded and was ready to stop. Now I can easily walk 6-8 miles before I start having any aches or fatigue. In fact, today I only walked 3.66 miles and was frustrated that I wasn’t able to walk farther (it started raining). It has been about three weeks now since I decided I needed to step it up (pun intended). My goal was to walk 10 miles every day until I felt I had a really good shot at completing this walk about by October 4. Even though I haven’t met that goal I do feel I am making progress. The south side is very daunting with super long dead ends, high volume traffic streets and urban sprawl. If anyone is interested in some long walks, let me know! I would love to have an exercise partner.

These are some of my finds over these 25 miles of south eastern Lansing:

Two Little Libraries

A house totally decked out for U of M (I noticed their trash can was green and at first thought they must hate that they have any green on their property. But then I thought, it’s a trash can, they probably asked for that color; haha).

Kendon School and Park; totally adorable!

Marscott Park

This house:

The River Trail with a path to get on at Willard (off Aurelius just south of Forest)

The most south eastern neighborhood in Lansing

What’s the Hub-Bub?

Last week I had the chance to take an inside look at another great project put forth by the Allen Neighborhood Center. I first found out about this amazing group two years ago when Lunch With a Purpose spent the lunch hour folding their newsletter that they hand distribute to the entire east side neighborhood. I remember sitting next to Heather Hymes as she listed off all the programs this facility offered to the neighborhood. It took her a half an hour to complete the list; nonstop, listing one program after the other. I was more than impressed. Since then, I have made sure to stay aware of this area. This is also the same group that runs the Hunter Park Community Garden House, the Allen Street Farmers Market and host World Day every year. Now they are working hard to create the Allen Street Food Hub. The Allen Neighborhood Center took an empty 5500 square foot warehouse located behind the center and decided to up the greatness of this area even more.
They currently are retro-fitting a LEED certified community kitchen area. This space will soon make it possible for the vendors at the market to have access to a facility year round. This is great for the community as they will have access to locally grown, fresh produce throughout the colder months. Quite a few of the urban gardens have hoop-houses that allow them to grow year round.
The Food Hub will also have an incubator community kitchen put in place. This will be used by the local farmers to can or process some of their product. Food entrepreneurs will also have access to use this facility. Finally this kitchen incubator will create the perfect place to teach culinary skills and other educational material relating to food preparation. Other benefits this once obsolete space will provide are food storage for urban growers, a link to connect growers to local buyers and a sense of community that definitely seems to keep growing and growing in this East side neighborhood.