My Walking Route

Ever since I returned from our July, 2007 trip to Paris, I've been walking the same 4.2-mile route just about every day, in sweltering summer humidity and in the icy blasts of winter. Caroline, Alec, and I had spent so much time just walking around in Paris that when I came home, I really wanted to incorporate a regular walk into my day, in addition to my morning workouts.

I walk the same route every day because I find it easier to set off mindlessly on the exact same path, able to concentrate on whatever recorded book or lecture I happen to be listening to at the moment. In this way, I've explored such subjects as Victorian Britain, the Middle Ages, Greek mythology and philosophy, and the history of the Papacy with lectures from the Teaching Company and Modern Scholar, and listened to books ranging from The Moonstone and Barchester Towers to the entire "Amelia Peabody" mystery series (20 or so books!) by Elizabeth Peters.

Although my route doesn't change, the scenery, the circumstances, and the weather (!) certainly do. As I complete my circuit day after day, memories of previous walks will often come flooding back. As I round one particular turn at the far end of my walking route, dripping with sweat in the blazing summer sun, I might remember how I took shelter under some pine trees a previous winter when a sudden shower of sleet sent me scurrying off the road. I might remember worriedly rushing the last two miles home as I heard the city storm warnings going off and watched ominously black clouds moving closer and closer. A particular location in my route will bring to mind the time I watched with fascination as a snake shimmied across the road or I carried a turtle to the safety of the grass on the other side, or the day Alec drove up from behind, unable to wait until I returned home to tell me that he'd gotten a 235 on his PSAT. I cherish the beautiful spring and fall days, when the temperature is perfect for walking, and enjoy them all the more remembering times when a 20-degree windchill has turned my face to a frozen mask or when I've been caught in a sudden downpour and gotten soaked to the skin.

At least half of my walking route is on roads without sidewalks, in an area of Lexington which, though only a mile or two from downtown, has changed little from the time when it was the city's countryside. Needless to say, the proximity to downtown combined with the rural ambiance has made this a very desirable place to live, and housing prices have soared. In the past three years, I have watched several houses being demolished and replaced with new structures triple or quadruple the size. At the end of my photos, I have pictures of three houses that I have watched undergo this transformation ... the first two being "trophy mansions" that have been built from the ground up and the last a much more imaginative (and, in my mind, livable and attractive) remodel of an existing ranch-style house.