Sensory Strides podcast

Quote "Our elevation must be the result of self-efforts and work of our own hands. No other human power can accomplish it. If we but determine it shall be so, it will be so." Martin Delany

Welcome to the Sensory Strides podcast. Observations of the world through activity, reading, listening, and everything else.

Welcome to season 5!

During our break I became a Grandma! I've had the opportunity to spend time babysitting while my daughter was finally able to finish her clinical rotation for her RN degree. I love spending time with my granddaughter and have even gotten her out on some walks with me.

Most of this winter, I hibernated. My husband and I were pretty good about getting some good long walks in, but once the cold really hit those walks went away. I have been working to get back into the habit of walking, but my schedule has not been cooperative.

While looking forward to goals for this year, I realized I need to do different exercises as it is likely my goals will include some vertical hiking. I have been doing a 30 day lunge challenge in April.

This past weekend I did some geocaching with a local student. We are working together to create some geocaching tips and tricks to support a geocaching challenge the county park group has put together. We visited some of the caches to identify and take pictures for tips that could help new cachers be successful. While climbing some of the trails I could really feel the muscle fatigue from that lunge series which reinforced the need to focus on uphill hiking.

That gets back to the possible goals for this year. My husband and I are headed to Colorado in June. There are two things I am considering. The hike up Pikes Peak and the Manitou Incline. Both are super challenging on their own, but add in the elevation and they are even more difficult. I am confident my husband and I could do a 13 mile hill climb over an entire day in Wisconsin, but add in the extra elevation and no bail out options and I'm not sure it is the best decision for us. The Incline is much more difficult, but shorter and there is a bail out option halfway up. As someone who has to be very conscious to hydrate and pay attention to my body as I am susceptible to altitude sickness, this adds an extra element.

Have you done an interesting Colorado hike? Please share and give me ideas.

Thanks for joining me. Be sure to check our show notes for links to inspiration items and … don't forget to stop and smell the roses.

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Quote "A new year can begin only because the old year ends." Madeleine L'Engle

Welcome to the Sensory Strides podcast. Observations of the world through activity, reading, listening, and everything else.

As we wrap up 2020 my thoughts turn to the new year and what goal to set. When I simplified my goals for 2020 to take a rest year, I had no idea that I would still struggle to meet them. While I covered a lot of miles this year, 382 at this point with 265 of those since September, I did not complete 52 hikes – many of my miles covered the same stretches of pavement. I also did not complete the geocache challenge I planned to do with my mom – although we did have a couple of great caching days and she worked on the goal without me many days.

https://www.geocaching.com/

Looking towards 2021, I'm not confident how well live races will occur, so I've looked towards other activities to engage my soul and keep me moving. I want to do the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim challenge, but I've learned you really need to start planning for that 2 years in advance. Since shuttle service between the North and South rim is still spotty, it adds additional logistical challenges that I am not willing to take on.

Rim To Rim - The Grand Canyon Experience | The Grand Canyon Experience

While researching the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim, I found a second challenge that would take me somewhere I've wanted to visit. When my daughter was in high school, we visited Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, but didn't make it to the other parks in Utah. There is a Zion Rim to Rim challenge also. This fits much more cleanly into my challenging yet realistic criteria. A bonus is my husband is willing to do this one with me.

Rim to Rim® - Zion | Rim To Rim - The Grand Canyon Experience

I'm looking forward to visiting the other parks I haven't been to as we visit Utah, not just Zion.

The Mighty 5 | Visit Utah

If the Missoula Marathon happens this year, I would love to participate in memory and celebration of Tony Banovich the Race Director who passed away this summer and meet Dimity and Sarah from Another Mother Runner in person.

- Missoula MarathonMissoula Marathon

Here's looking forward to resuming travel and racing in 2021.

Thanks for joining me. Be sure to check our show notes for links to inspiration items and … don't forget to stop and smell the roses.

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Quote "Cities are not microwave popcorn. Unless you are talking, as we are, about Oklahoma City. Oklahoma City is microwave popcorn." Sam Anderson

Welcome to the Sensory Strides podcast. Observations of the world through activity, reading, listening, and everything else.

52 Hike Challenge – Join us! There are free challenges and lots of swag you can buy. https://www.52hikechallenge.com/?rfsn=3543491.754f73&utm_source=refersion&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=3543491.754f73 #52hikechallenge2020

I recently read Boomtown by Sam Anderson. This book gives both the originating – land rush and more recent histories of Oklahoma City. There were a lot of things I never knew.

https://www.amazon.com/Boom-Town-Fantastical-Basketball-World-class/dp/0804137315

Some interesting facts:

In the 60's, Oklahoma City was the largest city in the WORLD by land. This was intentional by the original city planners.

In 1964 they flew multiple sonic flights over OKC to test how it would impact the population. As a result of those tests, commercial sonic flights over US land is prohibited.

The land rush occurred in 1889. That means OKC is only 131 years old.

A big focus of the book is the passion the city had to bring a professional sports team to OKC. The arena was built without a team to use it. The city was looking towards an NHL team, but that never came to fruition.

When Katrina caused the New Orleans Hornets to play for two seasons from Oklahoma City, the fan support raised interest from the NBA to possibly help find a team. The stadium was sold out for a team that wasn't even truly housed there. When a team couldn't be found to permanently locate in OKC, OKC went shopping.

Seattle agreed to let the OKC businessmen buy the team as long as they didn't move them team. There was a condition in the contract that a new stadium would be built and that stadium didn't come to be and the team was moved to OKC. The book doesn't go into all the legal details that happened with that move, but I wonder what Seattle was thinking selling their team to a group that they knew were looking to have a team in their city.

There is a great discussion over the impact Gary England and Oklahoma's weather has on weather forecasting for the world today. I never realized how far that science has come and how much of it was generated by a single man.

There are short chapters devoted to the big events in OKC, including the bombing, but this book really focuses on the experiences that rolled over years and decades.

From the land rush to the oil boom to building and tearing down the city through today's current events. OKC has had an interesting history, designed with specific goals in mind. I think everyone will learn something new from this book.

I've visited OKC a few times and had great experiences. I've now learned more and have some new things to explore for my next visit.

Thanks for joining me. Be sure to check our show notes for links to inspiration items and … don't forget to stop and smell the roses.

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Quote "Someone struggled for your right to vote. Use it." Susan B. Anthony

Welcome to the Sensory Strides podcast. Observations of the world through activity, reading, listening, and everything else.

52 Hike Challenge – Join us! There are free challenges and lots of swag you can buy. https://www.52hikechallenge.com/?rfsn=3543491.754f73&utm_source=refersion&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=3543491.754f73 #52hikechallenge2020

While we weren't in person, 1200 plus Girl Scouts came together this weekend for our once every three years National Council Session. Usually this is scheduled in conjunction with the National Convention, which is a giant party. Our girls are integral to planning the event and often take center stage.

The National Council Session is the business meeting portion. This year there were six proposals up for discussion and vote. We follow Roberts Rules or Order. The council session immerses everyone in parliamentary procedure and is a great learning experience for everyone.

Friday started at 5 and was schedule to go until 7:30. I finally made it to bed about 11. Saturday started at 11. We were supposed to have two sessions, but it stretched into one long session with a shorter break. We went until nearly 10. Sunday we started at 10 and went until about 9, with a short mid afternoon break. About 26 hours total.

Running the voting virtually added new challenges to the process. Tech issues were a part of the issue, but I think the bigger impact came from not being able to see what was happening on stage or having opportunities for short entertainment (like singing) during waiting times. Some of my fellow delegates and I actually got to chat more than we would have in person using Discord, a platform I hadn't used before.

The votes themselves were interesting. Sunday afternoon, after our break, started off with a bang. After more than 20 hours into the process we ended up with two votes in a row split right down the middle. One had only one vote difference and the other had two vote separation. We kept at it and were successful getting all of the work done!

Next week is an important election for our country. Please make sure to get out by Tuesday and vote. My ballot went in last week!

Thanks for joining me. Be sure to check our show notes for links to inspiration items and … don't forget to stop and smell the roses.

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Quote "If we do not find anything very pleasant, at least we shall find something new." Voltaire

Welcome to the Sensory Strides podcast. Observations of the world through activity, reading, listening, and everything else.

52 Hike Challenge – Join us! There are free challenges and lots of swag you can buy. https://www.52hikechallenge.com/?rfsn=3543491.754f73&utm_source=refersion&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=3543491.754f73 #52hikechallenge2020

I took a few mental health days off work recently and one of the days my mom and I went geocaching. If you are not familiar with geocaching it's basically hide and seek using a GPS. I love geocaching because it takes you to unique places that you would never visit otherwise.

Find out more about Geocaching: https://www.geocaching.com/play

The first Geocache my mom and I tried searching for that day we couldn't find right away. We started walking and getting close to the cache, but we were in the middle of a bridge. When we looked over the bridge, we realized there was an entire parking lot about 100 feet below us. We looked around and couldn't figure out how to get to the parking lot. We wandered back a couple of tenths of a mile and there was this narrow driveway between these houses that were on top of each other that led down the hill and to the parking lot. We wandered down and were very surprised and basically finding a garage carved into the side of the hill. Well, that of course is where the geocache was.

Find out more about this geocache: https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC34G5D

Later that day we went to try and find another cache. We were in a very busy area with lots of fast food and gas stations. The area did not really match the description of the cache. We wandered around and we happen to find a very old broken down bridge that went over a creek. We climbed over the bridge and continued wandering. We ended up in this really cool place. Its used to a park called Fort Dells. There was an old railroad cart base and an old safe, There were some tunnels. Just a really cool place. We looked around and didn't find the cache. However when we got home and loaded the pictures to social media to share we found that cash was right in the center on one of my pictures. I'm not sure how we missed it while we were there.

Find out more about this geocache: https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC7E8PA

Pictures on Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/p/CGJAa6oJbgq/

https://www.instagram.com/p/CGJAQeUJs3D/

Thanks for joining me. Be sure to check our show notes for links to inspiration items and … don't forget to stop and smell the roses.

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Quote "The enemy will never attack you where you are strongest. … He will attack where you are weakest. If you do not know your weakest point, be certain, your enemy will,' Charlie said."

Welcome to the Sensory Strides podcast. Observations of the world through activity, reading, listening, and everything else.

52 Hike Challenge – Join us! There are free challenges and lots of swag you can buy. https://www.52hikechallenge.com/?rfsn=3543491.754f73&utm_source=refersion&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=3543491.754f73 #52hikechallenge2020

I recently finished One Second After by William R. Forstchen. I heard about this book on Mac and Katherine Barron's podcast, Catholic in a Small Town, during their entertainment section. I've been on the waitlist for this book for nearly a year. I expect I read this book much directly after our pandemic than I would have prior to the pandemic.

The book describes the events that happen after an EMP event which takes out all the electronics in the United States. An EMP or Electromagnetic pulse is a potentially real threat that could happen, this isn't just science fiction.

Reading this during the pandemic brings the issues we are facing into perspective. The pandemic has changed the way we live, but it could be so much worse. We still have internet and can communicate with others, plenty of food to fill our stomachs- think about how many people have taken up baking, medicine and healthcare are still readily available, and we can generally still travel wherever we want without fear.

Another interesting perspective I took from the book is access to food. As a Midwesterner, a variety of fresh food is accessible, many people have home gardens, and I drive by fields of crops every day. The insight the book gave me is because of fewer opportunities for growing crops and higher population, the central US truly feeds those on the coasts. I hadn't really thought about the work that goes into processing and shipping food across the country, even though my husband is a farmer and drives a semi.

There are very dark points of this book, which just reflect the true reality of what could happen. I encourage you to read this book and consider how you would respond to the situation the book's characters are presented with. This book is a trilogy, but it seems like the next two books get more into the politics of what happens afterwards and I'm not sure I'm up for reading that at this point.

What books have you read that have made you think differently about your first world problems?

https://www.amazon.com/Second-After-John-Matherson-Novel/dp/0765327252

https://www.macandkatherine.com/

Thanks for joining me. Be sure to check our show notes for links to inspiration items and … don't forget to stop and smell the roses.

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Quote "And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights."— Genesis 7:12

Welcome to the Sensory Strides podcast. Observations of the world through activity, reading, listening, and everything else.

52 Hike Challenge – Join us! There are free challenges and lots of swag you can buy. https://www.52hikechallenge.com/?rfsn=3543491.754f73&utm_source=refersion&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=3543491.754f73

#52hikechallenge2020

I was listening to the Bible Study Podcast with Chris Christensen episode 651. In this episode, Chris discusses the flood from Genesis. I was struck as I listened to Chris how much the pandemic is currently mimicking the flood. At first we needed to be "safer at home" for a few weeks, but in realty it is going to last much longer than that. Similar to Noah's forty days of rain, but staying in the ark for a year.

https://thebiblestudypodcast.com/

I am not one of those always looking for signs in current times showing THE END is coming. After all, Matthew 24:36 says no one but the Father knows the day or hour. Why spend time worrying or hoping that this is the end – instead we should spend the time loving our neighbor and caring for each other.

I can't even watch the news anymore. I have enough internal stress that I put upon myself, I don't need to see how poorly we are treating each other. The negative talk on television is so depressing.

I hope you are finding sunshine as we enter into the fall. Enjoy the last of summer's sun and warmth before it becomes times for hot cocoa and fires in the fireplace.

Thanks for joining me. Be sure to check our show notes for links to inspiration items and … don't forget to stop and smell the roses.

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Quote "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths." — Proverbs 3:5-6

Welcome to the Sensory Strides podcast. Observations of the world through activity, reading, listening, and everything else.

52 Hike Challenge – Join us! There are free challenges and lots of swag you can buy. https://www.52hikechallenge.com/?rfsn=3543491.754f73&utm_source=refersion&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=3543491.754f73

#52hikechallenge2020

My daughter had her gender reveal party for my future grandbaby. It's a GIRL!!!! That means a future Girl Scout! I am so excited!

During my last regular show, I mentioned that my husband and I were going back to church. Well, things have changed once again. We got a new Priest at our Church and he will be working with both us and a Parish the next town over. Since both churches had similar Mass times, we knew this would mean a change somewhere. When the new times were announced, I wasn't sure what I was going to do and was in shock. I have been attending early morning Sunday Mass, then going with my husband to his church about 40 minutes away. We also go back to that church on Sunday evening for Bible study. With the new Mass schedule there is no way we can keep our same schedule.

Since I am a creature of habit and schedule, it took nearly a week before I accepted the reality of what decision was necessary. There was a lot of talking to God to make sure I was listening to Him during the process.

So, moving forward, my husband and I will do some Bible reading together Sunday morning and then we will go our separate ways to our separate worships. We will then come back together and spend the afternoon together. Sunday nights – once they are scheduled again – we will then go to Bible study together.

We will see how this works.

Thanks for joining me. Be sure to check our show notes for links to inspiration items and … don't forget to stop and smell the roses.

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BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!

Welcome to the Sensory Strides podcast. Observations of the world through activity, reading, listening, and everything else.

You HAVE to LISTEN to this one!!!!!!

Thanks to Mac and Katherine Barron for allowing me to use excerpts from their show to share my story. This 'conversation' happened during June of 2020.

God always has a plan.

Thanks for joining me. Be sure to check our show notes for links to inspiration items and … don't forget to stop and smell the roses.

Mac and Katherine's website: https://www.macandkatherine.com/

Make sure to check out their podcast – Catholic in a Small Town. Episodes available on the website or through your favorite podcatcher app.

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Quote "When it rains, look for rainbows; when it's dark, look for stars." — Oscar Wilde

Welcome to the Sensory Strides podcast. Observations of the world through activity, reading, listening, and everything else.

52 Hike Challenge – Join us! There are free challenges and lots of swag you can buy. https://www.52hikechallenge.com/?rfsn=3543491.754f73&utm_source=refersion&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=3543491.754f73

#52hikechallenge2020

I got a new to me car earlier this year. I had tried selling my car, but didn't get a buyer. I intended to wait a month or so and then post it for sale again, but life and the pandemic changed those plans. We went to pull the car out of the garage and the battery was dead. Did you know in newer cars you can't put the car in neutral if the battery is dead? After some internet searches we found out that the shifter it also an electronic component and that is why you can't shift it to neutral. You have to get into the gearshift compartment and pull a release lever in order to be able to change gears with a dead battery.

We are lucky that we have a great teacher sharing interesting things happening in the night sky with us. Comet NEOWISE has been in the sky the last few weeks. My husband and I got up early one morning and headed up to our local small airport to check it out. We were able to see the comet and had ISS fly over. Double win. It was so early we came back home and went back to sleep.

https://www.facebook.com/DriftlessStargazing/

I went back to church this weekend. I have been debating if I was ready to take that step. I got a call asking me to fill in leading the Rosary and the readings. I also was asked to fill in for the PowerPoint manager for my husband's church. It looks like we will be getting back into our regular Sunday routine.

Thanks for joining me. Be sure to check our show notes for links to inspiration items and … don't forget to stop and smell the roses.

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