No Rules!

The best thing about Nordic Walking is there are no rules. Well, ok, there are some rules, like warm up before your walk, stretch out after, and no tripping other people with your poles. But what I mean is this: You don't have to follow a set route or length of time. Because breaking the routine might lead you to new experiences.

This morning, in the early pre-dawn light, I sat in my car, waiting for my Nordic Walking buddy. I waited for 10 minutes and finally accepted she had been unavoidably detained. I got out of my car and realized the thermometer in my car had been lying. It wasn't really 31 degrees. I'm certain it was 17 below. Ok, maybe not. I nearly got back into my car and drove home. But I was already there, and I'd warm up walking. So, instead of taking the regular loop around the exterior of the park, I decided to take the wide avenue lined by towering Cottonwood trees down the center of the park.

Liberty Park covers an area equivalent to 16 city blocks. As I walked beneath the trees, I realized they must be quite old, at least a century, and wondered if they had once lined a drive to a farm house. As I walked, daydreaming of times gone by, off to my right I saw some rocks and a water fall and a little path. Curiosity got the best of me, and I found myself hiking along wide, sandstone slabs lining the edge of a kidney-shaped koi pond. I enjoyed my little detour, then looked up. Before me was the farm house! It's located in the middle of the park, probably in the middle of what was once the family farm. I will have to back some day when its open and take the tour.

I circled around the Veteran's memorial, offered up a prayer for my stepson in Afghanistan, and headed back to my car. I hadn't gone far before another intriguing area caught my attention. A small simulation of all the local canyons: Big and Little Cottonwood, Emigration, City Creek, and so on. The trails meandered and branched, overlapped and cris-crossed, eventually leading me back to the tree-lined avenue. So many other things caught my eye and demanded my attention, but time was slipping away, and I had other places I had to be.

The wondrous things I'd seen have stayed with me all day. All because I decided today's walk would have No Rules!

Happy Walking!

Elizabeth