I (DeAnna) have always enjoyed going on walks.  Growing up my mom, sister and I would go on many walks.  We can sit for hours laughing about stories we shared or experiences shared while going on walks.  There was a summer when a friend and I walked miles around Leeton talking and goofing around.  Even during my teenage and college years when friends wanted to have a deep, in person conversation, we would go for a walk.  Walking around Leeton isn’t like city walking.  Leeton has chip and seal streets, so right after the tar had been squirted on the street followed up by gravel, I would get small chunks of gravel that had tar adhered to it, stuck to the back of my legs and stuck to the bottom of my shoes.

When we lived in France, we had to walk several miles daily just to go to school.  We also walked to get groceries.  There were sidewalks we could walk on and a pull-along cart we could use to tote our groceries.

I’m blessed to have walking friends here.  Two days a week I have a scheduled walk time with a close friend – I really look forward to our walking and talking time together.  One day a week I have a scheduled walk time with a blossoming friend.  The walking surface isn’t like Leeton or France.  The walking surface changes during the year, but right now is thick, powdery, fine, red dust with loose gravel on top.  When I get home from walking and take my socks off, I have a ring-around-the-ankle dust line indicating where my sock had been with a thin layer of dust rising up the back of my legs to the bottom of the capris I was wearing.  This dust ring doesn’t wipe off, it’s necessary to scrub it off with a scrubbing brush.

Regardless of the tar gravel, necessary walking or dust rings; I’m happy to be walking and talking.