Longmont Street Walker

Area covered today — North of 21st, East of RR tracks, South of Hwy 66, West of Alpine

Today I head north to the subdivision basically just north of Stoney Ridge, which was my first day’s walk. It’s about a mile walk to the point where I first am hitting ‘new ground’, crossing an empty field which will presumably be developed some time in the future. As you can see from the photos, this area is still adjoining some semi-agricultural areas. The sun was out and the temperature was around 40 or so, so the snow from around Christmas is starting to disappear.

On the way — a fig tree?

on the way — if you look closely, Santa and helicopter are still out

on the way — spiral chainsaw tree art

on the way — a vast tract of land

Finally there — Prairie Village subdivision

I’m still trying to figure out how to format things on this blog, so excuse me that this is starting to look weird now. Hopefully my son Nick will help me out on this in the next few days.

(Note on 3/26/13 — I finally went back and re-did my 1/1/13 and today’s 1/4/13 notes, with bigger pictures and slightly better formatting. Otherwise content is pretty much the same).

The next five photos are some distant photos of some of the residual farm areas in this neighborhood.

Bucolic scene # 1 — railway car, shed, and combine

Bucolic scene # 2 — farm in the distance

Bucolic scene # 3 — a few horses enjoying the day

Bucolic scene # 4 — a lot of hay, far-off silo

Bucolic scene # 5 — want to shoot some hoops?

Steppe Drive reminds me of one of my favorite books, Steppenwolf, by Hermann Hesse. The steppes are ‘vast usually level and treeless tracts in southeastern Europe or Asia’, so a steppenwolf a canine denizen thereof. The band Steppenwolf is (was?) one of my favorites. Lead singer John Kay was born in Germany, and moved to Toronto. ‘Born to be Wild’ is ok, but ‘Magic Carpet Ride’ is one of my favorites. The second side of their second album is one of my favorites, as well as their lesser-known ‘At your Birthday Party’ album. And I think the ‘Early Steppenwolf’ album, recorded when they were still known as Sparrow, is better than their first album as Steppenwolf.

Steppenwolf photographs Steppe Drive sign

The southern-most street of this area is Canadian Crossing Drive, which largely is still unoccupied by actual houses. I had some wrestling with my conscience before deciding that I am morally obligated to walk such streets if I am truly to say that I have walked every street in Longmont. But there are several paved ‘throughways’ in this area which I decided I could skip and still sleep soundly tonight. They pass between the back sides of the houses, leading into the garages. They do not have street names, and I assume they are not ‘city property’, like an alley would be.

Done for the day. Today took 2:14 of time, and 13,890 steps. Why did I take more steps today, in less time, than my last outing. Possibly my pedometer is not totally accurate, but I think the main reason is today I spent more time with non-stop walking just to get to the sub-division. I also expect as the year goes on I will become a little faster on the walking.