My state has some of the best walking and bike riding trails in the USA.

How many times have you heard that boast from people you meet and the conversation gets around to walking and exercise? I'm sure many times. One thing the states have done right by its citizens is converting old rail lines to walking paths while maintaining as much natural beauty as possible. MY trail runs beside a river where canoe enthusiast make their way down the river as I walk the paths. I've had deer come out of the woods beside the path and greet me warily before turning around and scampering away.

In my good days when I still had two natural hips and my bosom buddy, my wife, had two good knees, we would walk, or I should say we could, and did just once to prove we could, walk the roundtrip distance which totaled about nine miles. Those days are gone, of course, but we can still motivate at a ambling kind of pace for a couple miles on good days. But we do it now for the beauty and inner peace it brings us, not for exercise. Our state has many trails that we have yet to try out. We won't get to all of them I'm sure, but knowing they're there for us if we feel up to it brings us a measure of happiness and anticipation.

Our current favorite trail has a stopping off place at Kenyon college, where we usually call it a day, and visit a deli on campus and get a couple hot dogs and a couple cans of pop (soda) and take over a bench near middle path, under some shady trees, and watch the students go about their business and talk about the days when we were young. We never get tired of that. If our body parts have cooperated that day and we were able to walk enough of a distance to chew up some calories, we will treat ourselves to a yummy candy bar too. Ah, life is good.