adult sized swing sets

My roommate and I have taken up walking.  Both of us come from central Illinois where snow isn't a guarantee during the Winter season.  Okay, so it will snow at some point, probably at a few different points.  And it will be cold and wet.  White snow, though, isn't exactly as constant as muddy brown.  Having both moved to central Iowa and having both survived the first Iowan winter (not as bad as Minnesota, worse than central Illinois) we decided that we should enjoy the months where we aren't snowbound even if it makes us sweat a little.  Plus, it's a nice change from the elliptical at the gym.

We have also discovered it is nice to walk through a town that is unfamiliar or rather, to discover a town previously though of as familiar only to discover a different pace of life.  There is a big difference when you walk by the same landmark for the first time as opposed to driving by it twice a day for ten months.  There is also a whole new dimension to getting lost.  In a car the moments between street signs or recognizable points of interest are quite quick--you never feel the lost sensation for more than a minute--two at most.  Walking however ups the level of discomfort and unease between not knowing and knowing where you are--the pace is just that slow.  This isn't helped by our geographic location in Ames:  we are on the very outskirts of the new construction that happened in the last five to seven years.  We have seen newish looking maps where our road doesn't exist.  Directly across the street is suburbia world where the roads twist and turn and dead end and circle around and are dotted with cud-de-sacs.  The only chance at maintaining some sense of your relative location depends on your ability to look for the water tower over and / or around the two story houses set in a rolling landscape.  That plan is inherently flawed as the water tower is circular and you never really know from which angle you are looking.

There are also fun moments to walking.  On day two of our walking escapades Jordan mentioned that she remembered a sign for a bike path about three blocks from us, so away we went.  We discovered a path that leads away from the  road, through some trees, up a hill, eventually letting out on a street initially unfamiliar to us both.  We eventually figured out where we were and decided to loop around and make a circle testing out my theory that a "dead end" street a few blocks from us was not actually a dead end but rather hadn't yet been connected to another dead end street near my friend Paul's house.  Mind you, this discovery would mean significantly shorter drunk walks home; it was fairly important.  My theory was proven correct--the two roads are connected by a gravel-ish path through some prairie grass and next to a frog-filled pond.  We took the connection and looped our way back home.

The next night Jordan suggested we try to follow the same path in reverse and away we went.  Everything was going fine until we diverted from the original path to explore an interesting neighborhood--a row of new houses that sprung up in the middle of an otherwise empty new development.  We thought we could simply hop back on the grid and let it take us back.  I was convinced however, that on the first night we had walked two blocks too far on the grid and therefore directed us to where I thought the roads met up with the hilly, wooded bike path.  I was wrong and we ended up on a street that ended in a double cul-de-sac.  I was annoyed until we discovered an odd sidewalk leading into the woods from the tip of one of the cul-de-sacs.  (We had previously discovered one such sidewalk in suburbia world and had significant reason to believe that it a.) was a public sidewalk, and b.) that it led somewhere.)  We took it and had to walk over some weeds and through some grass down a tunnel-like section of woods.  Then we rounded the corner and we were in a park--a two acre ridge of grass overlooking the hospice and the road we drive on every day.  The best part of this park is the playground.

Being the giant eight year olds that we are, we immediately hopped on the swings.  They fit Jordan better than they do me because I am built like the Jolly Green Giant but I made them work and was soon flying so high that I lost tension in the chains and experienced a moment of free-fall.  The experience made us both laugh.  Once I recovered I started building up speed again.  This cycle went on a few times until I realized how exhausting swinging is.  My hands hurt, and arms, legs, and abs were all sore.  I kept going though, because it was that gosh-darn fun.

It made me think, though, about growing up.  I live directly across from a fitness center and every day I see everyone from eighteen years to sixty years entering and leaving.  There are no children.  The children are too busy running the streets like they own them, finding pools to swim in and, yes, swinging on swing sets in public parks all across the city.  Doesn't it sound like more fun to be doing what they are doing than hanging out on an elliptical?  Personally, I vote for swinging.