Reaching 20,000-plus steps in a day is usually reserved for Disney-goers. The feat is rarely something I accomplish, even with 5K runs and heavy yard-work days. Today, however, I’m five steps away from the mark, and it’s only mid-afternoon. How’d I do it?
Well, first off, not intentionally. Evelyn’s 6:15 a.m. definitive “I’m up” in the snack-sized cabin, and a vast world of campground play places outside, let me know my powers of influence were minuscule. And because I was up, and because I need little excuse to run when first waking, I ran.
And ran and ran. Past four Amish horse-drawn buggies, past an extra-large sketchy German Shepherd turned pal, and back again. Even with the strain and resulting tightness in my left leg, I banged out close to five miles. On the run I was so off was I by the unmoving stone-faced bodies of the first three buggy riders, I started to miss the friendly waves back in Georgia.
But the fourth, a grandpa-aged rider, turned his whole body toward me and waved and gaped at me like he was Forrest Gump waving at Captain Dan on the shrimp boat.
Two tours of Mammoth Cave did the rest: one with a guide to Frozen Niagara, and the other a self-guided tour to Discovery Cave, where in World War I slaves worked round the clock to turn steeped-out nitrates into gunpowder, plus a hike to a dilapidated cave.
And the number is solid. I’ve gotten up twice to get something from the mini fridge, and the step count has not budged. The running watch doesn’t count arm waves or little movements. I read somewhere it takes several steps for it to even start tracking. Even if no one knows or cares, or no authorities are pounding on my front door about the legitimacy of my step counter, I will hold that line. I care.
It’s bird-thirty here back at the KOA. Eleven different types, with image and name, are on the Merlin app, but it’s the Prairie Warbler and Eastern Meadowlark that are the new-to-me standouts. Both have a bright yellow chest, but it’s the meadowlark—its extra-large size and windblown-mohawk of a tail—that has the birder in me doing a geeky heel kick at the sight.
One more night here in Kentucky, then back to Tennessee, specifically Chattanooga, for the picturesque Ruby Falls. I wish we could stay here longer.
But we can’t. Onward, forward!
Love, Jaclynn