New Year, New Plans!

   I note with some disgust (but not surprise) that it's been well over two months since I sat down and wrote a blog post. In truth, there has been nothing remarkable enough to post about in the last two months and, what with all the holiday hubbub, things just got shunted off to the side a touch.
   And with that holiday hubbub and all the attending treats, eats and sweets, I gained almost ten pounds! For much of that two or three week period, our bathroom scales were tucked away somewhere as we'd also been doing a little work on the ceiling in the bathroom but I knew the pounds were going on and I did almost nothing to stop them.

I DID get up and off my butt a
couple of weeks ago, hiked
in a foggy, icy Warbler Woods

   So, presently, I can say with little doubt that I am in the worst shape of my adult life. If I'm wearing pants, it is almost impossible to pick up small things off the floor. Both knees feel like they're shot. Tying shoes? Problematic. Getting down onto the floor? Not likely, without a piece of furniture nearby to lower myself down with and raise myself back up with. This is as bad as it has ever been without an actual diagnosed injury being involved. 
   So how do I feel about this...?
   Well, not too bad actually. The one thing I have faith in is my body's ability to recuperate and change. The holiday season is past and now it's back to a normal routine. Eat better, exercise more, same old shit. I didn't make any resolutions around any of this but I do have plans for this year, and rather adventurous ones at that!
   There are several trails I would like to say I had conquered by the end  of 2019 but the one I will concentrate on is the Grand Valley trail. This will be a bit of an undertaking as it is almost 300k long and not really situated in my backyard. On top of that, if I can squeeze them in, I'd also like to add the Elgin and Maitland trails. All three of them would be a tall order, however, so we'll see.

Slowly have started collecting
camping supplies. Here we
have, on the left, a Luminaid
Packlight Max USB+Phone
Charger Lantern. Will give light
while camping and be a safety
valve for phone charging while
out on hikes. At the back, Doralyn
gave me a couple of packs of
Mountain House de-hydrated
meals, for Christmas. On the right,
is my Pocket Rocket stove. I
used it to make.....

   One of those most exciting things I'd like to do this year is a little bit of thru-hiking! I wanna hike somewhere with a tent and a sleeping bag on my back, pitch the tent at the end of the day and then keep on hiking the following morning. Part of the problem with this is that I haven't camped in a tent since I was a kid so there might be some re-learning to do. In the meantime, though, there's a list of things I need to slowly accumulate. Like a tent....

....THIS! Bacon and eggs, out of a bag!
Courtesy of Mountain House (and
Doralyn). It was pretty filling, actually

   So these are the plans I've made for 2019 and I can only hope that at the end of the year the pounds have fallen off. In the couple of days I've been working off and on at this post, four or five pounds have parted ways and my knees actually feel a little better. Being back to work has helped and the last of the Xmas goodies disappearing has also made a difference--except that some of them disappeared into ME!