Chapter one: Walking out of Depression to Create a New Life of Happiness

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This blog is my way of sharing rough drafts of the book.  Any of your comments will be appreciated as I continue to write the book over the next 100+ days
Walking out of Depression to Create a New Life of Happiness
Chapter One - Day One, Walk 001/100

Getting warmed up is the goal of this morning's walk.

Absolutely beautiful morning

Mild temp
clear light blue sky
bright sunshine
wonderful sounds and songs of birds
wildflowers
and
so much green

That is how I would describe this morning when I decided to begin another 100 Day Walking campaign for Happiness and Health.

Here are the first 25 photos of the 105 edited photos I took today.

In addition, I am walking to virtually support the oldest daughter of the Vermaak family who is on her way to walk up Kilimanjaro in Africa to sponsor Mental Health.  Her group begins their walk tomorrow on July 10th.

I will be walking different walks each dad dedicating them to Taryn-Lee Vermaak and her team and all people I know dealing with mental illnesses of any kind, especially from distress to burnout to mild to major depression.

Walking has often helped me climb out of or burst out of periods of depression, short, medium and long.

So let's begin.

walking shoes, bushveld hat, camera, bottle of water

I am ready to leave my house on Walk 001 of 100 in 2018

walking down my front steps I see my first destination: the end of my driveway

looking back I see the front elevation of my home, my treehouse of books on my 1/2 acre of trees

looking up the street I see my next destination: the end of Ridgeview Drive at Epps Bridge Parkway

Crossing the parkway I come across the floral entrance to Holly Hills

Now to the northwest along the western sidewalk of the parkway

always find the placement of these signs funny because they usually are 100 ft away from where drivers need to see them,

Since I began regularly walking for exercise and to clear up my mind I have discovered I seldom like walking on paved sidewalks or trails.  I prefer trails worn in nature or to create my own trails

Like Robert Frost I prefer to take the Road Less Traveled.

Google check time.

Ooops! my memory was wrong according to Wikipedia

"The Road Not Taken" is a poem by Robert Frost, published in 1916 as the first poem in the collection Mountain Interval.

This morning I chose the left trail into the long overgrowth grass.

the trail is clear and the grasses and bramble, pricker bush plants are trying to reclaim it.

It is July.  That means Summer flowers: wild and store-bought flowers

with all of our Spring rain there are many forms of fungi or mushrooms

I am wearing full length blue jeans because I know I will experience berry bushes with prickers along the way like these blackberries

deer tracks maybe?

The end of the trail

Strange way to end it.  As if the trail was created using equipment and just bicycles or foot prints

As I said earlier I have learned since 1995 that I prefer walking on grass or in undisturbed nature not on sidewalks or paved trails

Birds singing and calling.  Looking up in the trees and on the electrical lines above I can not see any birds but yet I found these strange cans on the wires.

Using iPhoto to enlarge one of the cans I see it has some purpose that I have no idea what it might be

Moving along there is the Chestnut Grove Baptist Church

During the past 32 years that Merry, Jessica and now me alone that we or I have lived in our house I have watched the Chestnut Grove Church move to this site from the small town south of us named Chestnut Grove and then continually grow in size as a congregation adding wing after wing to create the very large church that you see in this photo.

Total approximately 2.2 miles