We've done a lot of hiking and I was in Washington DC for 5 days (returned home this past Monday) and I am ramping up for our AGM at work.
Although the Bruce Trail is 890 km (405 miles) and it felt like doing 5km (3 mile) chunks would take forever, it actually feels like we are making progress! Of course, living smack in the middle of it helps as we don't have to travel too far right now to hit a section. Once we exhaust the Niagara and Iroquoia sections, it will be a bit harder to get in so much as we'll have to travel to get to the trail and then travel home. We symbolically did the beginning of the trail in Niagara and this Fall we want to do 5-10 km at the other end of the trail (Tobermory) so then we will work from the middle outwards to each end. There are many clubs for the Bruce Trail and hiking the trail and hikers can apply for badges for each section by submitting their information. I don't think we are that dedicated or interested but it is great that there is so much information about the trails available and so many people interested in conserving them. It is truly a beautiful and breathtaking part of the country.
We've done quite a few hikes since my last post so I'll just post a few combo pics. We've just about finished the part of the trail that is 10-20 min from where we live so it means venturing further out to hike so there will probably be fewer week day hikes and we'll see if we can fit in two hikes or longer hikes on the weekends.
DC was amazing! So much to see and do. I felt really good about eating well because we stayed at a Comfort Inn and they do that mini-breakfast buffet. I had boiled eggs and fruit every day for breakfast and we took some with us for the day so we didn't eat out at all during the day - great for my waistline and my wallet! We went to The Cheesecake Factory one night - and I always forget how big the portions are in the US - so we had leftovers for the next two nights for dinner, which was awesome because by the time we got back to the hotel we were so tired, we showered, heated up leftovers and fell into bed!
Although we had pouring rain for 2 out of the three days we were there, we walked over 20,000 steps each day and saw everything we wanted to see. The Smithsonian is incredible. We only did the Museum of Natural History and the Air and Space Museum and the Smithsonian Castle (Visitor's Centre). I could have spent a week just wandering around all the museums. The National Archives was well worth the over hour wait to get in. Arlington Cemetary was sobering - the enormity of war hits you when all the eye can see is tombstone after tombstone row by row. The Kennedy Memorial is beautiful in its simplicity as much as the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial is in its complexity. We walked around the Tidal Basin on our last day and the monuments and memorials were so full of history.
We took our selfie in front of the White House, of course (from a very far distance!).
On my first morning back at home, I weighed 1 lb less than when I left - that's a win for me!
