Covid-19 ’Camino’ for Cancer

We set a 9:00am start time for our first 20km (minimum) leg of our 100km Covid-19 Camino for Cancer. The weather promised to be exceptional. It's chilly in the mornings this time of year, but the forecast was perfect. Not too hot and no wind to speak of ... which is highly unusual and deeply welcome in our neck of the woods.

We opted to stay close to home for our first walk about and decided to do two full circles around the Taber Trout Pond ... from the door of our homes back to the door of our homes. Each circle is roughly 11kms. We thought we'd pop home for a nice lunch after our first round ... change shoes if necessary, change clothing if necessary and relieve our bladders in the comfort of our own biffy.

We were barely 10 minutes out when we were met with our first obstacle! The road we generally take to get to Trout Pond was under construction!! We chuckled about how what we were experiencing was simply a metaphor for life. You can have the best plans made ... and then ... challenges and obstacles appear before you. We adjusted our sails (now I'm mixing my metaphors) and found our way around the construction so we could get back on course.

We hadn't made it very far around the pond before Bestie was too hot. She hates to be cold so started the day with a couple of layers. I offered my best musical accompaniment as she shed some layers. See video ... 😘

It really was an exceptional day. The sun shone on us warmly ... the conversation was good ... and the sights were simply stunning. Oh ... and ... a little good luck was even encountered when bird shit on Bestie!

We enjoyed our first loop ... had some lunch ... and headed out again. We were a ways out when Bestie remembered that she forgot to do something important during our lunch. So, we doubled back to ensure it got taken care of and headed back out again for our second loop.

Bestie was on 'rope alert' because I am not a fan of snakes. And well ... the MD of Taber is filled with snakes. They even have signs posted of what to do if you encounter a rattler. Fortunately, we never saw or heard a rattler, but Bestie screamed and jumped backwards a bit when a small garter snake crossed our path. It startled her!! And well ... her startle startled me! I didn't even see it, but that little thing sure got our adrenalin going for a bit!!

And then, we came upon a deer who was incredibly close to us. She never moved. She never took her eye off of us either. We suspected she was the the momma of the fawn we had seen far off in the distance during our first loop. And now, it appeared that her fawn was hiding and she was standing guard until we moved past. Nature is truly so remarkable.

We walked through the river valley and hiked up the main trail to points were the views were simply stunning. It was a great choice for our first leg. We ended up logging more than we expected.

Our final tally was 25.47kms. We celebrated with a wine and beer and a check-in with a dear friend of mine who had walked 20kms in another city while we were logging our steps out here. Deb finished her walk in 4 hours!!!

It truly was a beautiful experience ...Read more