If someone tells you to “go take a hike”, they’re actually giving you good advice.
Exercise and weight loss web sites recommend walking as the most overlooked and neglected form of exercise. People seem to prefer expensive aerobic classes, and lots of time in gyms.
Health experts suggest that walking is a great form of exercise because it’s free, requires no partner or expensive gadgets, and will burn nearly the same calories as jogging. It’s not hard on the body, there’s no set time to do it, and a good walk eases the tension in mind and body.
Along with many local parks, there are some amazing trails in the area, not only beautiful, but excellent wildlife habitats.
• The trails at Forest Park Nature Center on Forest Park Drive in Peoria Heights are wonderful. Deer, wild turkeys, and bird feeders loaded with every local bird imaginable, are just some of the added bonuses to walking these paths. Exercise and entertainment, what’s not to love? They are open daily from dawn to dusk, and are well marked with maps available listing distances. They are free, but donations are welcome. The Museum and Nature Store are open Mon. – Sat. 9AM to 5PM, Sunday, 1 to 5PM. There are potties, water, coffee, and tea in the trail head building.
• For a good walk, you can’t beat the Rock Island Trail. Beautiful, wild, full of flora and fauna, it’s another example of exercise, entertainment, and relaxation. There are several trail heads, but the closest is at Alta, where you can go towards Dunlap, or towards Peoria. Each way is a different habitat, and both are beautiful. There are potties and water at the Alta trailhead where a giant map shows you the route and distances.
• Another fun place to walk is the East Peoria Biking and Hiking trail. You can park at the Fondulac Administration Building and start your walk across the street on the trail. It’s paved, and pretty, with lots of wildlife and flowers. Several little bridges with gurgling streams flowing underneath are pleasant attractions. The Fondulac Administration Building has public restrooms and water.
Before you use walking as an exercise, there are a few tips to remember.
First, don’t eat solid food an hour before walking. Digesting takes a lot of energy away from the body.
You should avoid busy roads. Fresh air and green calming surroundings are more relaxing to the mind. Also, if you are taking more carbon dioxide than oxygen, you are harming your body.
Try to get in at least 30 minutes of walking everyday, and vary your routes so that you are not walking on flat ground.
Walking is not only good for your body, but good for your spirit.
Henry David Thoreau once said, "I come home to my solitary woodland walk as the homesick go home.”
Showing posts with label Nature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nature. Show all posts
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Natural Sanity
If life is pressing in on you, and you feel the need for a mini-vacation, then a walk or ride down the Rock Island Trail is the ticket. Either direction, from Alta, towards Dunlap, or towards Peoria, where the trail abruptly stops at Pioneer Parkway in North Peoria where the new section will soon continue, is wild and beautiful.
Sunlight filters around gently fluttering leaves to make dappled kinetic art on the pathway. Wildflowers abound, serving as magnets to myriads of butterflies. These floating flowers of every imaginable color glide quietly by, infusing a sense of peace.
Birds are everywhere, filling the air with exuberant song. Indigo Buntings flash by, their tiny iridescent blue bodies reflecting the mottled sunlight like sparks of flame in the shrubbery. The ubiquitous Robins conduct their daily lives with their usual good cheer as they regularly cross your path. Woodpeckers, cardinals, ducks, swallows, wrens, and catbirds, are just a few of the birds commonly seen along the trail. During migration times, the greenway explodes with warblers and other migrants of every ilk, stopping by for a respite on their long journeys.
The scenery is diverse along the trail, encompassing everything from forests and ravines, to farm fields and meadows of wildflowers. There are streams, and babbling brooks with schools of tiny fish darting among the rocks. There are bridges to cross, and even a cool and dark tunnel to explore.
Development, however, marches on, and encroaches on the wildness of the trail. Subdivisions are popping up like mushrooms along the corridor, greedily pushing against the greenway both sides, squishing it into a tiny ribbon of nature.
Fortunately, they can’t erase it, and so the trail remains a slash of sanity through the artificial living space that is suburbia.
I know insidious sprawl will continue unchecked. My husband and I moved to the country to enjoy nature, and the peace and quiet of rural living. Picturesque farm fields, wildlife, and old barns were the backdrops to the gorgeous sunsets we could view from our front windows. Now, a subdivision, earth berms, and a maintenance shed for a golf course block the sunsets. The wildlife we enjoyed when we first moved here has mostly disappeared. The glow from a plethora of yard and house lights, vapor lights, security lights, and landscaping lights has wiped out any enjoyment of the night sky.
Since the old cliché, “You can’t stop progress” is unfortunately true; I guess the best you can hope for is to continue to find nature as God intended it, enjoy it, and protect it as best you can, as long as possible. It’s the best therapy in the world.
Sunlight filters around gently fluttering leaves to make dappled kinetic art on the pathway. Wildflowers abound, serving as magnets to myriads of butterflies. These floating flowers of every imaginable color glide quietly by, infusing a sense of peace.
Birds are everywhere, filling the air with exuberant song. Indigo Buntings flash by, their tiny iridescent blue bodies reflecting the mottled sunlight like sparks of flame in the shrubbery. The ubiquitous Robins conduct their daily lives with their usual good cheer as they regularly cross your path. Woodpeckers, cardinals, ducks, swallows, wrens, and catbirds, are just a few of the birds commonly seen along the trail. During migration times, the greenway explodes with warblers and other migrants of every ilk, stopping by for a respite on their long journeys.
The scenery is diverse along the trail, encompassing everything from forests and ravines, to farm fields and meadows of wildflowers. There are streams, and babbling brooks with schools of tiny fish darting among the rocks. There are bridges to cross, and even a cool and dark tunnel to explore.
Development, however, marches on, and encroaches on the wildness of the trail. Subdivisions are popping up like mushrooms along the corridor, greedily pushing against the greenway both sides, squishing it into a tiny ribbon of nature.
Fortunately, they can’t erase it, and so the trail remains a slash of sanity through the artificial living space that is suburbia.
I know insidious sprawl will continue unchecked. My husband and I moved to the country to enjoy nature, and the peace and quiet of rural living. Picturesque farm fields, wildlife, and old barns were the backdrops to the gorgeous sunsets we could view from our front windows. Now, a subdivision, earth berms, and a maintenance shed for a golf course block the sunsets. The wildlife we enjoyed when we first moved here has mostly disappeared. The glow from a plethora of yard and house lights, vapor lights, security lights, and landscaping lights has wiped out any enjoyment of the night sky.
Since the old cliché, “You can’t stop progress” is unfortunately true; I guess the best you can hope for is to continue to find nature as God intended it, enjoy it, and protect it as best you can, as long as possible. It’s the best therapy in the world.
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