Three Winter Walks

 Suprisingly, December 2014 turned out to be a great month for walking.  I set myself a goal to get out for a walk every day, even if it was just ten minutes, and also ended up doing three bigger hikes with some great people.  Here's a recap and some photos of those.

Walk #1:  December 6th's monthly hike with Ingrid

(14.15 km in 3h 20 min)

Ingrid and I were so lucky - after a week of gray, rainy days, we managed to get an unseasonably warm and sunny afternoon for the inaugural walk with our new map.  The route I plotted out went along the Demer River and was supposed to be 12 kilometers.  However, what I thought was a bridge turned out to be nonexistent and we had to walk all the way to Zichem where the next bridge was (and a cute watermill) before we could head back the right direction.  But all in all it was a great walk and we found a cozy cafe to quench our thirst afterwards.

The sign says go straight but there is no bridge!

The old watermill on the Demer in Zichem

Walk #2: December 28th's belated White Christmas

Surprise, surprise! On Saturday it started snowing, those big soft fluffy flakes.  We couldn't believe it!  We usually have to wait until January for a bit of snow here, and I think last year we didn't get any.  And snow that sticks and stays is even more rare.  But we woke up on Sunday morning to a brilliantly sunny, ice cold day, where everything was covered in gorgeous white snow.  So my husband, my oldest son and I went out for a walk, through the fields near our home.  It was gorgeous and we were not the only ones out taking pictures.

This path was VERY slippery...

Walk #3: December 29th's annual Christmas walk with Leen

(7.3 km in 1 h 46 min)

This is the second year Leen and I met for a walk during Christmas vacation, so we decided to call it our new annual tradition.  Last year, her daughter Hannah joined us, and this year, not only did her son Lucas come along, but my husband as well.  Will we get an even bigger crew next year?

Luckily it was a lot warmer than the day before, and we were again blessed with sunshine.  Most of the snow had started to melt but the roads and paths were not as slippery which was a good thing.  We ended up doing a marked route around Korbeek-Lo called the Sint-Camillus walk, and ended like last year at the local cafe for a hot drink.

Posing in front of a traditional Flemish "square" farm

Still a bit of snow in the fields

December turned out to be a great month for walking.  I'm looking forward to some great hikes and other active adventures in 2015 and plan to be more proactive about documenting them here.

In the meantime, I want to wish you health, happiness and many good things in the New Year and thank you for reading!

Milestones

Kim was reminiscing on her latest blog post about when she started running in 2006.  I also started running in 2006, so eight years ago.  Hard to believe!  And despite the ups and downs I've had the past two years, running is still a part of my life, but now as one element in a variety of different types of exercises I do.

Selfie from one of our walks this summer

Ingrid and I took our last big hike of the year together two weeks ago and we were wondering how long we had been doing our monthly walks together.  Spurred on by Kim, I decided to figure it out, and it seems since 2009, so 5 years.  Wow!

Like with running, our hikes have evolved over the years, the major change being the longer and longer distances we do.  Another change is that, having exhausted pretty much all the trails on the two walking maps we had for our region (Zuid Dijleland and Hageland), we've had to branch out and start a new walking map in a different region (de Merode).  The new map is a laid out a little bit differently than the old maps we were used to, which tripped us up a bit on our very first route - instead of our planned 12 kilometers, we had to take an unexpected detour (what I thought would be a bridge over a river did not actually exist and so we had to keep going til the next bridge).  Result: we walked almost 15 kilometers instead.  But it was no problem, we've worked up to these kinds of distances gradually and we were fine.

And that is what is fun about looking back at milestones and reminding yourself of how long you've been doing something.  Whether it's running, hiking or anything else, it's amazing to see how far you've come and how much you've improved.  What milestone do you look back on with pride this year?