Summer Vacation 2011: Walking Progress

This final part to the vacation series I'm doing is about my walking progress before, during and after the trip. I never really know how my walking is going to be from one day to the next. I find out in the morning when I first wake up usually. Every day is like a crap shoot.

Before the trip, my walking was starting to slide into no man's land again. Very stiff-legged and hard to move. I was exercising, but it didn't seem to do much for my walking. The elliptical has your legs moving in a different motion than regular walking. When I go from being on my elliptical to walking around on normal surfaces, I unconsciously try to mimic the motion of the elliptical.

The first few days we were in Atlanta, I had a slightly difficult time. Not too bad, but definitely worse than my "good" days. I wasn't having any of the jerky starts and stops, but I was definitely slower than I wanted to be. Luckily, it cleared up fairly quickly. My husband reminded me to roll my hips as I walked. When I walk and I don't think about it, I tend not to rotate my hips. That makes it harder to move. But when I focus on rotating my hips as I step, it is a lot easier.

The terrain at Reynolds Plantation actually seemed to help too. At the resort, we were walking from the hotel to the lake and to the restaurant quite a bit. The path we took had us going up and down some fairly steep hills. We took shortcuts here and there through the grass or the sand, and in some ways it was easier, and in others it was harder. Walking through sand is easier on the joints, since your feet don't impact the ground as hard, but the sand puts more resistance on your steps. The grass is again gentler on your joints, but it's uneven and you have to watch out for those sticks and twigs that like to "jump up and get you".

My walking improved so much at the resort, I even let go of my husband's arm a few times in the hallways of the hotel. I chickened out though as soon as I heard anyone walking behind us. I don't know why, I don't really like people walking behind me. Especially kids. I'm always expecting kids to run up and ram into me. I go into self preservation mode and grab onto whatever I can. Need to work on that.

Since being back from vacation, my walking ability is still good. I haven't noticed any sort of decline at all. We've gone to a few movies since we've been back, and I've had no problems. Went to Costco and wandered around there, and I was a pro at pushing the cart that day. To me, I felt like I was going at a pretty good pace. I was probably going slow in other people's opinions, but who cares? Now to get me back to using the walker.

So, there you have it. My vacation recap. We had a great time, and are looking forward to our next vacation back east. As always, keep moving.

Read the first two entries of the vacation series. Part 1 and part 2.

Summer Vacation 2011: Atlanta Outings

For the first post of the vacation series, I'll be talking about our outings while in Atlanta.

We had two meals out during our visit this time around. For our first dinner, we went to our favorite place the second night we were in town. Ted's Montana Grill is the best place to get bison. I always get some kind of bison burger when I eat there. They serve normal ground beef, but bison is healthier, and it's hard to find in restaurants here in the Coachella Valley. So Ted's Montana Grill is always a must when we go to Atlanta.

The second dinner out that we had in Atlanta was to a restaurant I have never been to before, Social Vinings. This restaurant has a variety of food, from seafood and sushi to chicken and pasta. I had the Pan Seared Trout Filet which came with a sweet pea risotto, crispy capers and a lemon butter sauce. It was fantastic. I'm not a real big fan of risotto, but this sweet pea risotto was pretty good. For dessert, my husband and I split an Irish Coffee and Deep Fried Oreos (I think that's what they were called, I can't find it on the menu online). Unfortunately, the Irish Coffee wasn't a real Irish Coffee as they were out of Baileys, so they substituted it with something else. It definitely did not taste like an Irish Coffee to me, but it was still good. The Deep Fried Oreos were excellent. I don't even want to think about the calorie count on those suckers. I definitely want to go back to Social Vinings sometime in the future.

Our daytime fun activities in Atlanta consisted of the movie Mr. Popper’s Penguins and the Georgia Sequarium. Mr. Popper’s Penguins was a fun movie to see. It is a bit slow in the beginning, but I would say it’s a good movie to see. I doubt it’s in theaters anymore, but there’s always Netflix or other DVD rental places you can rent it from eventually.

The Georgia Sequarium is always a fun place to go. We've been there about three or four times now, and it never gets old. My favorites are the otters. I thought I wasn't going to see them this time around, because the first walk-through we did they were all sleeping. We decided to make one more pass through before we left, and they were wide awake and active. I also love to see the beluga whales. Huge, massive white whales gliding through the water. The tank they swim in is huge. One wall of the exhibit is glass, from floor to ceiling, so it's massive. And my third favorite is probably the penguins. You can never go wrong seeing those black and white tuxedo birds playing around.

That pretty much wraps up our outings in Atlanta. We basically just hung around my sister’s house for the rest of the time, getting caught up with family. reading, playing Angry Birds and playing with the kids.

The second part in this vacation series will cover our journey to Reynolds Plantation.

Read the third post of the vacation series here.