When faced with a fork in the road? Which way do you go?

****

"What a busy while, phew!!" (Picture this motion: Us doing some exaggerated and serious brow wiping!) Double Phew.

There's the Busyness that being on the road elicits, the lack of time you experience when travelling and exploring, which is exponentially related to the joy of adventuring, n'est ce pas?

And then there's the Busyness that being back home brings. Reunions with family and friends we haven't seen in a long time, running errands on our To Do List that has been, with time, growing. And then of course, there's the crazyness Busyness of adventuring in the land of plenty.

"Have you noticed how everyone lately is all ABUZZ about how many steps they've walked?" I asked Dave.
"I have" he replied. "All these watch type of step detectors that track your daily movements."
"I suppose that's a good thing?" I pondered. "Gets people out and moving?"
"Yeah, but... Do you really need something to get you moving?" It all seemed a little too tech-based, and pfft... who needs more stuff?

We both shrugged away our being so far behind the times. I mean, all y'all land based peeps are, probably stepping away all day, and aghast that we didn't know, or care, about any of this.

So with the super fast and free WiFi at our current home, we googled ourselves some research. And asked some friends, who were quite honest with their responses.

"Oh, I have one, it's in my drawer somewhere" replied one.
"I have one, wear it all the time, love it..." replied another.
"It even tells me how well I slept" said Someone.
"Or you can input what you've eaten..." explained Someone Else.

Being thusly a little wiser, we started walking the trails around our campground home and discovered our iPhone has a movement tracker on it. At the end of the walk, the app had calculated a couple of thousand steps. And that's how that tiny little app just might've gotten us addicted to Motion Madness. I mean, who knew? Who knew that we were now competing with ourselves to Do More the very next day?

Another keen focus of ours for the last few weeks however was on a different type of motion. We were trying to narrow down one of our newest "just for fun and exercise" type of purchases.

Last year we were trying to determine what kind of outdoor adventurists we'd be. One of the reasons we purchased our tiny 25 foot home, was to be able to take it anywhere, and not need to tow a car that would take us places. But, we were interested in perhaps a scooter? Some Bikes? How about some E-Bikes?

Being ever prudent, we gave ourselves a year of living the RV lifestyle to see how we felt about it all before purchasing something else.

During the year we had some fun escapades. Remember that time we borrowed the rather tired marina bikes in the Bahamas? And blew a tire at the opposite end of the island and had to walk the flat tired bike most of the way back, in the hot sandy heat that are the Bahamas Islands, until some kind local recognized us and offered up some help,



not only in arranging for the marina truck to pick us, and the bikes up, but buying us an ice cold refreshment after the fact.



And then just last month, our friends David & Libby took us on a 16 mile ride on the Swamp Rabbit Trail (Greenville, North Carolina).



What a bunch of fun we had.



And that, right then and there, is how we just KNEW that for us, biking would be the way to go. So now we had to narrow down what KIND of bikes we wanted. We knew we wanted to be able to go anywhere; from normal roads and paths to OffRoad trails, and everything in between. We wanted to tackle not only quaint village streets but trails strewn with tree roots. We wanted to gear down on the hills and tackle the leaf strewn paths with speed, and tire only knows what else.

We weren't going to be doing anything extreme, like our friends Mike and Rebecca of Zero to Cruising who are currently bikepacking their way along the 1700 miles of the California Baja Divide. But we were interested in getting out there a few hours of the days, being active, and enjoying everything the Great Outdoors would throw at us. Stepping up our motion!

Here in Halifax, we visited a few shops, and after battling with some of the pros and cons, we finally chose to go with the Giant Store; specifically the Talon 2 for Dave, and the Liv Tempt 3 for me.



A week of waiting went by quickly, as we ordered and installed the Swagman Hitch, just in time for the arrival of our bikes. And just like that, we grew by two.



The end result? Getting our bike-on around the Shubie Park Trails that are just minutes from our current home.



The trails offer up some great views, and varied terrain



With not only the flowers to inspire us to stop,



but the Squirrels stopping to chitchatter their displeasure at having been interrupted in their feasting



and the canal just gorgeous,



The bikes are wonderful !! Comfortable. Adaptive and responsive to and on all terrains.









Being the ever firm believer of The Universe putting STUFF in your path if it was meant to be? While shopping for bike accoutrements, such as helmets and panniers, we walked right by a Sale Table. And that is how we are now the proud new wearers of Motion Madness detection. At the end of the day when we Sync our Motion with our technology, we have concrete proof that we've been out there. Stepping it up.

And speaking of stepping it up. We were thrilled to be in town this year for the ALS walk held in DeWolf Park on Saturday June 10th, in Bedford. About this time last year, a beautiful friend of ours, Liz, was just diagnosed with ALS. You can read about her journey here.

With the generous donations from many of our friends, {{ from our heart to yours, thank you}},



we walked and just for a wee small moment in time, felt like we were somehow, in some small way, at the end of the steps calculated that day, walking with Liz and Mike, and the many others out there, struggling with their steps.



I guess in this thing we call our Life, it's all about the Journey (whether you're counting steps or not) and not the Destination. At the end of the day, at the end of the road, we're all going to end up in the same spot.

Sometimes you can take a left at the fork in the road. And sometimes you have to take a right. Or you can stand there, for awhile, undecided, and that's fine too. Either way, you'll end up Stepping on the road to Somewhere. But the best part of walking the road? The people who join you.

Now those are the steps that are worth counting.