Walking Neighborhood

When we bought our house this summer, one of the big draws was the neighborhood. It is very much a walking neighborhood (even if people not shoveling the sidewalks makes it harder to walk in the winter).

This was clear from the first day we moved in: as we unloaded our UHaul, we had more people walk by and say hello than we actually had neighbors at our old house. There are constantly people out walking or running, either alone, with another person, or with a canine companion.

But more to the point, there are places to walk to. I mean, I enjoy walking in circles around the block as much as the next guy, but the main draw of this walking neighborhood is that there are some really neat places to walk to. One of those is the library, and we take advantage of that all the time. We've been here 5 months, and we're only now really exploring these pedestrian (and yet also not pedestrian) opportunities.

I got some taste of this back before Thanksgiving. One of my former students was returning home (to the town just south of us), and we made plans to get together and explore some of the restaurants/bars of my locality. While he had to drive to meet me there, I walked the not-quite-a-mile, and it was quite nice.

This weekend, though, we made full-family moves to take advantage of our proximity to this really cool area. On Friday evening (before the fiasco), we walked as a family the 2/3 of a mile to get pizza.



The pizza was good, and Lauren and I got side salads. Mine had figs on it, which was a new experience, but one that makes as much sense as craisins or raisins or any other fruit. We got a veggie pizza, which would have been better with meat, but was still quite good. We spent a little more on dinner than we might have liked, but everyone enjoyed it, and I loved that we walked there instead of piling in the van.

And since we were walking past it anyway, we pretty much had to stop for dessert.

When I walked in and said "We'll take one of everything," my tummy was serious, even though my wallet insisted I was joking.

Sweet Fix's cupcakes we quite good. I liked the Red Velvet, Lauren liked the German Chocolate, the 6 devoured a chocolate cupcake so fast it was hard to know how much she liked it, the 2 made a huge, delicious mess with hers, and the 8 loved her Peach Cobbler (not a cupcake, in case you were confused, just a big serving of peach cobbler).

The next morning, we got up and did it all again!

Well, okay, not the pizza. And not the cupcakes. But the walking, we did that. The local treasure that is our independent theater was showing The Polar Express, so we reserved ourselves some tickets and made the trek. The expedition was not without incident. Near the end of our not-quite-mile walk, the 2 took a tumble and cried while I carried her the rest of the way. Then she was "a little bit hungry" in the middle of the movie, so I had to go out here and get her some snacks. I didn't buy what she really wanted, but she still scarfed them down.

It was almost this empty in the middle of the film. 

And she also threw a tantrum on the way home when we said she couldn't watch videos on the phone while walking. We walked away from her, which is usually enough to get her to come along, not wanting to be left behind to become homeless, but this time she stood her ground, even going to sit on someone's steps to express her displeasure with the turn our walk took. But anyway, notwithstanding some bumps in the road, it was a delightful trip.

Oh, and we also enjoyed stopping in at Heights Arts to look at beautiful, locally made arts and crafts that we mostly can't afford.

Oh, shoot, I should have listed sources for all those photos I didn't take! This one, at least, was from here.

But which nevertheless delight the soul with their beauty, and all that.

I can't wait to walk more and explore further!