Walk: Shoreline Trail, between Red Butte Gardens and This is the Place Monument State Park.

Distance: 2 1/2 miles?

Length: 50 minutes

On this, my first day of freedom after my first year as a teacher at Waterford, I took a walk with my parents, their dog Schatze (on left), and my dogs Shed (middle) and Ida (right). My parents are both recovering from knee replacement surgeries, but still they sometimes outstripped me on the trail. How sad. I realized recently that there are no stairs in my life now. My house is one story. The school I teach at is one story. And that's about the extent of my past 9 months. The walks in my new neighborhood (much to my enjoyment) are mostly flat...only by heading in one direction (east) do I ever face a steep grade. Somehow, I always walk north, or south, or west. So, climbing to the base level of the Shoreline Trail winded me a bit.

Even though Shoreline is an on-leash trail (with lots of joggers and bikers), my father insisted that NO ONE walks their dogs on leash there. So, the pooplers ran and ran. All in all, they probably walked three times the distance we did. They also lolled in mud puddles...and sprawled in large swaths of grass, tall and green from all the rain we've had lately...
I took lots of pictures of flowers for some reason. This is something I normally object to. Perhaps it was the unfettered freedom that got to me...the sense that nothing I did today matters to anyone. Having no classes to plan for, no papers to grade, no students to worry about was blissful. And so...
Walking with Lyn and Russ is mostly talking about flowers, politics, the dogs, and upcoming social events. Not much time for ruminating, but an enjoyable spin nonetheless. I don't like how sunny this walk is, but I must admit it's a beautiful view. After the walk, my parents joined me to meet Molly at Koko kitchen for a celebratory lunch of sushi and noodles. Feeling done with the school year has made me very happy today. I planted. I weeded. I read The Crocodile Street by Bruno Schultz. I looked at books I have yet to read. I harvested the first veggies from my new garden (chard), then at 6:00 P.M. (10 hours after posting final grades), I get this e-mail from a student:

hi Dr. Taylor,
I hope you're enjoying summer!! I'm trying to! but i keep having this feeling to email about you recieving my paper. So i'm curious to know if u did? I hope you get this soon! and i can hear back from you! and have a great summer! Oh and one more question! what's my current grade in your class?

thanks,

Xxxxx Xxx

Hmmmph. So many exclamation marks. Such neglect of proper capitalization. Such inconsistent use of "u" rather than "you" (I don't mind abbreviation, but choose one or the other and be consistent!). Such an airhead thing to e-mail your teacher 2 1/2 weeks after the essay was actually due. And now, suddenly, I have one more thing to worry about before I can put school out of my mind completely. So it goes.

More from the outpost of Summer in a few days.