Leita Thompson Memorial Park

Today I drug Kathryn out of the house to another park in Roswell. This time it was the Leita Thompson Memorial Park. I've all but completely kicked my cold, but she's not quite over hers yet. She's been trying to build up some semblance of fitness though and I'm all about supporting that, especially if I can explore new trails while we're at it.

They're all about these little gateways in Roswell.

Oxbo has one too and it's as equally unlikely that you'd walk through it there as here. It's cute though.

The trail reminded me a lot of the Roswell Area Park - a wide, crushed shale sidehill. But the terrain was a great deal different. It was hilly and woodsy like Big Creek or like Vickery Creek. Kathryn wasn't really digging the hilliness as much as I was but she liked the woodsiness.

There were a lot of beech trees there. We talked about how they don't lose their leaves in winter, but she noticed that while that was true of the short little scrubb ones, on the taller ones, they do lose them on the upper branches. Do they get blown off? Does the sun play a role? Interesting.

There were lots of people out walking their dogs. Some people's dogs were walking them. We went down every little side trail and ended up passing this one guy 3 times. I always wonder what people think when that happens. The first 2 times they're always smiley, but not always on the third.

With the hills, the trail seemed really long. I was doing "The Zero" too. The Zero is where you wake up, don't eat anything and then go exercise for a couple of hours. I do that sometimes. It's not good for you per-se, but I think it's good to be able to recognize it and it's good to know how your body feels and reacts in that situation so it's no big deal when it happens accidentally. I get that low brain sugar feeling, it's hard to concentrate, everything seems bigger, my joints ache a little, my head hurts in a specific spot, if I'm carrying a pack, it feels heavy, but I can still push if I need to, but I know exactly how hard by feel. I'm really familiar with it. I hope that's good.

Most of the way around we ran into a memorial garden named after Leita Thompson herself. There was a pavillion...

...and a plaque.

She sounded interesting. I hope she didn't just do all that charity work for the tax break. Though, I guess, even if she did, it still worked out for somebody, so win-win, right?

Near the end we passed an elderly woman jogging in the other direction who was also an amputee, missing her right hand. When she gets up in the morning, that lady is harder than I am all day. That's what I thought when I saw her.

The last eighth of a mile up to the lot was all uphill and with The Zero, I was feeling it. The cure for The Zero? Dutch Monkey donuts. I actually had a Chocolate Chip Twist. The girls and I could have shared it and it would have been a meal for the three of us. Delicious.