Friday Walks

For those that know me, it will come to no surpise to remember that I have an invisible friend named Richard. For those who don't know me, let me tell you all about it.

Richard is a retired social studies teacher that I met years and years ago (Richard could tell me what year) at a walking club. The walking club was located at Kinsmen Recreation Centre in the valley. I started going with a co-worker, Anna, but found out pretty quickly that I wanted to walk with Richard, 'cause he was at the front of the class. I like being at the front of the class. Richard and I discovered we had lots in common and became friends. Years later we are still walking. We left the walking club behind after a year or so (Richard would know). Now we meet in the winter at Millenium Place in Sherwood Park and in the summer we meet at various parking lots adjacent to the river valley trails.

Friday walks are different. In the winter, we usually have time for an hour around the track and 20 or 30 minutes in the weight room, 3 days a week. In the summer, generally we meet on my days off, and do a loop of an hour or so. But not so on Fridays. Fridays we go for the BIG WALK. We plan walks that are 14 km or more. The first was a trip to the zoo, from the Kinsmen parking lot. We had done the zoo walk before, but now it's officially part of the Summer Friday Big Walk.

That is a french fry that I am holding. Our reward for walking to the zoo. Richard brings his camera on these Friday walks, takes pictures and then sends me the pictures by email. When I told him that I was going to do a blog of our walks and use the pictures, he was visibly uncomfortable. This is why my picture is here and Richard's is not. This is part of the reason why my kids call Richard my invisible friend.


The second Big Friday Walk that we took was just last Friday. We started at the Strathcona Science Park parking lot and walked to Wayne Gretzky Drive. We stopped at an outlook bench on Hardisy Drive. I think I'm o.k. publishing the following picture. I mean, this could be any one. But let me assure you, it's my invisible friend, Richard.

Our Summer Big Friday Walks usually include some animals or birds. On this walk, we encountered some geese and the baby geese (Richard would know the correct terminology). The zoo walk had other animals. Mostly zoo animals. No pictures of them.

If it looks like these geese are running towards us, that's because they are. They obviously were expecting a little more than a smile and wave. We didn't have anything in our backpacks that we could share, so Richard took a quick picture and we took off at a brisk walk.


The Summer Friday Big Walks are a lovely way to end the week. My knees usually do not like the walks, but generally I ignore their whining. I mean knees are only a couple little parts of a big whole. A couple of Advils and an evening of rest usually does the trick. I am hoping for a long warm summer. Many more Big Friday Walks ahead to look forward to.