And I Would Walk 500 Miles....

Well, okay, not really, because let's be honest....500 miles is a really long way to walk, but it brings up something that has made me wonder lately.

Just a little background before I get to the main point of this post. The Focus has been out of commission for a few days...actually, 10 or so to be exact and it has been a good practice run on whether AJ and I could really just be a one car family or not. I think that the past week has shown that for now, we really aren't cut out to be just a one car family...mostly because AJ is nowhere near being on a regular schedule, and it's really hard to wake up a sleepy little 15-month old at 6:45 in the morning to take his dada to work, drive to the doctor's where he got 2 shots and a TB test and then drive back to work to give the car back to dad, who had to drive to the hospital for a couple of surgeries. Needless to say, until AJ has a strictly 9 to 5-type schedule we will have to keep both cars running as best we can (thank goodness for a father-in-law who was a mechanic for who knows how many years, specializing up until recently in Ford's exclusively). But I digress...

After a few days of not having a car I was going a little stir crazy, and I had some errands that I needed to run which I had put off for quite some time. More specifically, I had to go shopping at WalMart, which has to be one of my least favorite stores to go to. I'd so much rather shop at Target, but since they have torn down the old Target that was literally just up the street from us, in order to put in a much larger and better Target that will open in October, I had to go to WalMart. Not wanting to take the car from AJ (since he had hospital cases and I really didn't want to just have it for the morning and then have to go back to his work in the afternoon) and feeling particularly "exercisey" the other day, I decided that it wouldn't be a big deal for Keegan and I to make the 6-mile round trip trek from our house to WalMart. I mean, Keegan would be outside, I would have a chance to get in some much needed exercise and I'd get my shopping done. Yeah, right...best laid plans and all, right?

To be honest...it really wasn't that bad of a walk. It actually was good to break up the trip and have a little "downtime" halfway through while I meandered through the store, not because I needed to, but because the weather decided to be lame and drop 40 degrees from Sunday to Wednesday and it had started to mist right as we got to WalMart and I wasn't about to walk back home in the rain (thankfully, there was no rain). Plus, on the way there I was able to stop by our library and return our library books (there is a whole other post about how I have rediscovered the joy of borrowing books from the library...so start thinking of book recommendations...I need some new reading material, people).

Anyway, as I continue to digress..the whole reason for this post was not to talk about how I walked 6 miles, or the crazy weather we have had, but to discuss the stigma that seems to be associated with walking anywhere simply for the purpose of walking. I mean, people walk for exercise and it's not a big deal, and yet it seems to me at least that if you willingly choose to walk to the store/park/library/anywhere instead of getting into your car and driving there, you must have something wrong with you. When did this all change?

We used to walk everywhere when I was younger...or at least that's what it seemed like to me. I mean, the kids that I know of now wouldn't be caught dead walking to school and yet, that's what we always did. The only reason why we didn't walk to high school was because it was too far away...but we were only driven to elementary school and middle school when it rained. Other than that, we had to walk (remember cutting through those orange trees on occasion?). When I went up to BYU-Idaho we walked everywhere, including the grocery store (because there was a nice store that would deliver your groceries for free so that you didn't have to lug them home) and it wasn't a big deal. We were all college students and that's just what you did. And then suddenly it changed...and maybe it just changed because I no longer lived close to where I was going to school, but suddenly it wasn't ok to walk to where I needed to go. Is it just me? Is it just because I happen to live in an area where things are so spread out, or unsafe that walking isn't an option anymore? Do people really look at a pregnant woman, pushing a stroller up the street and think "Oh, how sad, she is too poor to afford a car and has to walk", or do they think "Hey, good for her, she's getting exercise and saving gas." Granted, it's the first (and probably last time for now, at least) time that I will walk to WalMart, but it's not the first time that I have walked to where I needed to run my errands rather than getting in the car and driving. I mean, the library is literally a mile away. There is a Ralph's, a Von's, a Henry's, a Long's, and come October, a Target no more than a mile and a half away. There is a Jamba Juice, a Michael's, a CVS pharmacy, a movie theatre and a Marshall's no more than 3 miles round trip from my house, and I have walked to all of them. Keegan does great in his stroller (both his single and now his double that we now have in preparation for the arrival of Jelly Bean #2), and Jamba Juice is a great treat for both of us when I decide to walk and make the trek there.

I hate that there seems to be such a stigma attached to having to walk. I don't want my kids growing up and thinking that you have to drive everywhere. Honestly, once we no longer have church at 9 a.m., I want to start walking to church on occasion, especially since it is only 1.7 miles away (just over 3 miles total). I think it would be a great break from driving, and it's a great way to save money if the gas prices keep going up like they say that they will, and I can't think of a better way to help me get the post-baby weight off. That's how a lady in my ward lost all of her weight after she had twins, so why can't I do the same thing? And while I can't promise that I will make it every week, I am certainly going to try my hardest to make sure we walk at least once or twice a month.

I mean, if we lived in New York, or pretty much anywhere in Europe, it would be weird for us to not be walking. People can't usually afford the luxury of one car, let alone 2 in those places. I've been through parts of Europe and they have such wonderful public transportation there really isn't a need to have a car, and nobody cares if you are riding the bus or not. So why is it such a weird thing here? Why do so many people think that it's "horrible" if you have to take the bus? or am I the only one that seems to think people seem ashamed of having to wait for a bus (and am I just projecting how I would feel if people saw me waiting at a bus stop?). Is it just a California-type stigma, or do you deal with it where you live too?

*That having been said...I am grateful that I now have my car back...mainly so that Keegan and I can now go to the zoo again, and the beach, and Sea World, and the pool because those places really are just way too far to walk.