I left my apartment to try to catch some of the last rays of quasi-spring sun before it ducked behind the clouds, north up towards the park that runs through the middle of my city. There’s a trail that runs along the outskirts of the zoo. Every now and then I’ll go through the zoo, but you need a ticket, even though it’s free, and to get the ticket you have to do some business with a QR code and your phone and honestly I don’t like zoos all that much so I usually just stay on the trail. Usually I go to the left on the trail but today I decided to go to the right, which goes into the park proper. After about a half mile or so (if that, I’m terrible with distances), the trail splits off, and if you veer to the left, you can go through a more densely wooded area. It’s a gentle but persistent uphill climb, which I appreciated since today is my rest day but I still wanted to close my Move ring on my watch because if you give me a metric by which to succeed I’m going to do everything in my power to succeed in it. I huffed my way up another half mile or so until I saw a path cutting left up a hill and through some brush, a shortcut essentially to the rich neighborhood this trail pops you out in, but that could save me ten minutes or so. I took it. I walked through a small children’s park at the end of that spur, near which there was a pile of somehow quite fresh Christmas trees. I smelled balsam as I walked by them. From there it was fairly uneventful: back on city roads, I followed a main thoroughfare over a bridge and back to my neighborhood, which is denser and louder and has better restaurants. The clouds had rolled in and I had to pee and there was a chill settling in. Plus I hadn’t eaten much (I still haven’t today, must remedy that) and I’m going out for a drink with a friend after I finish writing this. I should change my shirt; it’s a bit sweaty from that walk and it has cat hair on it, because when I got home I hugged my cat.