You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘outdoors’ tag.
K and I rounded out our August Challenge this past Labor Day Weekend just spending time here and there reading in the park, heading to the beach with friends, and simply thoroughly enjoying the perfect weather the weekend afforded.
If you haven’t read about it already, the August Challenge was a challenge K and I put to ourselves to spend August Saturdays outside in an effort to get out of the climate controlled boxes of the workweek and to experience what is actually happening in the world around us. While our expectations of the challenge were varied, it became clear through writing about the experience that the challenge to get outside led to an exploration of place.
In going to Humbolt Park, a few different stretches of beach along Lake Michigan, and a suburban farm last month, I noticed differences in how people choose to interact with the natural environment of a place. In Humbolt Park, the designers attentively preserved patches of prairie and designed structures to interact with the natural scenery; on the stretch of beach in western Michigan where I was raised, the ecosystem underwent changes despite human interference to stabilize the landscape; in the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, industry flanked 15 miles of ‘protected’ lakeshore despite the impact that industry might have on the surrounding environment; and surrounding a suburban farm we visited was a homogenized design and lifestyle that did nothing to take into account how the design/lifestyle would interact with the landscape.
In every action we take, we make a decision about how we will interact with the people and the place around us. We can choose to take nothing into account about our surroundings like the developers swallowing up all types of land for the same purpose, or we can take a thoughtful look at our surroundings and then slowly move with constant reflection of the both the positive and negative impacts of our involvement with our surroundings.
I’ve been thinking that a monthly challenge for K and I to change and reflect upon some aspect of our lifestyle might prove a gainful experience, so for the month of August we’re challenging ourselves to spend our Saturdays outdoors. We’ll get up, get ready, gather our things, then turn off the computer and TV and head out for a day-long outdoors adventure.
The ideas behind this challenge are to get us out of the climate-controlled boxes we sit in all week at work, to actually experience what’s going on outside, and to just enjoy the rest of summer while we can. I’m sure we’ll find some great festivals to go to, or we can just read or play games in the park near us. I’ll write updates as to how the challenge is going, and I encourage you to join us with your own outdoor plans on Saturdays this month!
Articles from around the internet (see links below) all seem to point to increased bike-ridership this year, and I’m pleased to count myself among those happy riders. Except when I’m not going home straight after work or if there’s chance of excessive wind or rain, I’ve been biking to work since April of this year. My commute is 4.5 – 5 miles each way depending on the route, and it takes about 30-40 minutes door-to-door. While it was initially pretty intimidating to bike down one of the major commuter corridors of the city, I quickly became more comfortable and confident in the ride and now much prefer it to my previous commute on the ‘el’.
Among the many benefits of biking is the chance to spend a half-hour or so before and after work simply focusing my attention on moving through the fresh air and enjoying a short time of freedom from the distractions of phones, the internet, and the plethora of advertisements with which the media is constantly bombarding me. I also have the satisfaction of knowing that this daily activity is not having a negative impact on the environment, and as an added bonus, I save nearly $20/week versus riding the ‘el’.
I’m sure I’ll have plenty more to say about biking as the blog progresses, but for the meantime, check out the links below, and let me know if there’s anything in particular regarding bike commuting about which you’d like to hear more.
Additional reading:
Bike, Meet the City. City, This is the Bike.
Green Tip: How to Bike to Work
and for those who would rather walk, check out your area’s Walk Score
