The backpack I’ll use when I walk the Camino was bought at an outdoor gear tent sale. It’s a used pack – clearly indicated by the words “Rental EMS” written across one of the pockets.
I was thinking it’d be nice to have something to cover those words. Today, I found one thing that will help me do just that.
My hometown is blessed with four National Parks, all just a few miles apart from each other. In 2007, property was acquired that allowed all four to finally be connected by walking trails. Years ago, as a Park Ranger at Vanderbilt Mansion (one of the four aforementioned parks), I would tell people about the trails, but couldn’t speak about them all from experience. Today, that changed.
Today, for the first time, I walked from Vanderbilt Mansion to the FDR Home to Eleanor Roosevelt’s Valkill. It took me two hours and 15 minutes and my pedometer told me I walked a total of 7.5 miles in that time. Wow, did that feel good!
A waterfall near the Lower Gatehouse at Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site.
The back of the FDR Home viewed from the Hyde Park Trail.
Turns out that the town of Hyde Park has a nice little brochure that promotes these trails. I used to give it out to visitors. If you walk five of the trails on the brochure, you can get a patch. Each year, they come out with a new one. Wouldn’t that be just the perfect thing to sew on my pack? Something with my very home town right on it! If you click here, you can see the map of the trails I walked today (Trails B, F, and G). Walks A, J, and K I’ve done many times before – and done them all in the last few weeks. So guess what? Tomorrow I’ll head out to claim my patch! 🙂
RenaissanceRebecca 
Rebecca,
Although I seem to have somewhat randomly (through 29gifts) jumped into a time of your life that is quite eventful and find it fascinating, my own life is filled with too many variables and complications to fully backtrack through your blog to find out more about you. You certainly do seem like a lovely, adventurous, talented young woman whom I’d very much like to meet in person someday.
Glad to hear that you’re back in action, training for your pilgrimage, and finding the right equipment and accessories that will be both functional and meaningful for your upcoming adventure.
XOXO
Thanks Linda. Glad to have “met” you as well, and would love to meet you in person someday:)
I appreciate that you are able to know what you have time for in your life and what you don’t:) If/when you do want to read some background, a while back I did a series of posts on “How I Got Here.” You can find them here: https://renaissancerebecca.wordpress.com/category/how-i-got-here/
In the meantime, thank you so much for reading and especially for posting comments. I love interacting with people in person, and it’s fun via the blog as well:)