This morning, I’ll have a walking companion for the first time in over a year. I do love the solitude on my early morning walks. I also enjoy walking with someone “occasionally”.

For the next week or so, my cousin, from our neighbouring province of Alberta, is in town visiting her Dad. When Janet is here, we walk together and catch up on each other’s lives.

It’ll be a very different routine for me. We’ll do the same paths and trails that I usually do, but in different combinations, because we need to strategize stopping points for my cousin. We do a lot of talking during our walks together, so I don’t have my usual playlist to set the pace.

Janet is 16 years my junior, so one would think she’d out-walk me pace-wise. This wasn’t the case last year. She’s very physically active and takes part in many outdoor sports. Power walking just isn’t one of them … unless she’s added it since we last saw each other. I guess this morning’s walk will tell the tale.

I don’t mind sacrificing a bit of pace for a good visit, and I can always add some distance to compensate. We might even do a 10K (6.2 miles) together this week.

Maybe we’ll do a sunrise picnic one morning, which I recently posted about here .

Photo Note: I straightened the horizon of my feature photo, then took it into Snapseed because I wanted to add some drama by darkening the silhouettes, and emphasizing the end of the path. To achieve those goals, I used the curves tool to add a soft contrast, and then added quite a heavy vignette.

Original

“But I need solitude–which is to say, recovery, return to myself, the breath of a free, light, playful air.”

Friedrich Nietzsche