Good Bye 2020

Everyone has their 2020 stories to tell!  I choose to sum mine up with "walkin & chalkin".  The year began with unspeakable personal sorrow, then expanded to national and global sorrows.  Our losses of Raj and then Lucy in the first two months of the year literally scarred me for life.  But what our nation and the world has been through since March - not just from the pandemic - were things I could never have imagined in my lifetime.  I am thankful for the simple joy of chalk messages, that - so far - my family remains alive, the joy of new friends that our pretty puppies brought into our lives, and the hope that a new year might bring.    My link to sanity is walking almost every day with my Dalmatians.  This year, we walked 1,992 miles, and I leashed up at least one dog to walk 358 days in 2020!  Since I started keeping track of my miles with my dogs in May of 2013, we have logged 13,210.8 miles or 53% of my personal goal to walk the equivalent of the circumference of the Earth at the Equator!  As one of my Dalmatian Distance Log Program friends pointed out, we are on our way home!

For some unknown reason, early in the Pandemic, I got some sidewalk chalk and started leaving rudimentary chalk messages on our daily walks.  We did them for 101 consecutive days and then sporadically throughout the rest of the year.  I am stunned by the number of strangers who stop me walking randomly to thank me for these little notes of hope.  It's good to do good.

Enjoy this little slide show of the highlights of our walks from 2020.  ONWARD!