Mapping My Walk

My brother told me about a phone app called Map My Walk.  As soon as I got my new phone I raced to put that app on it,  I love it because it draws a little map as you walk!  I can even use it to find myself when I go exploring and  can't find my way back to the trail.  This past couple of weeks I've been exploring a new area of the woods around here, and the drawing above shows where I walked this afternoon.  I did a 4.1 mile walk mainly following the river (you can see the trail, which begins at the upper right at the black outlined circle, the parking lot by the trail head.  When I got into the woods that did not follow the river, I followed a series of trails that I had never been on before.  At one point it felt like I had missed a turnoff, so I looked at the map and sure enough, it showed that I was heading off in the wrong direction.

The drawings above show the key to the various kinds of terrain I passed on or through or near.  This area is so interesting to me because the trail goes through farmland on one side of the trail and woods on the other for a long distance.  Meanwhile the river is constantly burbling and singing, cows are bellowing in farm fields, and occasional cars go whooshing by on the road, unseen but really quite close in places.  Wonderful smells of roses and honeysuckle, the blues of blue-eyed grass, and cool breeze with warm sun made this a perfect afternoon for a walk. 

You will not be interested in all the other information Map My Walk heaped on me:  my speed, calories burned, something called Blitz speed(???), varying altitudes I passed through, other similar walks in my area, an offer to find friends for me to share my walk information with, and the offer to upgrade to a paid version of the app that will tell me even more.  I could not be happier than I am with my free version and its miraculous little map that even shows when and where I deviated ten feet to check out some hammocks that were strung in a tree and in which students were napping.