It’s that time of year again!  The 2013 Block Island Diary featured more passive relaxation thanprevious years.  Perhaps that’s age setting in but I attribute it to different priorities – this year I started reading my MovNat Certified Trainer Manual and “The Fourfold Path to Healing” which led to more mental activity than physical.  I did not, however, sit on the porch/beach all day!  Here are the highlights of this year’s excursions:

• As always we did a ton of walking!  I don’t think I’ve formally mentioned it on the blog yet so I’ll make it official: Vivobarefoot Ultra Pures are the best warm weather shoes ever! You can take these for a walk, a run, wear them in the water, hike on the rocks (esp. helpful protecting against barnacles), fold them up and stuff them in your backpack, etc.  And when they’re dirty, just rinse them off with the hose!
• Play!  Pretty much as soon as we landed on the Island we headed to Mansion Beach to chill and play.  A few artsy pictures resulted.  Kinda looks like this one!

• Open water swimming!  Since the summer only comes around once a year, I made swimming part of my daily activities out on the Block.  The first day I swam out to a big rock near Ballard’s where I met some party people who dubbed me “Scuba Steve.”   We had nice little conversation where one of my bearded brethren told me in a slurred but sincere way that he loved me.  I did a backflip (solid 9.5/10) and swam back to our sandy reading/deep-thinking spot about 10 min down the beach.  The last day I got a little more ambitious and swam from the breakwater near the Ferry to the Town Beach Pavilion.  I scaled the map and figured it between .75-1 mile.  It felt great to just cruise especially since I passed on the (Sequester) Save the Bay Swim this year.  This picture shows the ferry where I started (mid left) and one of my sprint tracks (low-mid right):

• Beach running.  You know you’re in the right industry when you do research and studying on your vacation!  After cooling off from the longest swim of the trip, I got the desire to dosome running on the sand.  We talk about the different gears in our POSE running class and in our Tough Mudder training (i.e. trot, jog, sprint).  So I decided to do a little of everything and analyzed my tracks.  Here are my findings:

• Hiking the trails and dunes!  Probably the coolest experience came at the Southwestern part of the island at the end of Dickens Road.  My father and I found a nature trail and hiked along until it ended abruptly at a steep and intimidating dune.  We walked along the edge looking for a safe spot to descend it but found nothing that seemed easy.  While my father was walking away (presumably hoping I’d follow), I announced “Dad, I think we can do this!”  After a little arm pulling (figuratively, then later literally) I dropped down first and we carefully made it down the roughly 50′ drop.  “I feel like I just descended Mt Fuji!” he said with obvious relief.  We hung out for a while on the beach, swam a bit, and then headed back up.  The return trip featured a less steep incline but a little more bushwacking to get back to the trail.  Thankfully we have no incidents of poison ivy or tick bites to report!

So once again it was another awesome experience in the land of care-free times!  I miss it already and can’t wait to explore new play-spots next year!