Beamsville and Life As We Knew It

Above: a satellite view of how far I've come on my Virtual Con Walk. It's mostly cloudy and around 9 degrees Celsius in Beamsville, Ontario right now; the place is also known by some as the town of Lincoln.

Beamsville was named after a fellow named Jacob Beam, who aided in the escape of British troops during the the U.S. War of Independence. He was arrested and had to forfeit all his land as well as 500 pounds for his freedom.


Downtown Beamsville at Night - Photo by Chiaro


Can't blame him for wanting to move after that; apparently he and his family decided to move to the Niagara Peninsula in the late 1700s. The Crown granted Jacob and his family 400 acres, and the community grew as more settlers arrived. It was eventually named Beamsville because Jacob generously donated land for schools, the church and the cemetery.

Sadly, I arrived too early for the Beamsville Strawberry Festival.

Anyway, my walking's going well; I aim for about 5k (3 miles) a day, rain or shine. It usually takes about an hour, depending how fast I walk and whether I break it up with an errand -- walking to a post office or store, for example, or stopping for a lunch break. According to my pedometer, my average walking speed seems to be around 5.7 km/hr.



I was worried that doing more walking instead of running would be less exercise overall, but I'm finding that's not the case. For one thing, I don't have to change my clothes to go walking -- this makes it less likely that I'll procrastinate or put it off because I can just walk out the door; I end up doing it pretty much every day instead of aiming for just 3-4 times a week. I walk pretty quickly and usually take a knapsack with me (with lunch or books and water, etc.), so that adds to the weight I carry around and makes it a better cardio workout than walking without gear.

In any case, I'm finding that I'm feeling better and sleeping better these days, so I'm keen on continuing my virtual con walk around the continent. Thanks again to Brooke Lunderville for the inspiration!

Just finished reading Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer. It was a great read, and immediately made me go to our pantry to check how many cans of food were in there. Probably not enough for Jeff and I to survive more than a few weeks in an emergency, but at least we could gnaw on dry pasta for a while. This would be a good book for reluctant teen readers; it's fast-moving, with plenty of action and suspense.

In any case, the story was thoroughly engrossing and I found it to be one of those "augh too tired to read but must keep reading but NO NO I want to enjoy reading it while I'm not so tired but AUGH I can't stop reading" books. I've also been a sucker for survival stories, fiction and nonfiction, especially well-written ones like Life As We Knew It.



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