Monthly Archives: August 2013

Exercising on the Road

This subject comes up occasionally on various internet forums, especially for fulltime travelers. It can be difficult to maintain a physical exercise routine. Two of the most popular exercises among RVers are walking and bicycling. I really had to think twice before that last sentence because I’m not really sure that it counts as exercise if you’re just strolling during your walk or peddling your bicycle at walking speed. OK, it’s better than sitting on the couch but probably doesn’t do much for weight loss.

If you need to exercise for weight loss or building muscle tone, your options can be tricky. Personally, I’ve always been a big believer in jogging for weight loss. But as I get older (and maybe lazier) I can’t run far enough or fast enough to make a difference. I also have to consider deteriorating knee joints and foot problems. I certainly don’t want to carry my own home gym with me due to space and weight requirements.

Finally, a light bulb lit up over my head. I’ve heard about the benefits of yoga and decided that it fit the bill for an RV. No equipment other than a mat. No jumping up and down or other high impact moves. So the last time I was in town I went into Best Buy looking for a yoga DVD. The only 1 they had on the shelf was by Jillian Michaels of The Biggest Loser. Naturally I had misgivings but decided to buy it since it had 2 different level workouts. After playing the DVD, I found out that even Level 1 had 2 different levels within it for beginners and advanced. My biggest concerns were balance and flexibility. The next morning I gave it a try. She started out with a short warmup of yoga poses and that had me breathing hard. The entire workout is supposed to be about 30 minutes. I think I lasted about 5 minutes after the warmup. The next day I made it 15 minutes.

So, something that looked very easy was turning out to be very difficult, at least for me. Maybe I should’ve looked online for ‘Yoga for Seniors’ or something similar 🙂 Anyway, I’ll keep trying and hopefully I’ll be able to finish the full 30 minutes without calling 911.

Travel days are never the same!

So, yesterday I left the campground I’d been working at in Wisconsin. But I almost didn’t. The entrance to the campground is a dirt road on an incline. During the few months I was there, I would routinely go up that hill in my truck idling in 2nd or 3rd gear with no problem. Now I knew I couldn’t get away with that once I hooked up the 5er to leave so I got a running start at it but didn’t want to overdo it because of the slight curve at the bottom of the hill. So, I get almost to the top of the hill and the engine starts lugging. Couldn’t drop to second quick enough and started spinning the wheels. (Note to self: next time get a 4WD automatic!) Had to back all the way down the hill and almost screwed the pooch on that one. Overcorrected at one point and had to stop to remove a post before I hit it.

I had no intention of failing on the second attempt so I just barreled through that curve and made the top with plenty of room to spare. The rest of the drive was pretty boring, thankfully. Still a lot of construction around Minneapolis/St. Paul. Ran into headwinds again starting in the western half of MN. I knew when the winds picked up because I could see my computer-generated MPG dropping. But it never got as bad as it did the first time I drove to Stephen.

Got to the campground with plenty of daylight left, backed in, got leveled, hooked up electric, cable and water and started to relax. There’s something strange about my television because the first time I hook up to new cable many of the stations come in fuzzy. It always clears up within a day or 2 but last night I got to watch reruns of The Big Bang Theory (just a little on the fuzzy side).

Dakota was initially leery of heading for the open door, probably since I haven’t let her out in a long time, but eventually she got the idea and she spent the night outside last night. She didn’t do any hunting cuz she headed straight for the food bowl when I let her in this morning. We’ll see what happens tonight.