Exercise 2024 - Week 6

Did you know there are four types of exercise? They are endurance, strength, balance, and flexibility. Each one is important in its own way and I have been neglecting one of them up until now.

Endurance is also known as aerobic exercise, as it increases breathing and heart rates. It improves the health of your heart, lungs, and circulatory system, giving you more “staying power.” It only take 20 minutes a day or 150 minutes a week to make a difference.

Strengthening your muscles by lifting weights or doing pushups will make everyday activities easier. Stronger muscles can also improve your balance and reduce the chance of injury.

Stretching to improve flexibility will allow you to move more freely. It makes it easier to reach for things or look over your shoulder while backing up your car. I think it also helps my joints feel better, especially the knees, which makes it easier to be active.

Now, for the one I was missing, balance. This is important to reduce falls and be more sure on my feet. Tai Chi, balancing on one foot, and heel to toe walking are a few of the ways to improve balance. I have not done any balancing for a long time, so I am adding balancing on one foot to my exercises. I can’t do it for very long, but it should get better each week.

I have done good at exercising each day this past week. I have still not made it a routine of doing them the same time of the day, but they get done. In fact, I have not completed them for today, but I will as soon as this post is finished. It makes me feel good to do the exercises, and I think it helps my moods too.

Today we had Mason visiting. It was good to catch up with him and hear about the things he is doing. We drove out into the desert southwest of Quartzsite to check out a few sights. The Grandview Mine was the first stop. There is not much left other than the concrete and block terraces that supported the equipment, but we did see some interesting round holes going through the concrete and tried to speculate how they were used.

The Gold Eye Mine and Cabin held many treasures from the past. The stone walls of the cabins were still sound, and various artifacts from its past can be found inside those walls. I noticed the inscription above the doorway on one of them was dated 1912. Over at the mine, the tall metal tower was still standing and the cable elevator box was perched over the mine opening that, for everyone’s safety, has been covered with boards. One quirky thing here is the line of old toilets filled with artificial flowers that adorned the bank between the two cabins. Around the corner from here we found two dilapidated cabins on the Yellow Dog Mine. They have definitely seen better days.

We also saw several Native American sites on our journey. The first one was the Indian Grinding Pots, which are several round holes in the rock where they would grind grains, seeds, and nuts. They are perfectly round and of varying depths, although it is hard to see how deep they are since they are filled with the recent rain water. Just across the wash from these pots are some petroglyphs on a rock outcropping. The images are faint, but still visible. A few miles down the trail is an Indian footprint molded into the stone. It must have been mud when he walked though, but over time it hardened into rock and the imprint remained.

We were near the California border, so we crossed over and headed 16 miles north of the interstate to the Blythe Intaglios. There are several geoglyphs here with images of human beings and animals. These very large images were made by scraping away the dark stones and dirt in a pattern to make the image. The images varied from 50 to 171 feet long. It is a miracle they have survived, and although damaged by vehicles in the past, they are now protected by fences. Please, disregard my shadow in the image, I was doing my stretches.

Our last stop was the Cruickshank mining cabin. We almost missed it as it was built into a bank and had a flat roof. It is severely deteriorating, but many of the thick stone walls are still intact. One room had images painted on the walls that looked like spiders. I did not find any information for why or when these were painted, but it made me think a spider invasion chased the miners away.

It was a good day of exploring and enjoying time with Mason. The roads were steep and narrow, and sometimes felt like a rollercoaster, yet we delighted in every mile. After a delicious dinner of brats, rice and vegetables, Lynn joined us as we ended the day with a campfire next to our rig. It was a splendid time as stories were traded while we warmed ourselves next to the toasty fire.

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We were hoping to get to the top of Cunningham Mountain, but the gate was locked. Not all was lost though. Tom noticed a small arch off to the side. It was big enough to crawl though and once on the other side, there was a small cave that would make a great shelter in a storm. Walking over these rocks was good practice for my balance.