and why the NAU parking garages are a good thing.  Some of my very good friends are quite upset at the "loss" of parking at NAU. What's really happening is the parking lots scattered throughout campus are being eliminated and new garages are being built at the perimeters of campus. So, the complaint is that you can't park right in front of your building.

When I moved to Flagstaff in the Spring of 1995, I was enthralled with the vision of being outdoors a lot more and hiking in the beauty of mountains and forest. (I still am.) I thought I would become tremendously fit as a coincidence of being in what had previously been my ideal vacation spot. Thus, I was incredibly surprised in the Spring of 1999 to find I had gained twenty pounds since moving - even though I had hiked to and from Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the Grand Canyon four times. What I had overlooked is that I was not doing it daily.  The key to being able to eat as you want is daily exercise. (Ok, we really can never eat like we'd really want, but I'm talking about the intake of food at least to some moderate degree.)

After a bit of thought, I realized that although I had not done regular "fun" exercise in my prior life, I did routine exercise daily, and without thinking about it. I lived in a suburb of Chicago and worked in downtown Chicago. At least in the three weeks per month when I wasn't traveling, I took a commuter train to work. The trick is, the train stop was exactly one mile from my home and the train station downtown was a little over a mile from my office. So, I had a built in four mile walk five-six days per week! Moreover, on those days I went to the County Courthouse, which was exactly one mile from my office, I got another two miles. When I went to federal court, the round trip was eight blocks. Then there was the fact that my law firm occupied three different floors and it was usually faster to go up and down stairs than wait for an elevator during the several trips to visit my colleagues each day.

In contrast, when I moved to Flagstaff, it was truly beautiful to take a two mile hike four times per week, but that was half the hike I got just going to work in Chicago. In Flagstaff, I drove to work. Now, given where I live and where I work in Flagstaff, that didn't change. But I increased my hiking distance and frequency. (I'm now a daily addict - if I don't get my hike in each morning, watch out!) Voila!  The twenty pounds is gone and now I'm working on the extra 10 that I brought from Chicago.

So, to my friends at NAU, I say, be grateful you need to walk a half mile from car to office  -- just think of the extra cookie you can have for lunch.