Last Sunday it was time for another walk enjoyed in the company of my mom and youngest brother. I spent most of the weekend at my mom's, which is also where I grew up. This walk brought back many memories from my childhood and I'll share some of them with you 🙂
Usually, when my mom and brother go for a walk they take the car and drive a short distance but this time I suggested we could go for a rather long walk (I would estimate it was about 7 kilometers) starting from the house.
I brought my camera but the weather wasn't the best for taking pictures, in fact, it was drizzling, and it was rather cold. 4 degrees Celsius. I had my winter jacket on for the first time this season.
Below you can see the starting point. An uphill slope just behind mom's barn. The neighbor, who is responsible for the road, had already placed these orange sticks along the road. That's for the plow truck. It's a bit challenging for me that it's already so cold, unusually cold. And yes, we had a little bit of snow last week (it melted away fast though).
So for the first part of the walk, we were just walking along the road. After 1.25 kilometers we reached this nice 'triangle'. I know very well that it's 1.25 kilometers from the house because as a child I ran this distance a lot. Here I turned around, so the total distance was 2.5 kilometers. That was called a Cooper. Back then I never knew why but I was curious now so I googled it.
The cooper test which was designed by Kenneth H. Cooper in 1968 for US military use is a physical fitness test. In its original form, the point of the test is to run as far as possible within 12 minutes. Source
Apparently, there's also a 1.5-mile version of it and I guess that's where the version I'm familiar with comes from since 1.5 miles roughly is 2.5 kilometers. I don't know, maybe it's considered fairly good if you can run 2.5 kilometers in 12 minutes (at least for a child). It makes sense because I remember the target was always to complete every kilometer under 5 minutes. (That was also my target when I later ran 10 kilometers so in that perspective 2.5 kilometers in 12 minutes doesn't sound very fast...).
But let's get back to the walk. There's a trail called Silverleden, which means The Silver Trail that we were partially following. (The names come from the old silver mines, which we didn't pass on this walk (another time 🙂).
We stopped briefly to have a look (on the outside) at the LM Ericsson Museum (the museum is only open in Summer). LM Ericsson was the founder of the Swedish telecommunications industry. (You might have heard of the company Ericsson). Kind of funny that this guy was from the small village where I grew up.
After this, we started to walk more in the forest.
I have always liked this old underground storehouse.
Passing by a woodland lake.
An old barn, that's not in use (close by there's also a house but no one is living there).
It was wet outside. We had our rubber boots on.
Some nice colors, but as I already wrote, not the best day for beautiful Autumn colors.
This shelter is mostly used for elk hunting.
Emerging from the forest.
Here I was also running a lot growing up. I didn't only run Coopers, this was part of a 7-kilometer loop. (I was a bit older then, my early teenage years).
Here we are on our way back, as you can see, it's muddy in the fields.
I really value the opportunity I have now to see my youngest brother regularly. (Of course also my mom but at least I talk to her quite a lot when I live far away). My autistic brother doesn't talk on the phone so there's no way to keep in touch unless you see him in person. He has a very special place in my heart and I haven't been so close to him in like 20 years. I'll miss him a lot when I leave in about a month.
Thanks for reading 🌸
Wishing you a lovely day 💚