Have you thanked your legs today?

Where did your legs take you today?  You know, some people don’t have legs.  I always think about that, and am grateful.  So I try to use them.  And when I’m tired, or my quads are burning, and I'm thinking, “Why am I doing this to myself?”  The answer is, “Because I can.”

Today my legs took me wading through the crystalline streams of the Panamanian rainforest, searching for endangered frogs that are succumbing to the chytrid fungus.  In heavy rubber boots, I navigated through the forest streams, trying with each step to determine the profundity of my next foot placement, to avoid a flood of water into my boot and having to suffer through a wet sock and pruny foot for the next five hours.  There were many close calls, but luckily I gauged well, even in the pitch darkness when we waited until the cover of darkness to conduct our night search of the rare amphibians.

My legs have taken me to the tops of glaciers, to volcanoes over 20,000 feet high, and through 9 days of trekking through the Huayhuash circuit of the Andes mountains.  My legs have carried me across 26.2 miles of sand and gravel for my first marathon, and have kept me in control of innumerable horses across varied terrain.  My legs have taken me on hundreds, if not thousands, of miles of hiking trails -- muddy, wet, dry, dusty, slippery, sandy, leafy, dirty, hard concrete, soft earth, vines, roots, insects, ants, watch out for snakes, I shouldn't be wearing flip-flops.  

Careful in the dark there, as you scramble over treacherous morrains, and now, put on the crampons, we're climbing the icy glacier.  Rubber boots, flip-flops, running shoes, hiking boots, crampons, Crocs, high heels, flats, Havianas.  Gaiters for the ash and yellow sulfuric powder as we sink into the side of the volcano. Blisters, black toenails, plantar fasciitis, shin-splints, IT band syndrome -- what we put our bodies through!

Okay, crossing the river now.  How many rivers, how many highlands over the ichu grass, in search of the elusive vicuña, Vicugna vicugna?  How many rivers, how many vines to trip over, spider webs to swat from the face, in search of the elusive Atelopus limosus frog? 

I've got many rivers to cross/But I can't seem to find my way over/Wandering I am lost/As I travel along the white cliffs of Dover.