It is a 1.2 mile walk from my apartment to BYU campus. This Summer I have been walking to campus to save gas money, get exercise, get fresh air, and put less miles on the car. It is pretty great. But when I started, little did I know how hot it would be, or the beating my feet would take. Every single walk up to campus I sweat through my shirt. It can't be avoided. I have now walked up to campus in 6 different pairs of shoes, and every single pair has given me sores/blisters. Even the comfy pairs. I just am not used to walking that distance, especially with sweaty feet.
I have one particular pair of shoes that hurt every single time I wear them. I wore them today thinking "I have band aids in my backpack. I can just bandage the sore spots and it will be fine." Wrong. For whatever reason, the band aids did not help.
After walking in the painful shoes all day long, I finally decided I couldn't take it any more. On the walk home I went barefoot. Luckily, the walk home is purely residential and there is grass in front of every house. But let me tell you, ladies and gentleman, I never knew there were so many types of grass and cement in the world. This was my barefoot journey.
"Okay, this sidewalk isn't that hot. YIKES that got hot fast! *jumps onto grass* Ahhh relief. Hopefully I'm not allergic to grass like I was as a kid. Ouch! This dead grass hurts! Eek! The cement is hot!
You have your regular grass that I was allergic to as a kid, the dead grass that hurts my feet, the really long grass that I'm afraid to walk on because what if I'm stepping on a black widow, or something? You have the one house on the entire journey that has the softest grass to grace this planet, you have the obstacle course grass that is littered with dog poop, grass that is covered in those little poky balls that fall off trees, and wet grass that has been inefficiently watered in the middle of the day.
Then, in between bouts of walking on grass you have all your cement. There is hot cement, cement in shadow that feels alright, but not as cool as grass, cement with gravel strewn across it that feels like walking on needles, and cement littered with sticky fruit from the bush next to it.
The worst part of the entire journey, though, was crossing the street every block. Asphalt. Is. The. Worst. It never wavers in its bad qualities. Asphalt is always hotter than molten lava. Asphalt never has tress to shade it. Asphalt is always rough and hurts your feet. Asphalt always makes the bottom of your feet black. Asphalt always is the worst part of walking anywhere.
