Day 128/129 – 36.1 km (total – 2976 km)

Taking a break on our hike at King George

Yesterday started with a visit to King George School in Peterborough. Mrs. Jennings is a grade 3 teacher who helped organize the morning. After our chat with the students, we went outside and had lunch with all the students. Mrs. Jennings even made Sarah and I sandwiches along with some amazing home made cookies! The school backs onto a forested trail system and so we went for a good 45 minute hike with the students! It was awesome! The trails were beautiful and the students were excited to be out of the classroom! When we got back, they got some more extended recess – an intense game of tag tired me right out as I seemed to be “it” a good chunk of the time. We said goodbye at the RV and let Mrs. Jenning’s students say hi to Sammy and Koona.

In the afternoon, we went to Edmison Heights School and the students were extra excited because the local tv news channel showed up! So we had a fun time together and some of the students even got to be interviewed… pretty cool! This visit was initiated by Mr. Monkman, a grade 5 teacher. We had a good conversation with his class afterwards and tried to explore the issue a bit further. We talked about perceived risk vs. actual risk and were trying to figure out why their parents, who spent so much time outside when they were growing up (most of it unsupervised), have become almost overprotective at times. Although we have chosen to focus on screen time, there are certainly other issues at play resulting in kids not spending as much time outside.

In the evening, we were at the Camp Kawartha Environment Centre that’s part of the Trent University campus. My friend Jo works for Peterborough Green Up and had set up a showing of a new film called Mother Nature’s Child. Taking the form of a documentary, it explored some of the positive initiatives in the U.S while reiterating the benefits of spending that time outside. It was a great film and some good discussion was had afterwards. The challenge becomes getting a film like this viewed by a more mainstream population. The audience who came out already embody this issue fully. There were some amazing folks there! It was good to reconnect with some people who I haven’t seen in awhile. Thanks to Peterborough Green Up and Camp Kawartha for the donation towards the TMO Project. And thanks to Dave and Amanda for the massive jar of homemade maple syrup!

Today it was back to running. The body seemed a bit reluctant to want to run today, but managed to get some fair distance in. We have lots of time to get into Toronto so I may give my legs some easier running days over the next few days… we’ll see!

Imagine a green space like this at the back of your school?!