I've been thinking about my dad and making connections that I had never made before,

how instrumental my dad was to this daily pursuit of walking that I enjoy every day.

And these were connections that I don't think I made early on.

In fact, it wasn't until recently when I started thinking through,

it's like, okay, this love of walking that I have.

Did it really start when I got the Fitbit 10 years ago?

No. I think the seeds were planted there long before. My mom and dad were

committed to the idea of an annual vacation, and I've got some warm memories, powerful memories

of those vacations, and through most of my teenage years, those vacations were in Cape May, New Jersey, at the beach.

And one of the things that I loved doing during those annual vacations in Cape May was taking

long walks. And it wasn't so much we would be on the beach and I would get up and walk,

which tends to be my method now. We'll go to the beach and I would get up and walk which tends to be my my method now we'll

go to the beach and we'll sit there and then it's like okay I'm tired of sitting get up and take a walk

along the beach and then come back and depending on how long we're there maybe eventually an hour

later okay I'm tired of sitting again go take another another walk now this was a little bit different

we would spend the mornings

on the beach with the beach towel, and then we would go back to our little apartment, which was about

a block off the beach, and we would have lunch. And I think that was nap time, at least for one of my

sisters who was still really young.

And then I would go off and take a walk along another part of the beach.

And I would love those walks.

They actually became the highlight of those annual vacations.

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