Views from the trails

Jena is my kind of town. I could live here forever. OK, the people are a bit too German for forever, but the town fits me well. It does have a lot of green space with creeks, a river, great playgrounds for the kids and the hiking is very good.

One thing that I was really looking forward to was being without a car. At home we are completely dependent on cars. Walking distance to everything we need and good public transit were going to be a nice change of pace.


For me, walking to work has been a vacation of its own. If I took the fastest way to work, and pushed it a bit it's 25 minutes from apartment door to office door. But that is on a pretty busy street and not that nice of a walk so I avoid it unless I need to pick up milk or it is early Saturday morning. The road contours around on the side of the valley, with some city above it until it gets too steep and the forest starts. I've explored every nook and cranny of the cross streets looking for alternate routes, and have a couple of great ones. My standard when I need to make time is only about 10 minutes longer, and it is all on residential roads, less traveled paths and old abandoned parking lots. It has a bit more elevation change and a much better view.

But I haven't stopped there. Every time I think I have a route in mind, I find another possibility to explore and have almost never taken exactly the route I've taken before. The upper end so far is a 75 minute ridge walk. It starts at the house, goes across the neighborhood park, past a couple residential blocks, climbs straight up into the forest to the valley rim, contours the rim until you get to a great overlook, then drops down through meadows to the institute's back door.

Here's some of the views along my various ways to work.