She hikes. In sandals. She can’t get her hiking boots on anymore and she hasn’t found a suitable new pair. But she does have a new pair of sandals – with fresh tread – in the box on her closet shelf. Waiting for next season. End of summer sale. The wise woman is always prepared. She also bought a couple new pairs of wool socks – smart ones. Until the snow flies, her sandals will do just fine. Besides, with sandals you can walk right in and through the creek and keep moving forward. Well, if it’s a cool morning, you might want to stop and take off your wool socks first before you walk through the water so you can put them on warm and dry later.

With the right kind of sandals, one is always prepared. One can hike or walk or fish or kayak. One can shove a kayak off from the beach or drag a kayak back from the beach, right through the sand or mud or pooling water. When one wears sandals, she can rise in the morning and bathe and do her toenails after she straps on her sandals and go hike while her pedicure is drying. Sandals are so versatile they go with her shorts, her skirt, her tunic or her maxi-dress. 

So it was that she rose on a typical Tuesday morning, made a quick toilette, pulled on her hiking clothes and sandals and took a four-mile hike to the Lion’s Den and back. The trail is well used by walkers, runners and bicyclists. It is quite dusty, though not unbearably hot this time of year. She strode through brush and trees at a good pace, gained 22 floors in elevation, stopped to enjoy the colors of the changing season, and met a masked art class spread out on the trail and sketching. She returned home having passed only a handful of bikers and joggers because it was nearing midday. “Whoof,” she said pulling off her socks and shaking them. She stepped into the bathtub and rinsed off her legs -the final twelve inches from calve down to the dirty feet. She shook her head and smiled wryly to herself.  And they actually had to explain the practice and purpose of foot-washing to us in Sunday School when we were kids? I’m telling you, we must have been a pack of nature deprived and trail starved baby boomers growing up. But look at us now! Bicycles. Kayaks. Running shoes. Tents. Campers. Motorhomes. – and foot washing. We’re making up for lost time.