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Jan 7, 2008 :: Heigh ho, Heigh ho. Krog Tunnel, Cabbagetown

It's a good thing I like my walk to work. A great thing, actually. Most days, Blake accompanies me to the train--we ride from Inman Park to Five Points Station and catch the North Springs Line, where I ride a few stops and get off at Arts Center. He continues on to St. Joseph's Hospital, outside the perimeter. Then I walk down Peachtree toward work. We rendezvous on the 5:27 train that comes through my station, him in the last car, waiting on me. I always feel a little like a spy meeting my contact as I wait. Sometimes I'm early, and a train or two fly by me and I lean against the station support pole, trying to look important. "No, not that train. I don't ride that one."

But the walk. Besides the company, there are two (ok, maybe three) best parts. One, the tunnel. My dad would have honked driving through one like this when my brother and I were kids. We loved it, then, as we got older and more self-conscious, we hated it. Two, the houses in Inman Park. As we go past the 3,000 square foot Queen Annes, all of them painted 8 colors, I like to dream that Blake and I own one and are filling it with pets and friends. That we're renovating, peeling back decades of wallpaper, finding treasures in the attic. Three, the whole walk, morning plus evening, is a full hour (or more, depending on lights and street traffic). I burn 400-some calories every day doing it.

Now that's a benefit.