Why I Pokemon Go for Walks

Maybe it’s because I never truly grew up, or perhaps I just require daily escapes from reality, but I LOVE playing Pokemon Go while out on my daily walks.

I hear you tsk-tsk-ing. I see you shaking your head 🙂 And I get it. I am an otherwise respectable 49-year-old. How could I publicly admit I love catching Pokemon?  Well, I just did. Unfortunately for my kids, I have no shame and no sense of propriety 😮

If you’re curious, but don’t know quite what Pokemon Go is about, I’ll lay it out for you simply:

You catch adorable monsters.
With your cell phone.
While walking around.

Why do I love it so? That’s a 3-part answer.

(1) The Nostalgia.

When my now-teenage boys were little, it was all Pokemon, all the time. They collected the cards, watched the videos, and played the games well into middle school. With expert-level confidence, they spent hours discussing capture strategy, combat power, gym leaders, and evolution. Names like Charmander, Gyarados, and Poochyena rolled easily off their normally inarticulate young tongues.

While we all started playing Pokemon Go this summer, they dropped it once school started again. I’ve gladly continued, and revel in being able to re-visit something they loved for so long, to grab a little bit of our sweet past right at a time when they’re looking ahead to college, independence, adulthood. They answer my many questions and smile at my triumphs (Like that one time, at a college tour, when I caught a Pikachu. A PIKACHU! FYI that’s a rare occurrence.) While they good-naturedly endure my enthusiasm for this game, they are clueless about how much I love sharing it with them ♥

(2) The Fun Factor.

I’m a collector at heart, which is why I probably find Pokemon Go so entertaining. As a kid it was baseball cards, Charlie’s Angel cards (yes, that was a thing), Wacky Packages, and books, books, books (Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden especially, but Richie Rich comics, too!). It’s been a while since I collected anything except -apparently- cheese. A quick inventory of the fridge revealed 9 different kinds. NINE. Er. Ma. Gerd.

Now, I collect adorable ‘pocket monsters’ as I walk around my town’s center. Below are just a few pics of my vast collection.

The fuzzy Venonat, ‘caught’ right by my sister’s house…
The imposing Drowsee, in my driveway…
The utterly adorable Evee, down at the local park…
The dainty Bellsprout, by the ball field…
…and the rotund Poliwag behind the library…

Aren’t they precious?? Reason enough to play, if you ask me. But there’s one more reason…

(3) Pokémon Go Boosts my Mileage.

An unexpected side benefit. Not only does it ramp up the fun factor while I walk, but my walking mileage as well. Win-win!

The Pokemon Go app itself encourages me to walk more, because the apps tracks my mileage. This earns me XP (experience points), so I can ‘level up’ and earn more ‘stuff’ to help me catch more Pokemon. Yes, I know I am losing you 🙂 However, it appears I motivated by both the rewards as well as the challenge. Competition, even against myself, fuels me.

I’ll literally ‘go the extra mile’ and take a loop around the local park just to see what cute critters I might run into, knowing that, as I walk, I might just finally hatch that 10K egg (much better than the 2K egg), or collect items at a Pokestop (more Ultraballs, please!), or earn me that elusive Level 25…

Oh dear, this is serious. And possibly genetic. My big sister? She’s already past Level 25…

Possibly now you’re thinking one of three things…
Get a life.
Get help.
or maybe, just maybe…
Get me my phone, I think I’ve got to try this 🙂

LOL. That’s all from this fan-girl today. I’m not all fluff, promise. I have lots of other ideas on how to make your daily walks something you look forward to. Coming soon!

Gotta go now. There’s a Squirtle nearby that I need to catch before it ‘spawns out’ aka disappears.

What…did you think they hang around all day? 😉