Footsteps Travel Weblog

Unknown Trails Beat the Usual Routes

Posted on August 30th, 2010 by Heather Dugan

Invariably, Travel injects my running routine with some sensory enhancements. Relocating my route to the edge of an ocean, up the side of a mountain, through the streets of an unfamiliar city or into the turns of an untried trail is a treasured element of the overall trip experience. The need to see what lies just down the beach or how the view will expand over the next ridge is a terrific natural energy boost. Like fresh paint on the walls of a familiar room, running in unknown places has a rejuvenating quality that lingers long after I’m solidly grounded into the repetitions of everyday life again.

In Puerto Rico we ran a golf course, innumerable beaches, roads and a couple of trails. The hazards ranged from coconuts and hermit crabs to wild horses, chickens and mosquitoes. Occasional encounters with spraying irrigation systems were generally a nice counterbalance to the humid heat, however!

The palm lined beach we ran from our first location in Rio Grande was especially lovely. In the morning thick clouds rolled overhead, ferrying their moisture inland and giving glimpses of the day’s light hidden just behind them.

The effect of such visual inspiration? Better speed, better distance and some endorphin-rich vacation memories that followed me all the way home and back onto my regular running route.

Family Vacation

Tags: 1 Adult/3 Children, Rio Grande, Running/Health & Fitness, Seascapes, Vieques // 4 Comments »

Cracker Barrel Cow

Posted on August 26th, 2010 by Heather Dugan

Sometimes a day becomes memorable simply by virtue of the degree to which it has veered off its planned course. Last Saturday was one of those days.

Our original aim was to ride the Kokosing Trail near Mt Vernon, Ohio, a particular favorite of mine. Insistent storms downsized that idea to a hike. With GPS on our phones we didn’t need more than a general direction, so we simply headed east hoping to beat the storm front.

We finally found blue blazed trees marking The Buckeye Trail inside of Salt Fork State Park, decided to ignore some sporadic raindrops and began following the marked trees down a rather nondescript road. That was as challenging as it got, however. We soon decided that Salt Fork was better for boating and golfing than for hiking. Additionally, the occasional drips were revealed as excellent foreshadowing when clouds rolled in, opened wide and let loose with a pelting downpour. We were soon drenched to the point I was wringing out my jacket sleeves as we walked and struggling to see past the streams of water running down my face.

But, it was fun in that defining sort of way that quirky experiences often are. And, ironic to remember how completely dry I’d been in a Puerto Rican rainforest just two weeks before!

The next memory maker occurred as we cruised, still dripping Ohio rain, into the parking lot of a nearby Cracker Barrel restaurant. A disgruntled cow trotted up, passed the genteel rockers filling the restaurant’s front porch and, pausing only to stare down my friend through his driver’s side window, sauntered on, aiming itself toward a BP Oil station up the hill.

It took several seconds for the cow’s presence to even register as out of the ordinary as I had become quite accustomed to wild horses, dogs and chickens popping out of roadside foliage on Vieques Island in Puerto Rico. This cow, however, was touring hotel, restaurant and convenience store parking lots near an interstate freeway. It mooed periodically, apparently unhappy with its growing following of amused bystanders and, eventually, three police squad cars.

It finally gained privacy on a hillside of bushes, leaving me with a few questions, some odd video and a renewed appreciation of how much better we remember the days that don’t go as planned.