Saturday Morning

I had the luxury of sleeping in today.  Until almost 10:00!  That doesn't happen too often in this house.  But the boys know how to use the DVD player and can put a movie in and be quiet for a while so everyone else can sleep.  And we did.  Doug worked afternoon shift yesterday, Keira could sleep in every day if I'd let her, and I took 2 Benadryl before bed last night to help me breathe, so I was happy to stay in bed.  I still have this sinus thing.  It isn't a cold.  Maybe it is allergies.


Anywho, I woke up and saw the sun shining and thought it would be a nice morning for a run on the trail.  I'm running in the YMCA's Turkey Trot next Saturday and figured I'd better get used to running out in the cold weather.  42 degrees and windy qualified.  Although according to the extended forecast on MSN Weather, next Saturday is supposed to have an 80% chance of rain and a high of 36 degrees.  Brrrrr!  Not the greatest conditions to be running a race.  But I signed up for it, so I will do it.  Hopefully the weather will be better by the time Saturday rolls around.


I asked Keira if she wanted to join me.  She said yes and off we went.  After a small battle with Alex, of course, who always wants to come along and "never gets to go anywhere!"  Yeah, right.


I told Keira I would show her how to pace herself since she burned herself out in her cross country race a few weeks ago by starting out too fast.  How weird is that?  Me teaching someone else how to run?  Who'da thunk it?


We started out walking to warm up, then I usually stretch my legs when we reach this picnic table that is on the side of the trail since it is about the 1/4 mile mark.  Except today there was a couple with their 2 dogs sitting at the table.  One of the dogs wasn't very friendly, so we kept on moving.  Although they swore he wouldn't hurt us.  Whatever.  I wasn't taking any chances.


Once we got running, she took off.  Not too fast, but faster than me.  She's not taller than me yet, but she's got such long legs, I guess I was going too slow for her.  We ran some and walked some.  I would challenge her to run to a certain landmark and she would.  We made it out to the 1.5 mile point then turned around and came back.  While we were walking, we had a nice talk.  We don't get to talk much without little brother ears around, so it was great to have some time for just the girls.


I challenged her again to run to a certain point then we could walk the rest (about .5 miles) to the car.  She did pretty well.  I think she only slowed once and that was to look at a wooly worm that was on the trail.


I took my little pocket camera along in case I saw anything picture worthy.

This picture doesn't really do justice to how pretty these leaves were.  They were red, orange, and yellow mixed.  They looked like flags waving in the wind.  So pretty.

 These red berries really stood out with yellow and green leaves in the background.  

Keira spotted them first.  She's got a good eye.

Keira on our walk back to the car.

These few leaves are hanging on for dear life.  :)  Refusing to fall off the tree until their time.

A few red leaves among all the dead/dying leaves.  Or as I said it ... "a little red, amidst the dead."  Keira thought it sounded a little like Dr. Suess.  :)  (I love me some Dr. Suess!)

Many times along the trail, you are walking between two walls of rocks and trees.  It never ceases to amaze me how the trees manage to grow despite all the rocks.  These roots look like snakes to me.

Some fungus growing on a log.

Keira thinks the bottom of this tree looks like a face.  Again, see how the tree grows around the rocks.  So cool.

The sun was out when we left for our run/walk but it was pretty cloudy by the time we finished, as you can see from the pictures.  


I was glad to have a running partner this morning.  I may not have gone by myself since I just ran yesterday.  Hopefully Keira and I can do this more often.

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