While on vacation in May, I did lots of running. Here are some of the best things I saw in Anniston and Oxford, Alabama.
This is such a beautiful, historic building.
Ty Cobb spent some time in Anniston. I’m sure some folks will dispute the “greatest baseball player of all time” designation, but he was definitely very good.
The dogs hanging out at Piper’s Playhouse were very happy to say hello when I ran by. And when I stopped. And probably any other time.
There are so many ducklings here!
I lived in Calhoun County for many years, but I had never before seen this creek, or drain, or whatever it is.
Before Michigan became a complete sauna, morning runs occasionally offered different encounters. I found this patch of fog during an early morning run that included a chunk of the path in Frances Park.
I like to run distance races. I used to run marathons, but my marathon-runner sports medicine doctor advised me that I wasn’t doing that any more after my last one in 2015; it was apparently a bad thing that my right knee sounded crunchy for six weeks after the race. Half marathons aren’t banned, and I haven’t had that kind of problem after one of those, so I run them.
Sometimes, I run more than one a weekend. In 2015 and 2016, I completed the Midwest Half and Half Challenge by running both the Wisconsin Half Marathon and the Borgess Run for the Health of It in the same weekend. In 2017, I missed the event due to my ongoing recovery from my 2016 ankle surgery, but I returned to the event in 2018.
I didn’t snap many photos in Kalamazoo, because I’ve spent years there. I hadn’t been to Bloomington or Indianapolis, though, so photographs were required. I have family-level friends in Bloomington, so my trip started early enough to allow me to hang out with them.
The real queen of the house in Bloomington is Pearl. She’s a lovely gray-and-white cat with lots of attitude and a solid vocabulary. Pearl is amazing, and here she is:
Bloomington has a lot of great eats and fun places to go. Here are a few of my favorites from the trip.
The Owlery in Bloomington has legit vegetarian poutine, and it is delicious.
This bridge carries the B Line Trail over 3rd Street.
This coffee shop is both excellent and located right along the B Line.
Look at this beauty of an espresso machine! The folks at Hopscotch couldn’t bring themselves to part with it.
Bloomington was fun, and seeing my friends was even more fun, but I had to move on to Indianapolis for race day #1. I didn’t get around much, given that I had a race the next morning, but I had some great views from my hotel room.
White River State Park
All in all, it was a great trip, and I can’t wait until my next visit to both cities.
Because Port Huron is right on the St. Clair River, the trip afforded me the opportunity to snag photos of a few freighters and ships that passed through. I didn’t capture all the names; in some cases, the zoom on my camera phone wasn’t quite enough to allow me to pick up the name here 3½ years later as I finally post these. Oh, well — that’s life.
The tug in the previous photo was pulling this barge.
The Mississagi
The Algoma Navigator
The John J. Boland
The Emilie
The Cason J. Callaway
I hope you enjoy these photos. If you want to see my other photos from this trip, please click here.
One of the great joys of running Lansing’s River Trail is getting to catch a train as it passes over you via one of the rail bridges. One of my recent runs did not disappoint.
My run Wednesday morning started early — well before dawn, but not before the snow started to fall. I don’t usually get to lay the first set of footprints in the snow, but it worked out Wednesday morning.
For a few days, flooding has kept me off most of the Lansing River Trail. There was a bit of trail near downtown that didn’t flood, though, and I visited it during my 11-mile run on Saturday.
Along the trail, starting at Impression 5 (a museum) and extending south(ish) toward Potter Park Zoo, there are markers that represent the planets (and Pluto, which was no doubt considered to be a planet when these markers were installed) in our solar system, spaced to scale how they are generally spaced in the solar system. It’s a nifty way to make walks along the trail into educational opportunities.
All of that leads to this photo, taken along the trail near the marker for the fourth planet.
My friends who enjoy Doctor Who will understand and appreciate it when I say that these are, obviously, the waters of Mars.
By the way, I am not looking to pick a fight with folks who aren’t down with Pluto’s having lost its status as a planet. Personally, I’m neutral on the issue; I’m not planning to visit any time soon, so I just can’t get worked up about it. If you firmly believe that it should be classified as a planet, I won’t argue with you about it.
When you get a lot of snow, and then you get unseasonably warm temperatures and lots of rain, your rivers, creeks, and streams run out of capacity to hold it all. Unfortunately, that’s happening in Lansing right now. While I was out running tonight, I took a moment to capture the scene along the Grand River in downtown Lansing. I didn’t get to cover much of the waterfront, as plenty of the non-motorized trail along the river is already underwater. Nonetheless, I did get an image to share.
There’s a non-motorized trail that runs along the waterfront by the Lansing Center (the building at the right, for those of you who may not be familiar with Lansing, MI). The fence is immediately adjacent to the trail; based on its appearance, I’d guess that trail is at least a foot under the river, and maybe as much as two feet.
My phone almost always travels with me when I run. It’s a good safety protocol, and I sometimes get the bonus of a great photo. That was the case a few days ago, when I ran along the amazingly still Grand River as the sun rose.
It’s one of the better views I’ll ever get for a morning run.
The People's Democratic Republic of Hardenistan 