...while running
Decided to run from Umstead Park up to campus and back rather than in the Horace Williams woods (aka proto-Carolina North). That's Umstead Park in Chapel Hill, not Umstead STATE Park in Raleigh - not much to it really. A baseball diamond on one side of Umstead Road and a parking lot, basketball court, picnic shelter and scuzzy playground between the road and Bolin Creek. The good part is that in the winter when it's still dark in the morning, I can park there and run the sidewalk up to Airport Road and then either head into town or down the Bolin Creek Greenway (which is kinda fun to run in the dark except for the danger of stepping in unseen dog-poo). It's been kinda neat the last couple of runs from Umstead to see a solitary figure on the green area between the picnic shelter and the playground doing her t'ai-chi.Ran down Franklin Street and could still smell the smoke from the fire at Anjana's from yesterday. It also closed Salon 135 temporarily which is a problem since I'm getting a little shaggy and need to get in to see Jorge pretty DAMN SOON! The fire was apparently accidental, but I hope I'm forgiven for suspecting foul play since Anjana'ss seems to have been going out of business for something like 4 years now.
Dad gets bears on his decks, coyotes in his driveway and boomers in his trees - other than the occasional homicidal owl, I get squirrels. And more squirrels. And even more squirrels. You know, they're just as inclined to run out onto the sidewalk under my feet as they are to run out into the street under my tires. Funnier this morning was the apparently near-sighted chipmunk that must have wondered where the fuck I came from as it tried to dart from one brush pile through me to another one. Man, they've got good brakes! We did have one really cool critter sighting on our way out of town last week, when JennySlash and I both spotted a big damn raptor standing just off Seawell School Road near the woods. After consultation with Dad, we're all pretty sure it was an adolescent Bald Eagle. It didn't appear to be injured, so we could only think that it had either just struck something (and maybe missed) or it had dropped a victim and had landed to recover it. There certainly are eagles in the area and we've seen them flying way overhead, but I've never seen one in the neighborhood that close. Very cool!
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