11/4/2015

The roughest weather of the trip just happened to dump buckets of water on me for the greater part of my penultimate run of stage 3. I sloshed and splashed towards the town of Monroe. The day began with plenty of sidewalk space. When that disappeared the shoulder of the road provided enough room to jump away if a car slid in my direction. The rain was subtle at first. I could have dealt with the drizzle but, when I could not see my hand in front of my face I darted towards shelter. I found myself in the town of Monroe, under the roof of a couple gas pumps. My bones knocked about under my blue plastic poncho that Crystal had saved from Niagara Falls. As luck would have it, Crystal had been parked across the street in a shopping center. The truck flew in like a plane...

10/28/2015

Loved Leavenworth so much, she wanted to make it our residence. She loved everything about our stay at the Run of the River Bed and Breakfast. Every now and then I run through a town where the entire community has a theme. In Carthage, Missouri, everywhere I looked had something to do with the little “Precious Moments” characters. In Leavenworth, Washington, the entire town was like Bavaria. The font of the chain stores were even in Bavarian font. It felt like I was in the Alps.

A few steps after the town ended, the national forest began. I could have snapped pictures all day long. To my left the Wenatchee River flowed at my pace. The rocks were smoothed from the years of running water. It was a day where the elevation began to climb...

10/27/2015

The clouds released their saturation through the night and left me with clear skies. Of course the lack of clouds did little to warm my bones. The wet roads shined as glare bounced off the asphalt. On the itinerary our route looked sparse. The places for lodging were slim. Luckily we still had one day to prepare for the trek through Stevens Pass.

I started my day running on a bridge that took me over the Columbia River and into a typical historic downtown area. It had many brick buildings and cute little shops. Pieces of missing asphalt even revealed brick roads. I ran defensively since some of the drivers had lead feet. In a town with a sizeable population, it was inevitable that I ran into an area with chain stores and franchises. I zoned out during that stretch.

I tuned bac...