11/7/2014
Hunting season started around these parts earlier in the week. There are people here that raise deer and rent out their land so people can hunt. I had never heard of that. Of course I don’t know much about hunting. I always thought I had a killer instinct. I was pretty cutthroat at sports but I’ve never been much for actual killing. Hunting seems reasonable if the hunter consumes the entire animal and it’s much better than factory farming. At the end of the day if the food chain stayed in balance, nature should take its course.
I could feel my achy joints and achy muscles on this very cold and rainy day. Perhaps my body was growing accustomed to three glucosamine pills a day. The sun fooled me by peeking out of the clouds but, it was just a trick. I got into a groove right after a border patrol check point. As the German Shepard sniffed vehicles for drugs, I ran casually by the stop in the road. I smiled and waved and the guard asked, “Are you headed to Del Rio?” I said yes and he gave me a thumbs up. The sun played games with me for a few miles. With the weather being indecisive, I took off my sweatshirt, put it back on, then took it off again. I struggled to find a nice equilibrium temperature. It became consistently cold and rainy from mile 10 on. Nature does have some sense of humor.
Crystal had been waiting at an opening by the road. It also happened to be the entrance to some land that gets rented out to hunters. The owners of the land questioned her a couple of times. When she told them what we were doing, they asked if I had been running on their property. I guess they didn’t want me to catch a stray bullet or maybe they were just very protective of their property.
The rest of the day took me to another bridge. This one was much longer and I only had a sliver of sidewalk. The water was beautiful. While the rain continued I ran on the part of the bridge for vehicular crossing. Anytime a vehicle approached I would hop back onto my little sliver. I felt reluctant to take a few pictures as I had already busted my phone twice on this journey. The image of the thing plummeting to its death in the lake played in my head. I could say a weight had been lifted from my shoulders when my feet touched the end of the bridge. A few miles later I saw Crystal trying to get us a room at a motel. They offered to let us use the facilities for fifteen bucks. We both decided to save money. The budget was tight. To our surprise, there was an RV resort next door and the owners happened to have a couple of kids that enjoy books. Every day is a miracle. 
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