Category Uncategorized

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...

10/26/2015

As the final steps of stage 3 crept closer, I was given the privilege to glimpse various geographic phenomena. The landscape threw a bit of everything my way like an obstacle course designed to test the body’s performance on all terrain. On my journey to Ritzville I found myself on rocky back roads and plenty of flat land. The road curved in a couple places but I didn’t need to stay aware of turns. I didn’t realize I was running into the wheat belt. All the rock formations disappeared and gave way to fields as far as the eye could see. I could feel the cold of winter creeping into my days. The urgency to cover more ground nagged. In the back of my mind, the thought of high mileage days through forests, at elevation, in the cold, was like a flashing signal...