Monday: 11
Charlestown, RI. Burlingame with Brady, and my friends the deerflies.
Tuesday: 3
Westerly, RI. Short local run with Brady before taking a train up to Boston and flying to Minneapolis to meet up with Matthew and join him for the rest of his cross-country road trip to get settled for grad school in California. First time ever flying JetBlue, and with it came the first time ever that I had free wifi on a flight!
 |
| Travel Day 1: Amtrak from Westerly to Boston, fly from Boston to Minneapolis |
 |
| Just outside the hotel we stayed downtown. Matthew had a virtual school event, so I went out and explored. |
 |
| Honestly I wasn't sure what to expect in light of the George Floyd incidents, but I found the city to be clean, the parks beautiful and the downtown area to be very safe. |
 |
| Originally I figured I'd just get some takeout, and then I came across this sushi place. The conveyor belt style reminded me of places Jana took me to in Taiwan and with her half-sister years ago in San Jose. |
 |
| I was not disappointed with various sushi, sashimi, and sushi roll options. Fantastic dinner! |
Wednesday: 13
Minneapolis, MN. I've run quite a bit in Rochester, MN before, but never here. A lot of similarities in that you can run on interconnected bike paths for miles and miles and in many places the bike path simply goes under or over busy streets so you don't need to stop and wait for traffic or a signal light.
Three sections to today's run with Matthew:
Nice scenic bike paths. 1.5 miles urban, and then 3.5 along the Mississippi River. A lot of people out running, biking, walking, skateboarding, etc here.
 |
| Along the run today. The mighty Mississippi on the right. Great bike paths! |
 | ||
| This was in a city park, "Minneapolis Chain of Lakes Park". Took this pic as 1) it was nice to have water fountains for people, but 2) even cooler to have dog-specific fountains!
|
 |
| Me at the Iowa high point |
 |
| My 41st state visited. |
Thursday: 11
Lincoln, NE
Some gravel trails, and even a little bit of single-track through the woods. However, and it's a big one, there was just so much of the route on concrete paths that it was a big detractor. At a few points, there was a quiet road close to the concrete path and I thought about switching to running on the road until I realized the roads were concrete also! Not that we don't have concrete roads and paths in New England, but they pale in quantity to what I've seen in the midwest thus far.
 |
| Travel Day 3: drive from Lincoln, NE to Denver, CO |
 |
| Similar to Iowa, miles and miles of flatlands, corn fields, and prairie grass |
 |
| At the high point in Nebraska, 29 miles down a dirt road! |
 |
| My 42nd state visited |
 |
| The wild sunflowers along the roadside were very attractive. |
Friday: 12
Denver, CO
Continuing our trek westward, our brief stay in the Centennial State (or is it the Rocky Mountain State?) was a fun one, and what a great run!
 |
| Much of our run today was inside this refuge. |
 |
| Beautiful scenery along manicured trails. |
 |
| Was pleasantly surprised about how close I was able to get to this doe |
 |
| Started and ended our run in this very well-kept neighborhood (Matthew's car in foreground) |
---
 |
| Travel Day 4: drive from Denver, CO to Las Vegas, NV |
 |
| Continuing our journey west. Today's leg would be the longest, as we passed through Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and into Nevada. Sections like this (Glenwood Canyon, Colorado, I-70 West) were breathtaking. And yes, we're about to enter the tunnels going under the mountains. [Matthew was driving while I took this photo.] |
 |
| Vast uninhabited areas in the San Rafael Swell along I-70 at the Colorado / Utah border. Before entering this area, we saw a sign warning that there would be no services for 108 miles. 108 miles!! Fill up that fuel tank. |
 |
| Impressive formations of sandstone, shale, and limestone along this area. |
 |
| And when we finally reached that first and only service station in the desert in Utah, it got really weird. |
 |
| As enticing as this was, I did NOT buy any Mega Slime Licker. We bought diesel fuel only, I used the gold glitter covered toilet, and then we were happy to get out of Dodge. |
Saturday: 7
Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, NV
My final run of this trip did not disappoint! We spent the night in the Las Vegas area and then it was a short drive to Red Rock Canyon.
 |
| Really cool views along the trail! |
 |
| We both wore hydration packs, as we're in a desert environment after all, but fortunately the temps weren't bad at all. (The previous few days saw triple-digit temps here.) |
 |
| Travel Day 5: Drive from Las Vegas, NV to Los Angeles, CA |
Continuing our trip west with our final leg (or final leg for me):
 |
| The World's Tallest Thermometer, Baker, CA --- Made for a convenient bathroom break and driving switch, but otherwise, just a tourist trap. Reminded me of Chevy Chase's "Vacation" movie, where I think he insisted that they stop at the World's Largest Ball of Mud (?) |
---
 |
| Now, on the other hand, Peggy Sue's 50's Diner, at the Ghost Town Road exit in Yermo, CA, was well worth the stop! You drive miles through barren landscape and then come across this gem, actually dating to the 50s. --- Reminded me of the "Happy Days" 50's set and TV show. |
 |
| Probably not the healthiest lunch in the world, but the open turkey sandwich, mashed potatoes, and lots of gravy hit the spot. As did that shake! |
 |
| Somehow I did not get this charge on my bill. |
 |
| And then post-lunch, you can go behind the restaurant, where this is this bizarre collection of huge metal dinosaurs. |
---
 |
| Final stop of interest before hitting suburbia and then the city (Los Angeles): Mormon Rocks, San Bernardino National Forest, CA |
 |
| Cool place! Very unusual. |
 |
| You can see me about 1/3 of the way up this structure. Had to really watch my footing, as lots of loose sand. (Photo by Matthew) |
We had to again defer a visit to Griffith Observatory in LA, as both the parking and traffic were horrific. Went to dinner, and then after sitting in more traffic, Matthew dropped me off at LAX for a red-eye flight home.
Sunday: 0
Complete rest day (after flying back across the country, that is). Tired physically and lack of sleep didn't help. All worth it for a great trip!
Weekly mileage: 58 run, 1 walk
Weekly synopsis: Don't know that I would want to do this with any regularity, but looking back now, this was a fun trip and neat way to see parts of the country that I hadn't before. Combining it with exploration runs every day was pretty neat and a good way to break up the trip. In retrospect, 8 hours might be about the maximum drive that I'm comfortable with in a day. I don't like driving at night, and my legs just get really stiffened up much longer than that, even with stops. The penultimate day of our trip was 13 hours door-to-door, with the final part in the dark and rain and that just wore on me.
Weekly highlight: Red Rocks Canyon National Conservation Area! Really fun trails in a beautiful environment that is very different from my norm.
Weekly lowlight: Iowa. Pretty much as I expected, flat and boring with miles and miles of cornfields.
No comments:
Post a Comment