Update from the road

I’ve been on the road for almost two weeks, traveling with my two kids in our trusty Dodge Durango with three bikes hooked to the back.  We left Colorado at the end of June and are currently parked in West Virginia, in the shadows of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.  The area we’re in is called “the quiet zone”; no radio towers, cell phone towers, television, etc.  Even my computer decided to quit on me.  No Internet, cell phone coverage, radio or TV to distract us.  It’s quiet here all right, save for the traffic that roars down the one road in the valley just outside the bedroom window.

Family circumstances being what they are, I am visiting my Dad’s farm for the first time in seventeen years.  I was here the first year he owned the place, eighteen years ago, and haven’t been back since.  Back then, I hunted for arrowheads in freshly plowed rows, and found enough flint to overflow a shoebox.  The kids and I have found a few arrowheads this past week (they’re really spearheads, arrowheads are smaller) and about a pound of flint chips, but nothing like the haul that’s sitting on a shelf in my closet back home.

Back then, I wasn’t a runner.  I toured the place on an ATV and most likely went too fast on the machine.  In the space between my visits, a kid sent one of the ATV’s over a 50-foot embankment and landed in the hospital with a concussion.  The remaining ATV’s are gone now, and have been replaced with a solitary John Deere golf-cart machine called “The Gator”.  It’s a lot more stable and doesn’t have the get-up-and-go of its predecessor. My kids don’t know the difference, but I sure do.

Now that I’ve hit the prime of my life, I’m touring the place on foot.  There’s almost 1800 acres to explore, and I like a challenge.

Every other day I’ve laced up my running shoes and headed into the woods.  There’s a great lollipop loop that’s approximately six miles.  That is, if you can find the right trail to do the loop.  The first morning I followed my nose and didn’t make a wrong turn anywhere.  I meandered through the woods and startled many white-tailed deer and countless birds.  I took pictures with my easy-carry Nikon and couldn’t shake the feeling of being in Nature’s green womb.  The woods were multi-hued with so much green, I couldn’t begin to describe the nuances of the singular color.  I returned to the house to find my son in the drivers’ seat of the Gator with Grandpa giving driving tips.   My daughter was rustling around upstairs, giving signs that she’d finally given up on sleep.

A few days later I hit the same trail, but ran with a slight twist.  I wanted to see where some of the trails went, even though I was forewarned that they dead-ended farther up the mountain.  Since I had nowhere to be, I extended the run by following two dead-end trails into the woods (and thus backtracking to the main trail) before accidently finding my lollipop loop.  As it was the start of an East Coast heat wave and the humidity was already high, I stopped running after eight miles because of dehydration.

Three’s a charm, and so I ran the trail for the third time.  On this day there was no sun.  Haze covered the sky, erasing all shadows.  Lacing up my shoes, I left my sunglasses on the table as a challenge to the sun God to show his face.  My challenge went unanswered.  Instead, the God of wet air laid the smack-down on this Colorado girl and laughed all day long.  I was hot after the run and hit the shower immediately, trying to cool down before the days’ activities began.  We were headed to Charlottesville Virginia, home on Thomas Jefferson’s and the nearest Whole Foods.

Colorado doesn’t have a lot of moisture.  Hot steamy showers are great for a few minutes, but the steam evaporates quickly.  The sauna at the Rec Center is fun for a few minutes.  Even the occasional fronts of moisture are enjoyable.  But if Colorado is a tea-cup of moisture, then Charlottesville Virginia is the Garden of Eden of sweat lodges.  The sky was white with haze; it was so hot that shadows left for cooler ground.  We emerged from the car and sweat began pouring from every pore.  My son’s cheeks turned blister-red within five minutes, and he began doing the drunken walk of a child who’s severely tired.  During the tour he sat down on the ground and at one point, leaned against the ropes like he was going to fall asleep.

The return drive that should have taken a little over two hours took a full four hours. The heat hit me so hard that I couldn’t concentrate on the map, and deciphering directions became an exercise in futility.  A headache took hold of my brain and only the incessant swigs of water held it at bay.  We canceled dinner plans because we were lost in Virginia, and my son pulled a tooth during the drive back to the farm. The cast of Glee covered Journey, Neil Diamond and Cindy Lauper for our entertainment, and we joined the Dixie Chicks discussion in a lively tale about where Earl is laid to rest.

While wandering Monticello in 100-degree heat with 90% percent humidity, it occurred to me for a split second that I could actually acclimate to this and be a better runner, but then the thought of running made my stomach roll and I worked hard to hold onto lunch.   Later that night, while lying in my bed hoping for a passing breeze to float over my head, I thought about running in Colorado, and how much I enjoy it.  The runs that I’ve taken here have been hard because of the intense humidity.  There’s no sense of a runner’s high in humidity, there’s only survival.

Today was my day to run again, but I didn’t feel like it.  The heat broke last night and we enjoyed almost ten hours of solid rain.  The kids and I slept in the cool of the morning until almost 8 AM, and meandered our way through a lazy breakfast.  I meant to do sprints in the field, but after the intense rain last night, I wasn’t up for plowing my way through wet grass.

I’ve enjoyed the vacations of the summer this year.  I’m getting better at letting go of the small stuff and enjoying down-time.  I think I’m really getting the hang of it.  And since I wouldn’t be me if I weren’t always trying to learn something new, I can honestly say that I’ve learned how to relax on a vacation.