Pure as the driven snow

It was a beautiful day. Blue sky and not a cloud in sight. Two snow runs in successive days. That's a first. Not much snow left today, just the drifts in the ditches and shade. Some spots the remaining snow was over a foot or two deep. Only because it had been blown into the ditch.

Needed to get 16 miles today, but decided 13 miles would be plenty. After 6 miles my water bottle was half empty. I got the brillant idea to fill it up in one of the snow drift banks. Only problem, the drifts now were only a couple inches deep the farther east I ran. Plus, once I decided to scoop the snow up with my water bottle I dumped out another quarter of my water and the snow had lots of "debris" in it. The snow wasn't quite as clean as it looks from afar.

Saw lots more wildlife on the back half of the run versus the front. Pack of deer saw me and instead of running across the road ahead of me they walked, slowly. Ice. This part of the road, had narrowed to one lane and gravel, heading up a hill. It still had quite a bit of ice in spots. This was just a mile and a half section I added to get my 13 miles. Which really ended up to be 14.5 miles because I went all the way to the top of the hill instead of turning around earlier.

Coming up to "coyote corner" I saw a hawk sitting in a tree with two crows in an adjacent tree. As I got closer another hawk that I hadn't seen flew off, but not before dive bombing the two crows. This corner is really S shaped, around the other corner is where I saw a coyote a couple of weeks earlier. I looked in the field to see if he was around. Spotted him or his sister at the far end of the field watching me. When I stopped to see if it was really the coyote, he turned and headed back to the creek.

Later in the afternoon we put the bikes in the van and went to the Stones River Greenway. Dylan and I rode three miles to the dam. Paula walked Lance. We caught up with Paula on the way back, she'd gone a mile and a half. It was 50 degrees and a slight breeze, I wore a windbreaker and was comfortable. Still plenty of sunshine.

Coyote

Late start this morning. Didn't start running until 6:30 am. Nice change of pace, being able to actually see everything instead of running in the dark. Kinda reluctant to head out the door because of the rain on the radar. Able to get most of the the 10.8 miler done before the rain really started coming down hard enough to be annoying. Really spitting a little snow and sleet, instead of rain anyway.



Pretty gray morning, but did see the largest single group of turkeys ever in the wild. Had to be at least a hundred or more wild turkeys. I heard them before I saw them, which I rarely ever hear them. This was on the front side of the "big" hill on the Lascassas loop. Except I was running it backwards from the direction I usually run it.

Coolest part of the run was the coyote. I saw him loping across a field towards the tree line and road that I was headed towards. As I rounded the corner, he started across the road, saw me and bolted back the way he'd come. This isn't the first time I've seen a coyote out here, but the best look in broad daylight and to see the difference in the different gaits. I was downwind when I first started watching until we met on the roadway.

Garmin should get here tomorrow. Busy since Friday. Stayed home with Dylan and fixed the garage door. Saturday lots of running around. Sunday up to the farm. Bob scared everyone after I doused a pile of tobacco stalks with camp fuel and he lit it. Small explosion and ball of flame; he singed one side of his face.