Trains, Knox, and Home Again

Life is settling back down after my train trip to visit my sons at Knox.

• Highlight of the trip: seeing my boys!
• Most interesting run: back and forth on the train platform in Otumwa, Iowa - home of Radar O'Riley of MASH.
  
• Prettiest (and longest) run: from the B&B where I was staying out to Lake Storey Park, around the lake on a leaf-covered bike path, through the Carl Sandburg College campus, and back to the B&B (which is in a neighborhood of beautiful 1800's homes).
• Niftiest run: a tempo run on the new purple Knox track (Knox's colors are purple and gold).
  

Back home again I was feeling a bit run down from the train and travel and headed out for today's run rather uncertain of distance or terrain. But then it turned into one of those runs where I just kept on going... first through the CU cross-country course, then into the southwestern-most neighborhood of Boulder where I hopped over a stream and onto a trail that runs along the base of NCAR where there were glorious views of frost-tipped trees above the flatirons, then onto another little feeder trail that took me to the Skunk Creek trail (where, many years ago, my old dog Loki was, indeed, skunked), then up to the Mesa trail where there were ice-covered puddles and bits of snow banks, then onto the Enchanted Mesa trail which brought me back down into civilization via the western boundary of the NIST property - which continued to offer up trails until I got to Broadway, one of Boulder's main north/south streets and the western boundary of my neighborhood. Altogether, out of 2.5 hours of running, I maybe spent 30 minutes on streets....no wonder I could just keep on going!