Pennelville Run

Despite a late night out at Novare Res with the Trail Monster gang last night, with Snowman drinking for two :-), I managed to drag him out of bed this morning for a run. For a change of pace, I decided a road run over in the Pennelville area would be nice. We parked at the edge of the fields and headed out around 7:30am. The early morning fog was beginning to lift, and it was shaping up to be a beautiful morning. We ran along at a leisurely pace, partly for me and partly for Snowman, as his legs still are recovering from the 50k.

The run took us out through the fields and the quiet neighborhoods down to Simpson's Point. It was high tide and the waters were calm. The last of the fog was rising out by the outlying islands of the bay. Beautiful. We had originally planned to loop around and get in 5 miles, but Snowman was ready to call it a day, and so we simply backtracked to the car. I was more than happy to run back through the fields and enjoy the birds, and we ended up with 4 miles, which was more than fine with me, as I was just happy to be out and running on such a gorgeous morning.

The run was followed up with brunch at the Seadog Brewery. We met up with my aunt, grandmother, cousin Lillie, and cousin Sean, his wife Marisa and their little boy Owen. The brunch was yummy, and it was great fun catching up with everyone!





Flora and fauna notes: During the morning's run, the fields were alive with Bobolinks. They were everywhere, flying above the grasses, chattering away. We also saw a fair number of red winged Blackbirds, goldfinch, sparrows and swallows. There were a fair number of swamp Iris in one of the swampier sections of the field, the purples contrasting nicely with the greens and yellows of the grasses. After brunch, we were looking out over the Androscoggin, and enjoyed watching a group of Cormorants, seagulls and one Great Blue Heron fishing in the river. We were also treated to a flyover by a Bald Eagle, who was chasing an Osprey. They swooped down quite low, bobbing and weaving as one attempted to outwit the other. The chase was made more interesting when a group of crows joined the action, swarming the Eagle. In the end, the osprey escaped, as the whole group circled higher and higher. It was quite a show!