Blueberries!

I went for an evening run the other night. The likelihood is that I will need to run a few evening run a week for the next two months. July and August are the busiest months at the gallery, so my schedule has shifted a bit and I'm either working 9:00 to 5:00 or 9:30 to 5:30. Add in the 30 minute commute, and it means I have to be on the road by 8:30 or 9:00. I usually drop Sam off at daycare around 8:00, and often try to cram errands in before work too, so as to free up the evenings and weekends. Not that I should complain! I know most people work a longer day than I do. I could get up and run before Sam wakes up, but lately she's been waking up super early, as in between 5:30 and 6:00. I typically take the morning shift, as I don't get to spend too much time with Sam in the evening once I get home from work, and besides I'm more of a morning person than Ryan. But, despite being a morning person, honestly, getting up at 4:00am to run is just not realistic for me right now! If she was sleeping until 7:00 or even 6:30, I might be able to get a run in, but oh well. I'm sure her schedule will shift again at some point but for now, running on my days off, maybe squeezing in one morning run, and running twice in the evenings is probably how it's going to be going for a while!

So, with that I headed out for my run after Sam went down to sleep, and headed out on the powerlines to get in 5 to 6 miles. I did the Homeplace loop with a bit of a variation, adding in one of the trails Scott Ellis had shown me, and ended up getting in 6 miles on the nose. Great! It was a nice night, and I felt pretty good. The air was filled with the sweet smells of the tall ferns, the budding milkweed and the swamp laurel. The towhees were singing along the way, and best of all, there were ripe blueberries out there too! Lots of them! Hurray! Nothing like going for a run, and being able to stop and eat some fresh, sweet blueberries along the way! Yum!!

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And just because...

Snowman and Sparkplug, June 15, 2005 at the ATC headquarters in Harper's Ferry

One of our friends posted that the ATC had put up all the hiker polaroids taken over the years. I decided to check it out and found our photo from 2005. Funny, huh?! Think Ryan has enough hair?!! :-) Life has changed a lot since our hike on the trail in 2005, but I still think of those 4 months, and the subsequent years spent finishing up the trail, often. I hope Sam has the chance to do something similar (if she so desires) when she grows up.