Bangor City Forest Run

Well, I survived leaving Sam yesterday morning :-) We went out for donuts in the morning - perhaps our new Saturday tradition :-) - and Mom and Dad met up with us so that they could take Sam up to the farmer's market and we could hit the road to get to the Inn for the 1:00 rehearsal. I think if we had thought things through a little bit more, and done a bit more coordinating with everyone, we would have likely just sent Ryan up with Ian yesterday, and I would have stayed home with Sam. Then I could have come up today and stayed for the wedding and overnight. But oh well, we didn't, so we are away for two nights. Which isn't bad, it just has ended up being a fair amount of downtime, and I probably would have felt better about things if I had been away for just one night. That being said, Sam is having a GREAT time with Neenie and Pippi, sleeping and eating well and sounding so happy when we have talked to her on the phone, so there really isn't a problem there at all! It is just my guilt talking :-) and I am probably missing her more than she is missing me!

Anyway, we spent yesterday afternoon at Fort Knox, chatting and eating and exploring a bit before settling into the shade to escape the heat and humidity. It was a pretty neat place and good to catch up with everyone who was there. A few of us came back to the Inn for drinks, and then Ian, Ryan and I drove into Bangor for a late dinner at the SeaDog down along the river. We had fun talking and didn't get back to our room until about 9:45. Our room is right above the dining room, and loud, and rather horrible, music from the Saturday night wedding was blaring down below. Sigh. Luckily, it stopped a little after 10:00 and then we only had to contend with the slightly softer, but still horrible, music emanating from the bar :-) We cranked up the A/C and fan to drown it out and finally fell asleep.

This morning, we met up with Jamie, his brother Chris, Ian, Blaine, Stephen, Jim and Shauna at Bangor City Forest for a run. Wow, what a neat resource for the city! It was a pretty large park, with lots of nice, wide, packed gravel trails, and singletrack too. Plus, an awesome 1/2 mile long bog bridge that looped out into the middle of a huge peat moss bog. Jamie led us out on a 4-mile loop that ringed the forest; he, Ian, Blaine and Stephen turned off to get in some more miles a few miles in, and the four of us (Jim was walking the dog) continued on the loop. At the bog bridge, Ryan and I turned off to explore.

Bog Bridge (photo take from the Bangor City Forest website)

It was so neat, we ended up doing the bog bridge loop twice! There was a nice breeze blowing, the sky was blue, the moon hung low in the sky, and all around us was this neat bog, full of red and green peat moss, pitcher plants, lots of little "grass pink" orchids, white fringed orchids, yellow bladderwort, bunchberry, skunk cabbage, bog laurel, a few blooming swamp iris, cotton sedge, bog rosemary, small pine trees and more. There were also a number of birds flitting about, and I spotted one yellow warbler (maybe a common yellowthroat?) and we heard lots of white throated sparrows singing their "Sam Peabody Peabody" song.

When we got back to the parking lot, Ryan was happy to call it a day at an injury-free 5.5 miles, and was OK with hanging out while I ran a few more miles. I headed back out to do another loop, but ended up wanting to explore just a little bit. So, after looking at the map, I decided to take the Grouse Trail, one of the singletrack trails, and managed to do a little lollypop, adding on another 2.5 miles to finish up with an even 8 miles in 1:17:xx. After the run, we capped off the morning with a stop at Dysart's Truck Stop for a good hearty breakfast. Perfect!