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I watched the bats flitting across the darkening sky ahead of me as my feet flew over the dirt road.
It was almost eight p.m. and it was getting dark fast in this jungle like forest.
I’d hoped on my twilight ten mile run this evening to see some wild life; deer or bear, enjoying supper by one of the seasonal streams that cross this dirt road.
When I began my run two hours ago sunset was far off in the distance.
After two days of rainy misty mornings the April storms were rolling out and the mountains were beyond beautiful as I made my way down the lonely dirt road in my Asic running shoes.
I had off roaded four miles down this dirt road to reach the spot my run would begin this evening.
My parking spot was decided by the giant puddle the covered the circumference of the dirt road. It was home to about a million frogs as I tried to balance on the rocks at the edge making my way carefully around the edge of the puddle.
I was not careful enough and I fell in.
My running shoes were soaked and the bull frogs were suddenly silent, I’m sure thinking, what the hell was THAT?
I continued up the road even with soaking wet feet. It was such a gorgeous evening even if my shoes were squishing as I ran now.
Wild lilac, bright yellow primrose and wild larkspur hugged the side of the trail.
Red tipped yucca grew every where. I might have been in the mountains, but the altitude was pretty low here, maybe three thousand feet. This meant a lot of the plants were very desert like.
I had not run back here in a month, it had been way to hot at the lower elevation and as my feet flew over the dusty trail I noticed that everything was lushly green. The dense forest was almost jungle like in places where it hugged the little creeks that ran down the canyon.
By the time I turned around five miles down the road it was twilight just beginning to get dark.
I ran pretty fast going back, it was getting dark fast once the sun dipped below the peaks in the distance.
Bats were flying every where in front of me in the oncoming darkness.
I almost slipt a few times as it was harder to see where I was going even with the glow from my headlamp.
As I glimpsed my SUV a mile ahead of me in the canyon below the moon was already out and I could see a few stars shining in the dark sky.
It was such a peaceful moonlight run. |