Good, good, good - good vibrations.

This morning I had a wonderful experience.  I thought I'd share.

Yesterday, in my epic quest to speak to more people than just Matt in a day, I talked to a fellow dog-owner, who told me about some trails he takes his dog on at Dunbar Cave.  This news is phenominal to me, and I'll tell you why: 1) I have been driving about 2 miles to go running in a neighborhood anyway (nobody wants to run past corn fields, I promise.  You feel like you're getting nowhere), and Dunbar Cave is about 2.25 miles away.  2) I knew Dunbar Cave State Park was close, but also knew the cave was closed (a bat was tested for White Nose or something... I'm not sure why that is bad since i think a white nose would be cute, but it seems to be something they're afraid of spreading to other bats, so I'll let them stay in-charge and care about such things).  I did not, however, know there was awesome stuff AROUND the cave.  Turns out: there is.

This morning, as I set-out in my car, it was raining lightly.  By the time I reached the end of my street, it was raining hard.  Now if you're looking for an excuse to not run, the rain can be an awesome one.  But as long as it doesn't make you ridiculous-cold, I always find it a liberating experience.  So I parked the car, waited for the gates to open (8:00 apparently) and got out of my car to a steady rain, but nothing too ridiculous to handle.

I walked the 100 yards to the trailhead and saw a nice opening, with trees on either side (which it continued to be the entire way, thanks not-Utah) and turned on the Ipod (Glee Playlist) and the GPS watch (which is HANDY and AWESOME) and started to run.

This is towards the end of the hike/run.  Isn't it pretty?

If you, like me, are from a mountainous place and think to yourself "Tennessee?  There will be no hills there" you, like me, are lying to yourself.  Pre-curser is: I've never run on actual trails before, so maybe it's not that hard.  But if you do try trail-running, don't keep looking at your GPS watch and saying "oh my gosh, I am going so slowly" and try to speed-up even when you're pretty sure you're about to die.

Apart from the hills, and the mud I ran DIRECTLY into a few times. 

And the root-systems that I may or may not have rolled my ankle against,

I had the most wonderful time.  It was hearing the rain on the trees, looking at nature all around, and hearing Glee in my head.  (Glee kids, hooray!).

In fact, I had such a good time that I brought my dog back to hike the short-trail together as a not-fetch supplement.  We were wet and tired, and thourally dirty.  And, apart from the smell of wet dog I am going to have to febreeze out of my car, it was just lovely.

I am so glad I got out of my own little corner of the world and went exploring today.  I feel triumphant.  And tired, because that's a lot of running.

(hey.  umm... just realized how ugly I look after running.  It's cool that I put it up here, but nobody is allowed to use that as a profile picture of me or anything, okay?)