Farmington Bay Waterfowl Management Area

I discovered a little gem in my "backyard." I'm a little ahead of schedule in my half-marathon training, but I decided to keep up the miles instead of taper early. I also wasn't thrilled with running any of my regular routes—I didn't want to see the same things for another 13 miles. So, I took a road that I had been down before, but I had never gone all the way to the end, if there even was an end. The bad thing about finding a new route is that I simply don't know what to expect. I prefer loops or out-and-back courses because miles are easier to count and because, to me, it just seems shorter that way. I was fully expecting to have to find an additional route to make up the remaining miles, especially considering the dead end sign not too far from where I would normally turn around, but what I found, to my utter delight, was a 2+-mile trail through the Farmington Bay Waterfowl Management Area. This is what I got to run through!

It was beautiful, and the weather was beautiful. I couldn't help but smile.

To make this story even more worth posting about, I have to add a moral to the story by way of analogy:

I wouldn't say that I am anxious about the future, not in the nervous sense at least; I'd actually like to get on with it. I want to get to the "good stuff." What I had hoped my future (which would be now) would hold has yet to come to pass. And that is ok. But it would be nice to know that what I am doing isn't going to impede any of the "good stuff" from happening later. (I put good stuff in quotes because I don't want to diminish or devalue any of the good things that are happening at present, but I feel like I have been living the same routine for the past seven years. I just want to move on to another phase of life. That's all.)

Once I got to the unknown part of my route, I thought at every bend in the road and at every fence This must be the end. I will have to turn around now. But at every bend in the road and at every fence there was more road, well trail really. My limited sight and perspective did not allow me to see what was ahead and how far I could go. It seems that such is always the case in life: we cannot see our future, but there exists a never-ending trail through beautiful countryside. Some times you have to squeeze past fences and dodge bird and horse poop, but the effort is worth the idyllic vistas that are around the bend.