Orienteering in KY

We built our 3-week trip around the Warrior Dash on the front end and the Kentucky Outdoor Adventure Games A-meet on the way back to Texas.  Always looking for orienteering opportunities!

Also - state #33 in our "racing in every state" quest (which is now lagging behind the highpoint quest for once):
http://www.kipley.com/marcy/race_locations.html

Friday was a medium distance event at Big Bone Lick state park (yep, that's quite a name for a park).  Both of us had our ups and downs in the navigation department.  Overall I was slowed by thorny vines and undergrowth because I kinda suck at moving efficiently when things are pricking my legs making me go "ow, ow."

On the bright side, we got to run by a herd of bison!  Very cool.

And the last few points were sprint-style, back and forth just off the fields by the finish line, something I enjoy a lot (and don't suck quite as much at).

John got back in time to grab the camera before I showed up:

Across the field to find the next control behind a tree:

And over to the last control, I'm moving now!

Well, that was a fun finish:

I would normally cull this picture but I think it's kind of cute (and I'm short on photos for the weekend):

Friday provided by far the most scratches we would get all weekend, as we were thankfully moving to Taylorsville SP for Saturday/Sunday.  I was so much happier there in the open woods.  Occasionally we'd see greenbriar vines but I was getting better at spotting and avoiding them (although John can tell you about one that grabbed him by the ear and another that tried to capture his arm).

Saturday was the long course, including a few steep hillsides, running above the lake, and wonderful open woods without a lot of underbrush.  The course was set up with lots of great route choices between cross-country and going around on trails, and I did some of each and was constantly evaluating the benefits of straight/shorter vs. longer/faster.

I even nailed a couple controls , came down right on top of them, happy for that.

Oh, and the steep hills were Barkley-like (just much, much shorter) so I could pretend I was in training.

It wasn't all fun and games, however.  John caught up to me coming down a hill and I was already moving down the drainage at the bottom (whoop!  hi there!).  He tells a story of running into a wire fence and getting stopped completely, having to back up to go around (then noticing a piece of flagging the organizers had tied to the fence specifically so people would see it).

No big deal there.  The problem came when he was in the bottom of the drainage - he stepped on a slippery rock that was camouflaged by leaves, which caused him to fall.  John is normally good at falling (really, avoiding falls 95% of the time).  I looked over and saw him on the ground and expected him to bounce back up.

When he was slow in rising, I went over to check it out.  Nothing like a bit of blood in the beard to create some concern.  His lip was gashed and he wasn't sure about the teeth, but he was game to continue on.

I offered to stick with him, but he wanted me to go on ahead.  So I went on slowly and kept an eye on him.  I was doing a rather fine job of that, I thought, when I mistook the end of the lake for an inlet that we had to cross and proceeding to hop across on rocks.  John asked why I was doing that, but it wasn't until I looked at my compass on the other side that I realized my mistake.

By the time I got back across, John was long gone.  Guess everything is OK then!

I saw him again between CP's 19 and 20, and actually had a good split on that long point by running around the top trails (my highlight of the weekend - beating all but 3 runners on this one).  John was waiting at the finish and we went to the EMT for further lip inspection.

Yep, needs stitches.  Time to drive over to the Shelbyville urgent care:

Couldn't ask for a more "Frankenstein" look for Halloween:

Happily, his teeth and everything else were fine, yay!  He was up for running the Sunday course and hasn't slowed down for much of anything.  Although eating yogurt off a spoon was apparently not easy for a couple days...

He could eat this just fine - a lovely salad we found at a cafe in town (so good I will try to reproduce it sometime when we have some extra broccoli and edamame):

In the vein of "Roadside America" we present this pig bench:

Sunday's medium-length course went well, no events of note, still enjoying these woods and trails.  Well, we did get to run through our campground a couple times so that was fun.  I probably lost the most time on one point just off the road, going in a circle to try to avoid a large group of campers.  I saw John a couple times, together we found a pond that wasn't on the map (that's a new one for us), and he was taking it easier but still moving well.  And beating me.

And he found me another balloon!  He's like a Mylar magnet.

Posing with the pieces - while wearing the hoodie from the most memorable balloon find (a Happy Birthday balloon while racing on his birthday a couple years ago):

Fun weekend!  Guess our vacation is almost over...

A piece of Indiana - who's yer hill?

We took a detour a short way into Indiana to see a couple things.  Well, one thing in particular, but along the way it was fun to find other interesting items.

OH wait, we're not quite out of Ohio yet, but it's the next morning so I started a new blog post.  On the way to the border we came across Annie Oakley's grave.  Well, that's something different.  Another nice Ohio historical marker as well:

OK, now into Indiana for real, up and up (not really) to the top of Hoosier Hill, another highpoint!

In the mailbox we found directions on how to get here.  Funny in itself.  More interesting is the note at the top that states "Indiana's High Point Is Wayne County's Hoosier Hill" - was there any question about that?  Maybe there's a back story we're unaware of.  Or maybe someone just decided to underline and italicize the "Is" without thinking how it might sound.

Now I've gone on way too long about a formatting question, sorry, where were we?

Ah yes, back to the mailbox - these are some nice ones, neat to see them at our recent highpoints:

Also the benches we have been finding more and more in the past year (well, except at places like the tops of Borah and Boundary, of course):

Trying to get low, although we aren't all that high to begin with:

Wave your feet in the air like you just don't care...

Terrible choice of highpoint for a seated yoga pose; it's not very meditative trying to balance on the top of a pointy rock:

I had a bit better luck with planking, sort of:

View from up high:

#37, woo hoo!
http://www.kipley.com/marcy/highpoints/indiana.html

Fun little stop in Richmond, IN to check out one mural; we ended up finding a bunch of them and all of them are great:

I thought the flying pig was in Ohio:

Here's the one we came for, quite elaborate and the cat looks totally unfazed about the whole "being dropped out of a window" thing:

Nice bike mural:

Kind of reminds me of the Banksy style but more upbeat (complete with shadows! can you tell which one is John?):

And... not really sure what this is:

Yay Timmy!  It's good to see you again, it has been too long:

And one last oddity captured by John as we were driving by - then we saw one later too, these tire frog things seem to be getting around:

Thanks Indiana, that was fun and we'll be back!

A day in oHIo

Time to move west, this time through Ohio where we spent a day perusing Roadside America attractions on our way to Campbell Hill.

Zanesville Ohio had some neat stuff, so we went for a little run through town.  Zane Grey is from the area, but the town was named that long before he was born (it's actually named after one of his ancestors).

These sheep are first in a line of sidewalk sculptures:

And the rest of them:

Vase-henge?

The town features a "Y-Bridge" with 3 roads coming over a river confluence and meeting in the middle.  Difficult to get a decent photo, but fun to run across:

Nice day for a run:

Eternal flame memorial near the river:

Oops, more flames, hopefully these are not so eternal:

A field of corn...?  On the NW side of Columbus:

Fun dancing rabbits in a park:

We didn't quite beat the sunset to our highpoint destination, but at least we had a streetlamp and camera flash to illuminate some photos.

Welcome to the highest spot in Ohio!

A most excellent summit certificate:

John can't face another historical marker:

The USGS marker and maybe something else used to be here?  We got down for a better look:

Hi, Hi Point!

Nearby, a lizard looks on - ?

#36 in our highpoint quest!
http://www.kipley.com/marcy/highpoints/ohio.html

A quick trip through Bellefontaine to see the oldest concrete street in America!

Here it is:

Oh, and also the "world's shortest street" although apparently not so much anymore:

A dark shot of our truck on the short street:

We spent the night at a campsite in Lake Loramie State Park, very nice.  Resting up for another day and another state, stay tuned.

Urban Dare - Philadelphia

We've been missing the urban racing scene, between being mostly far away from cities last summer and having fewer races to choose from.  Finding a race we could reach during our trip, well, we had to do it.  We enjoy racing in Philly anyway, always up for an Urban Dare jaunt around town, we're in!

Here's your clue sheet, go!  From Rittenhouse Square we jogged a short way down Walnut on a deadend quest before getting some good beta and a place to start.  Off to the races, southeast to Plays and Players, one down!

The next one our crew had ready for us was in Washington Square Park, so we hoofed it a few blocks to find our first dare.  This was a new (to us) jump roping challenge.  It also seemed new to the guys running it, as they took a couple minutes to figure out where the rope should be set up and who would be swinging it (they would) and how we would be jumping (we'd be jumping together).  Once we got started we knocked it out quickly.

I was in "have fun and work out the kinks" mode so no stress over the delay.  I had stressed a bit getting ready that morning, trying to remember how this urban race thingy goes and dealing with a few items that have changed or stopped working since last time.  After a while, things went from challenging to comical, so I was laughing whenever another small thing went wrong.

And eventually, things started going more right.  It's all good.

A couple more blocks of running, happily bypassing the Independence Hall area that tends to be crowded.  Next CP = William Woodin inscription at the US Customs House:

A short way north from there we were looking for a building where "Real World Philadelphia" was filmed.  Specifically, 251 Arch Street.  This was the only possible building, but it had no address number on it anywhere and no markings except a "For Sale" sign...

We spent a couple minutes checking around until Phil on the phone described it exactly and we figured it had to be it.  Rather odd, but here's a photo from another angle "just in case" (in case what, I don't know exactly):

Phil directed us to the subway for a ride across town.  While waiting for the train we talked a nice stranger into helping us with the marriage proposal quest (it's legal now, you know):

Finally a train and a ride west to the 30th Street Station.  A little more time lost from "not being locals" in figuring out how to get out of the metro station, across to the train station, and then into the big hall to find this memorial for railroad employees who died in WWII (nice sculpture):

Back to the streets, over to a lovely large mural that John had seen earlier when we parked our truck.  I was a bit confused about how it's made from 6000 photographs, but Phil gave a good description and we got a decent picture:

We diagonaled (is that a verb?) north to Logan Square for another dare.  Balloons!  We didn't realize how cold our hands were until we tried to blow up a balloon and tie a knot in it.  OK, a little more focus, there we go.  Making the balloon sword went quickly after that.

We followed Ben Franklin Parkway, through JFK Plaza, and over to this statue of Ben Franklin the Craftsman (not at all similar to the modern art piece I was initially trying to make into Ben Franklin).

One of my favorite selfies in a long time!  Nice capture, John!

Let's slow it down for a second, with a stroll "with purpose" through Macy's to find this giant eagle.  Two things of note - we tried first for a picture with the bird's butt, but it was blurry (the picture, not the butt).  And Kathy told me later that there is a giant pipe organ up above us, we'll have to go back and see it sometime!

Out the other side of Macy's, back on the run.  Back to two checkpoints we were near earlier but didn't know it at the time.

First a statue of Samual Gross, "The Nestor of American Surgery" whatever that means.  Our final dare, which turned out to be trivia questions!  John was excited, I was thinking this is a great way to showcase how bad we still are at trivia no matter how much we try.

First question was presidential, and a couple years ago this might have been a good category for me, but my brain isn't at all wired to remember details.  Who was the first president to win a Nobel Prize while in office?  We took a guess but didn't come up with Theodore Roosevelt.  Ah Teddy, constantly surprising me.

John was already tying the cord around our lower legs to prepare for penalty 3-legged laps when we answered "Ford" for 2 questions about automobile men (one was a quote about his cars, another about a town he set up for his workers).  Correct both times, we'll take it.  John got the next two right, one about a funny baseball card (the guy's fly was open in the picture) and a quote from a music figure about the "other assembly line in Detroit" (Motown!).

Last question - what was the name of the Wright brothers' plane that flew at Kitty Hawk?  Now that's just crazy.  My brain DOES keep some bits of minutia that it heard only the day before (thank you Air and Space Museum!), so the Wright Flyer was right at the top.  Yay for coincidence and weird happenstance!

With 5 out of 6 right we were free to go.  No 3-legged racing today, yippee!

One checkpoint left... another few blocks to the Royal Theater for a photo with a mural.  Our crew was very specific about which panel to find and to be sure to get "Miss Jessie" in the shot.

Excellent framing, John , with your eyes closed even!

We hustled back to the finish line, amazingly showing up just seconds ahead of our friend Ed and his teammate Joe.  Even though we arrived first (barely), John attempted to let them win (which isn't something we had ever discussed), I offered up a tie, Ed ran into the building ahead of us, and John and I and Joe got stuck at the door with John going one way, me going another, and the tow line stretched between us.

As I was reaching for the clip on the tow line, and to alleviate this strange situation, John the race director told us he was calling it a tie.  Thank you John!  He told us later that it was only the second time he had ever called a race a tie, and we were involved in the first one too (in Providence)!  I guess he won't be forgetting our faces anytime soon.

Turns out Ed and Joe had taken a photo of Bessie instead of Jessie at the Royal Theater, that's a bummer.  They were allowed back out the door (without our tow line in the way this time) to go fix the picture.

Another team, Brent and Meredith, arrived a few minutes later.  They had the 5-minute bonus (proposing marriage to a woman in a real white wedding dress) but that wasn't enough to pass us up, so we were officially alone in 1st place and they were psyched to get 2nd.  Ed and Joe came back with the right photo, but then our friend Mark and his teammate Penny came in also with the bonus while Ed and Joe didn't have bonus time.  Mark and Penny were 3rd and Ed and Joe finished the day in 4th.

Pretty dang crazy finish, these things aren't usually this close!

We had a great time running through the streets of Philadelphia, thank you Urban Dare for the fun course!