Day 1166 -- Clinton

From Waymarking.com, the Clinton Inn in Clinton, Michigan. Do you know how many Clintons there are? According to Mapquest, there are ten: Michigan, Iowa, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and South Carolina.

I ran over to the high school track to attempt a little "speed" work today. Needless to say, I do it early in the morning, so there are no witnesses to how slow my speed work is. It felt fine, but I'm tired. Tormorrow is a scheduled day off, and so I think I'll take the day off.

In family news, today we celebrate the 16th birthday ofr the oldest and newest Little Jogger. We are not actually certain what day she was born on. She was assigned the birthday July 1 by the Ukrainian orphanage system. It's as good a day as any, I suppose.

Day 1027 -- Christmas!

Happy Christmas from the Jogger Family!

We managed to sleep in a reasonable amount. We opened presents first thing. The main present was a new Wii gaming system, which is very popular, but also has led to some fights. Too many kids, not enough joysticks. The medium Little Jogger is, of course, the crankiest. When he's the one playing, life is great, but if he has to wait his turn, it's horrible. Horrible, I tell you.

Yes, I did get out to run. I went to Snap Fitness, and I was not the only one. There were four people there when I got there, and two different people when I left. I went around lunch time. I didn't run quite as far as I had planned, but any run is better than no run. And I'd skipped yesterday, because of the rotten weather. So it was good.

Happy Christmas to all who are celebrating today, and a happy day to everyone else, too.

Day 901 -- Keyhole State Park

If you go north of Interstate 90, instead of south, you'll find Keyhole State Park. (If you stay on I-90, you'll find a whole lot of nothin'.) According the Wyoming Department of Tourism, the park "offers excellent fishing for walleye, catfish, small mouth bass and northern pike." So pack up that rod and reel and come visit.

When I hit the door this morning, I was surprised to find a steady rain. I briefly thought about rescheduling my run, but I didn't. It was only rain, no lightning, so the major effect that it had was to keep me cool. I had a nice long run -- 15 miles, as scheduled. I won't say that it was easy, but I did finish it, and I've been feeling OK.

The rain continued through the Independence Day parade that I took the Little Joggers to this morning. We found a spot under a tree, so we didn't get too wet. However, we were set back from the street, and a couple of families sat on the curb ahead of us, so we didn't get much candy. Oh, well. The girls are definitely too old, and the medium Little Jogger should be. In any case, it was a nice parade. We hadn't been to this particular parade before, so we didn't know what to expect.

Day 891 -- Scout Cam

With the Interstate 90 in Wyoming utterly failing to provide good photo opportunities, I decided to post a photo from real life. Here you see a photo from the Blackhawk Area Council Cub Scout Day Camp, 2009. These are the Tigers. If you've been reading for a year, you may remember that last year, I helped out in a small way. This year, I jumped in with both feet. I am the leader of the Tiger Camp.

The main camp has kids who have already been in scouts for at least a year. They have a kind of a rotation. A couple of people do crafts, and they rotate each group through, the same craft, seven times. Then someone else does nature, and they rotate each group through, the same lesson or project, seven times a day. Someone else does BB guns, and they do the same thing seven times a day, and seven more times tomorrow, and seven more the next day, and so on, forever, because it doesn't take any planning to do BB guns. You just keep an eye on the kids and make sure that they don't shoot each other's eyes out.

The Tigers are different. These are kids between kindergarten and first grade, who will be in scouts for the first time next year. Rather than mix them in with the bigger kids, they shunt them over to the side. The leader (that's me, remember) then has to do crafts and nature and rubber band guns (no BBs for us) and games and more crafts and more rubber band guns and more games and more rubber band guns. Since they have a five minute attention span, and camp is six hours, I need 72 activities. OK, it's not that bad, but I needed more than I had prepared. Nothing seemed to take as long as I had planned. So we had to keep throwing in activities. "OK, let's see who can be quietest the longest!"

It was approximately 1,000,000 degrees out. We had a canopy, but half the activities took us out from under fairly often. And even under, it was still 9,999,900 degrees. Three of the Tigers burst into flames. And it's not going to be any cooler all week. At least I have water games planned for tomorrow, which will help keep us cool.

I did run this morning. I could easily have taken the day off, but I figured I needed my endorphins to face the day. I think that's probably wise. It was a long slog, but not nearly as long as it would have been if I had skipped my run.

Three more days. Three more days. Three more days....

Day 885 -- Buffalo

This is kind of a funky looking church. It is Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Buffalo, Wyoming. I'm still a few miles short of Buffalo, but it has been 90 miles since Ten Sleep, with nary a town in sight. And it's another 70 miles to Gillette. If you live in Buffalo, it's a long way to visit your neighbors.

I ran an easy five miles this morning. I didn't mean to go quite that far, but once I got started, I just ran. It was a nice morning for it.

The rest of the day was spent driving for Jogger's Taxi service. It started at 8:00, when I took the oldest and newest Little Jogger to the first day of Summer School, where she will be boning up on her math skills. Then it was off to the office for a bit, but not too long, because I had to pick the oldest and newest up after Summer School. After lunch, I took her and the littlest Little Jogger to a friend's house to play. In the middle of the afternoon, Mrs. Jogger sent me to the store to pick up canning supplies. She's putting up a whole bunch of strawberry-rhubarb jelly. I approve of strawberry-rhubarb jelly, so I went. At 4:00, the first Little Jogger had to go to Dairy Queen for a final meeting of Girl Scouts for the year. Home for a brief visit, then at 5, I had to drop the littlest off at soccer practice and, simultaneously, pick up the first from Dairy Queen. On opposite sides of town. I delivered the first home, then turned around to go pick up the littlest from Soccer practice. And then...peace. Until tomorrow.

Day 880 -- More Bighorn National Forest

Steamboat Point seems to be a fairly popular thing to photograph in Bighorn National Forest. It's easy to see why; it's very impressive. This particular photo is from Panoramio. I'm not actually near Steamboat Point. It's north of where I'm running.

I finally got in my long run that I had planned for Sunday. I ran 15.4 miles in just under three hours. It felt pretty good, all told. I felt stronger than I did on my 14 mile run last week. Now I'll have to see what I can do this weekend. It's a drop-back week, so I'm only scheduled for 12 miles, but I may not even do that, because I'll have only five days between now and Sunday. We'll see.

The first Little Jogger is going to join the Cross Country team at the high school this fall. Yesterday, she brought home her summer training schedule. It's pretty flexible. They will run together two days a week, and other than that, she is just supposed to put in 600 total minutes of running over the summer. I'm excited. I'd like to see her get serious about this, and I think that she has a chance to be good. But I'm trying not to push her. She'll decide how much effort she wants to put into it.

Another gorgeous cake

The littlest Little Jogger's birthday was last Monday, but with the medium Little Jogger not feeling well, we didn't really celebrate. So yesterday, Mrs. J finally made a special cake for the littlest, which we will eat this afternoon.

What do you mean, you don't recognize it? It's a Zoombini, of course! The Zoombinis are the main characters in a series of way cool video games. They have lots and lots of good math and logic puzzles for the kids to solve. The littlest has been playing Zoombinis lately, and he requested a Zoombini cake. As usual, Mrs. J was up to the task.

Day 872 -- Race Report, Family Fitness Fun Run

Today was the first annual Family Fitness Fun Run sponsored by the public school system. We decided to get half the family involved, anyway. There were four events. First, there was a five minute run for kids in first grade or below. We have no one eligible for that one. Then there was a ten minute run for kids in 2nd through 5th grade. The littlest Little Jogger wanted to run that one. Then there was a two-mile walk, and simultaneously, a 5K run. I wanted to do the 5K, and the littlest Little Jogger wanted to do the walk, and recruited the oldest and newest Little Jogger to walk with him.

Unfortunately, we hit a bit of a hitch. I don't remember exactly what the woman said when we registered, but the gist of it was something like this. The 5-minute run was going to be around the soccer field (pointing to the west of the school) and the 10-minute run was going to have a longer course, which goes over there (pointing to the east.) What she meant was that both were starting in the same place, but the 10-minute run was going to go behind the school and make a loop on the east side. What I understood was that the 10-minute run was going to start on the east side.

So, we watched the 5-minute run, and cheered for everyone, especially the kids we knew. Then we walked over to the east side of the school to wait for the 10-minute run to start. Now, any person of normal intelligence would have figured out, after we stood there by ourselves for a few minutes, that we were in the wrong place. But I didn't catch on until they blew the whistle to start the 10-minute run.

Well, the littlest Little Jogger was pretty upset. He stood there and cried for most of the ten minutes, at which point I said, "The heck with it, let's run." So we lined up, I set my watch, and we ran together around the course for ten minutes. He flagged a little at times, but he ran the whole time. I'm proud of him.

After that, he decided not to walk the two miles. Since we were at his school, from whence he walks home by himself every day, he walked home by himself, and left me and the o&n Little Jogger to run the 5K.

I did decently, I thought. I started out too fast (of course), but still managed to finish in 26:38, a couple minutes faster than my 5K in April. The o&n Little Jogger alternated running and walking, and finished in 32 minutes or so.

By the time we got home, the littlest Little Jogger was fine. So all's well that ends well, I guess. We each got a new t-shirt, and we all got some exercise, so it was a fun event all around.

Sorry, no race photos. Nobody in our troop brought a camera. If I manage to get some photos from someone else, I'll be sure to post them.

Day 868 -- Greybull

Here I am in front of the former Masonic Temple in Greybull, Wyoming. If you are interested, this building is for sale for $36,900, which seems like a bargain, to me. It has "Numerous commercial opportunities."

I ran almost six miles today, at a decent pace. Saturday's run was dead slow. Today, I managed to run under 10 minute miles, which felt pretty good. I've iced my ankle. Now to see if it will hold up to another run tomorrow.

Mrs. Jogger and the Little Jogger had another rough night. Right now, they are dozing in the living room. I sure hope that he starts to feel better, for all out sakes.

And Happy Birthday to the littlest Little Jogger, who turns eight today. He is definitely wise beyond his years.

Twenty-two Years

May 24, 1987. Mrs. Jogger and I tied the knot. Twenty-two years later, we're still together and still in love. How's that for commitment?

It hasn't been the most pleasant anniversary ever. The medium Little Jogger is still pretty miserable. He hasn't been able to sleep, so Mrs. J hasn't gotten much sleep. The other four of us have been walking around on eggshells all day. But this, too, shall pass, and Mrs. J and I will get a chance to celebrate together. Someday.

I took another day off from running. My tendon is hardly bothering me at all. I hope to start stringing together two running days in a row, starting with tomorrow and Tuesday. Then we'll see what happens on Wednesday.

Day 867 -- South Big Horn County Airport

As I slowly approach Greybull, I'm passing the South Big Horn County Airport. There, in 2001, JetPhotos.net user Stephen Boreham took this photo of a Lockheed C130-A Hercules. Apparently, this particular plane crashed in 2002 while fighting a fire, with three crew on board.

I ran 12 miles today! I felt good about it. My tendon is a bit sore, but it held up OK. In the middle of the second four mile loop, I thought maybe it was going to give up, and I would have to cut my run short. But I didn't. Now I'm going to go back to taking it easy. I hope that by my next long run, next weekend, I will be good to go.

The medium Little Jogger is slowly getting better. He's still in a lot of pain, I'm afraid. We've heard that the third day is the worst. We've also heard that the fifth day is the worst. We'll see.

One hurtin' cowpoke

No run today, but I have an excuse. We had to have the medium Little Jogger at the hospital in Dubuque (a half hour drive) at 6:45. He had his tonsils and adenoids removed.

He's been having recurring sore throats for a couple of years, that have been really bad this spring, so they finally decided that his tonsils have to go. They will run some tests, but they are hoping that this will end it. I hope so, too, because the poor little guy is pretty miserable right now. And they say it's going to get worse for a few days before it gets better. We're trying to keep him on pain medicine and popsicles, but I can't help feeling that five days of heavy sedation would do the trick. Not for him, for us.

Day 864 -- Wagon Box Social Mountain Trail Run

I've posted photos from Burlington for two runs in a row, and I'm actually still not there. So I decided to go a little further afield. Back over my right shoulder is the town of Meeteetse, which hosts the Wagon Box Social Mountain Trail Run. They have a 5K, a 10K, and a 13K race. This year's race is June 27. I don't think I'll stick around to run it.

I did five miles this morning, and my tendon held up OK. I'm icing it right now. I have decided that I'm not going to run at all tomorrow. I was thinking about testing it on a long run, but a long run was what got me into trouble in the first place. The most important thing is to get it healthy, so it doesn't become a chronic condition. So no run for me tomorrow, and I'll shoot for 12 miles next weekend.

The semester has come to an end. I have my exams mostly graded. One class is entirely graded, and I only have a few questions on each of the other finals. I will try to get it done today, but so far I don't seem to be motivated to work on it. Grades aren't due until Wednesday.

In medical news, the medium Little Jogger is going to have his tonsils and adenoids out on Wednesday. He's been having troubles with them all spring, and the doctor just decided enough is enough. The surgery is routine, but the recovery promises to be pretty painful. I hope that it will be worth it, and he won't have sore throats like he's been having.

Day 847 -- Fishing Bridge

The Fishing Bridge over the Yellowstone River. According to this blog, you can no longer fish from the Fishing Bridge, because the river was getting fished out. So, since 1973, it's been the Looking at Fish Bridge. Works for me. That way, I don't have to clean the things. (Isn't that a great euphemism? "Clean a fish." Much better than, "rip its guts out, peel off its skin, cut off its head and tail.")

I did take yesterday off. This morning, I felt great, and ran a peppy seven miles. I didn't feel at all bad after Saturday's 16 miles.

It's been a rough couple of days at the Jogger household. Mrs. J and two of the kids have been sick. The medium Little Jogger is never fun when he's sick. He is whiny and hard to live with. The first Little Jogger just kind of holed up in her room. But this evening, she tried to do her math homework, in order to go back to school tomorrow, and she just couldn't do it. It demanded more concentration than she had. To a normal 14-year-old, or an adult with perspective, that's just the way it is. Not gonna get this assignment done today. But the Little Jogger is a horrible perfectionist, and she's afraid of looming disaster. So she was upset.

Overall, it's just been a weekend to try to survive. I hope this next week goes better.

Day 834 -- More Hebgen Lake

The technical college up in Madison had a program today for Math Awareness Month. There was a Sudoku contest, and a couple of talks. I'm afraid I gave the second best talk of the day. It wasn't bad. It just wasn't as good as the talk I had to follow. Between that, and the fact that the kids were all itching to start the contest, they were a little antsy during my talk.

I didn't run this morning, because we had to leave at 7:00, to make sure that we would make it through the Madison traffic. "We" included the first Little Jogger and one of her friends. Public schools in our town had the day off for teacher prep, so they decided to tag along. They couldn't enter the contest, but I think they had fun just hanging out and watching and not being near pesky little brothers, of which they have three between them.

Anyway, we got back in the middle of the afternoon, and I went for a quick five then. It felt pretty good, but there was too darn much traffic in the middle of the afternoon. It's much quieter at 5:30 am.

This photo, by the way, comes from the Montana film board.

Shark Car!

The littlest Little Jogger announced that this year, he wanted a Shark Car for the Pinewood Derby. So I did the Google, and found a couple of nice designs of various complexity. We took them out to our friend the woodworker, and he helped the Little Jogger put together this bad boy. I must say, it's a cool, cool car.

Today was the Pinewood Derby. It was, as usual, total chaos. But fun chaos. The Little Jogger was third in his den, which is great, because the top two go to the regional competition. And I don't want to have to drive to the regional competition. So third is great. And all agreed that he had a cool car.

Happy Christmas from the Jogger Family...

...or whatever holiday you are celebrating!

Happy Birthday, Little Jogger!

Today, we celebrate the 14th birthday of the oldest and newest Little Jogger. She is rapidly turning into a bratty teenager. (What was she before? A bratty preteen.) She spends most of her time hanging around with her friends and worrying about what she's wearing.

I've discovered a wonderful secret. I can embarrass her just by looking at her. I don't need to act silly or anything. Just a calm, steady gaze will drive her bonkers. It's one of the few powers that I still have. It does sound a little weird when I threaten her, though. "Clean up your room, or I'll stare at you!"

Seriously, she's a good kid. Like all 14-year-olds, she's just trying to figure out who she is. Whatever rebelliousness she's experimenting with, it's mostly aimed at us. All of her friends parents tell us how well-behaved and sweet she is. So I guess she's doing OK.

(Almost) Instant Karma

Well, I paid for the sin of skipping my workout today.

The first three days of Scout Camp were 9 am to 3:30 pm, which is about right. But today, the fourth and last day, they wanted to put on a program for parents, with awards and skits and what-all. Well, you can't have it at 3:30, because people have jobs. So today's Scout Camp was 1 pm to 7 pm. So by 4:00 or so, we were all a bit tired. The kids were extra wiggly, and extra grumpy, and extra hard to deal with. And I, having missed my morning endorphins, was not at my most patient. I actually had to leave my fellow walkers in charge, and walk away for a half hour, just to get my nerves back under control. But I survived without killing any of the kids, so it's a success.

Every day, they have the walkers fill out an evaluation form. "How did things go? Were the kids interested? Do you have any suggestions?" The last question is, "Would you be a walker next year?" The first three days, I put "Yes". Today, I said, "Now is not the time to ask."

The parents program went well. Our skit, which I anticipated being the worst skit in the history of skits, came together at the last minute, and was not too bad. The littlest Little Jogger won a certificate for BB gun shooting (third in his age group), so he was tickled. And now I'm home, listening the relative quiet of only four ornery kids!

Day 639 -- Piercy

Piercy, California, is home to Confusion Hill. I hope that the writers at RoadsideAmerica.com were being intentionally ironic when they wrote:

"It is truly a unique Roadside Attraction! Very much the same as mystery spots such as The Wonder Spot, The Mystery Spot and The Oregon Vortex!"

Day 639 was yesterday. I came pretty close to not running yesterday. I was so tired, and I was up late because two of the Little Joggers had play rehearsal until 10:00. As it was, I didn't get to bed until after 10:30, so I got not much more than six hours of sleep. I thought about sleeping in, but I realized that a six mile run would do more than an extra hour of sleep to help me cope with the Cub Scouts for another day.

It was a sweaty run. A huge mass of patented Midwestern humidity has parked over my corner of Wisconsin. It isn't terribly hot, yet, but it's still pretty uncomfortable.

I didn't post at all yesterday, because after Scout Camp, two of the Little Joggers had soccer games, one at 5:30 and one at 6:30. So I went to those, didn't eat supper until I got home, and poured myself into bed. I turned off my alarm, which explains why today isn't Day 640. It looks like I'll be switching my scheduled day off tomorrow with my scheduled easy run today. Either that, or take two days off, but I don't know if I can stand that.