Road Trip Running

We're on a road trip to visit the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Hot Springs Arkansas, and Vicksburg National Battlefield in Mississippi. 

The first run is in Vandalia, IL. It's an hour outside of St. Louis, and there ain't much happening. Not in the small town, or in regards to my brief run. But at least I get a couple of miles in.

Here in Hot Springs, AR, I had planned to get more than a couple of miles in. As usual, I'd examined the charts using Google Maps. As usual, I'd looked for nice and safe, yet adventuresome places to explore. And guess what? The roads around the lakes and rivers actually worked out today. It winds up being a pretty decent, albeit slow, run today. I only hope I can get up to double digits tomorrow.

I'm running in circles. It stinks of 1) a dead animal, 2) diesel fumes from trucks far and near, and 3) some kind of pervasive bad smell from paper mills. The thing I'm running around is dead, itself: the Pines Mall in Pine Bluff, AR. It's spooky and scary in the darker areas, which are many. And yet, it's going fairly well. I've managed to finally get down to something like tempo pace for four of the last five miles, and I'm going to get ten, total today. The pollution probably made the run more health - harmful than - helpful, but I'll just choose to ignore that concern. It's the best run of the bunch.

Vicksburg would probably be a nice place to run. If only I could get down to the river, but I just don't have the time today. Only enough for a short run toward some ball parks. Okay, it'll do.

One final run: Elizabethtown, just a stop on the way home. After I get away from the large assortment of chain hotels, fast food joints, and gas stations, I discover an actual park. Of all things. It's almost as if there's a real town here. I'm only running a couple miles, so I don't do all that much exploring. Maybe next time I come through.