Beautiful, Beautiful BBU

Mindy and I met at the Brad at 8am, both with the knowledge that Joe had just earned his Silver Buckle at Western States!  That's pretty good inspiration for a run!  I was pretty sure the course for the BBU was locked down, but running it again, on a clear day, with two Garmins would give more confidence that we've nailed down the loop.

The morning actually felt cool starting out.  I think that was just in contrast to how hot it has been.  We were running the loop starting from the Brad parking lot, which meant heading to the east side first.  We were treated to the beauty of the dark, wet tree trunks against the bright green foliage, highlighted by the sunlight coming through the canopy.  We were  reminded of how the humidity hangs in there for a while even though the clearing storm has gone through.

As always, even after covering lots of territory yesterday, we had tons to talk about and the miles ticked off.  We stopped briefly in the parking lot to see if Pete and a friend had decided to do their run at Brad.  Nope.  So off on the mountain side.  Just as we were heading out, a sweet little border collie and her folks were heading in.  We learned she'd been rescued just before she and all her siblings were executed by some Tennessee Farmer.  Yikes!  We could tell she was a very lucky pup to find a family that already had two border collies in their family.  Sweet.

More chatter and appreciation of Brad before we ran into Fritz, the park ranger, his wife, and a new person to the park who, I think, is coordinating conservation volunteers at the park.  He asked if we'd seen the work being done on the trail up towards Tryon.  Yes!  I am very happy and impressed with the job they're doing there.  I could wait for Mindy to see; we both hated that short stretch.  I swatted and was bitten by lots of mosquitoes as we talked.

Our next find was a box in the middle of the trail with the word, "wonderment" written on it.  Me, "We're gonna open it, right?"  Squirrel, mostly kidding, "Hope there's not a dead animal in there!"  "Use a stick; I'll take a picture."

We oohed at the different treasures, then Mindy opened the scroll.  I think she said something about stoners being out.  Still, we were on the look out from then on for a treasure of our own to add to the box.

On Sweetser Road, the short dirt road stretch, we were bothered a bit by deer flies.  They were on the power lines, too, but left us when we peeled off to the Connector.  Again, we were struck by the beauty we were running through.  The lighting seem extra special.

The work being done on the before-disliked hill

More of the work

Lots of work on drainage

Of course the shot doesn't capture the real scene

Mindy's find for the Wonderment Box had to be tossed aside.  The box was gone.  Oh, well.  I think it was around here that Mindy started mentioning how hungry she was.  Hmmm, this was a first; I'm usually the hungry one.

On the trail that connects the Reverse Mindy to the Tote Road, I started big time; a snake slithered out from just under my footfall.  I like snakes, but they'll scare the shit out of me as much, if not more, than the next guy.  While trying to get a photo of him, we met Mr. Toad.  Well, Toad hopped close to Snake.  The Squirrel told me that the snake snapped, nibbled, um...tasted Toad.  I was looking through the viewfinder so saw none of it.  All of my shots are kind of point and hope cause, without my glasses, I have no idea what I've got in the frame.  Mindy thought I might have caught the encounter, or, at least, have gotten them in the same pic.  No such luck :(  But I did get something:

Look close!  Mr. Toad is there.

Mr. Toad alone

At the summit, we marveled at the difference in the view.  Yesterday was interesting shades of gray with mist (haze?).  Today was bright blue with clear view of the ocean.  We didn't spend too long looking, since we were close to the finish.  Mindy's stomach didn't get any less hungry.  We headed down Lunch Break.  It always seems longer than we remember.  I think the up seems shorter.  The only thing that held us up from just finishing was an adorable Corgi, well Corgi mix.  Turns out, she was a rescue dog from Tennessee!  After a nice visit we pushed through to the finish.  There, I realized I was beyond hungry.  Lucky for Scout and Squirrel, E&Ls had a repeat of yesterday's BLT on the menu.  Perfect ending.