The blue-white beam of my LED headlamp jostles over the packed dirt road as if it were the cratered surface of the moon. The narrow field of vision is disorienting, like watching someone run through a camcorder. The wind is up, 20-25 knots which makes my soul ache a bit as I picture Lake Michigan frothing up, as if Gabriel had shaken up a can of root beer. But the wind rushes through the trees separating them from their leaves. The dying canopy of autumn gyrates in the wind, causing the shadows on the ground to dance in my little moon-man beam. The noises are all crisp snaps and rustles, which somehow seems more alive than the noise of birds, and animals. Running in the dark is not really safe, but it really heightens your appreciation for sounds. The sound of the wind through the trees, which was so loud I could hear it over my iPOD, actually made me pause, and i took it off for the rest of the run, to listen to the sounds of snapping branches, falling leaves, and the groaning and creaking of weak branches high up as the gale brushed them forward and back like short bristly hair bound to come out at the roots.
The wind to me seems to have a character all its own, fall storms that blow leaves are in essence Michigan for me. A shower of luminescent orange over a dirt road on a windy day pretty much cements my reasons for living here. You can keep Florida!
45:55-5 miles I think