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Showing posts from January, 2014

Coyote kill on the C&O towpath?

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Early one recent Sunday morning,  I pulled into Riley's Lock, my usual start for long runs on the C&O towpath.   There were no other cars in the normally busy lot, which didn't surprise me.  It was still early, the sun just up, and with the so-called "polar vortex" settling in over our mid-Atlantic world, the temperature remained stuck in the single digits.    I headed north.  There were several inches of almost fresh snow covering the path. Mine were the only human tracks among the overnight skitterings of animals. As I ran, the sun flashed through the bare trees and across the ice and the snow.   Thirty minutes in, I was warming up more quickly than expected and felt loose-limbed and relaxed.  I even stripped off a layer or two. I felt a little frisson of excitement.  Putting words to a wordless sensation, it was the pleasure of a felt contrast between the icy woods around me and the warmth I was generating within--like sidling up to a campfire on a