Running with ungulates

My long run was a big loop through Williston and into Richmond on a warm, overcast Easter Sunday.

My original plan was to start at Liz's house and head out Mountain View, run towards Catamount and then join Route 2 and come back into Williston. At the last minute I decided to go counterclockwise instead, starting on 2A, heading East on 2 and then turning on the back road. This was a good plan strategically -- the extra miles I needed to pick up would be easy to find on the side roads of Mountain View, once I was closer to the finish. But I wasn't anticipating the cute baby donkeys.

Heading out Route 2 through Williston Village, you go down a short, winding steep stretch that opens into a wide valley. Right at the bottom of that hill I should have taken a left turn on Governor Chittenden Highway, but I was transfixed by a small shaggy gray-tan donkey with a dark brown shaggy mane (is it called a mane on a donkey?) and huge eyes. There a few horses and other small donkeys, but this one was near the road and responded to, "Aw, hey buddy!" I wondered briefly if it was a full-grown miniature donkey, then wondered what the difference is between a donkey and a jackass and a mule. And then remembered a story I read 18 million years ago in the New Yorker about Gen. Norman Schwartzkopf reminiscing about when he was a kid he wanted to be a garbage man because his garbage man owned a donkey, and he really wanted a donkey.

And by this time, I was headed past the field and the barn and the farmhouse where they sell awesome pumpkins in the fall (hi KP!) and was well on my way toward the iron bridge and the town of Richmond. And I had not turned left on Governor Chittenden as I intended.

At the iron bridge, Route 2 meets Route 117 and Interstate 89, and at this point I realized that I goofed. This is the downside of running a new route. I got to the Kitchen Table restaurant, then turned around and took a seat on a construction pylon at the bridge. (The very badly rusting bridge. Sketchy.) I normally don't run with ID or a phone, but today I stuffed both into my camelbak. I fished out a Gu and my phone and looked at the map. Sure enough, that donkey charmed me out of remembering where to turn. The bonus, though, is that the bridge construction site had a port-o-let, so I took advantage of that, and then headed back west on Route 2.

Said hi to the donkeys again.

Governor Chittenden Highway is awesome name for a road, and an awesome road at that. Beautiful wide dirt road, not rutted at all, winding uphill with beautiful views of the Williston countryside. If all you know of Williston is Wal-Mart and Best Buy, you should see what this part of the county used to be like.

And then the second confusing part of the route: a sign that read 'road ends 500 feet'. Heading up a curve toward a horse farm, I crossed paths with a really nice woman who was walking a super friendly horse named Julie. "Julie will keep nosing you until you pet her," she told me, not even bothering to ask why I was walking through their farm. The road does continue through and into the woods, but only snowmobiles and deer use it in winter. The nice woman with Julie said the road reopens in May, but it's passable now - just a little snow and ice is left up in the woods.

"It'll be like that Battery Hill -- just follow the road up, up, up in the woods." Nice.

I loved this road. It was uphill, and I did hike fast instead of actually run it, but it was awesome to be the woods, and see streams and waterfalls and views from between the trees across the valley. Totally awesome. Begin infatuation with Thomas Chittenden, first governor of Vermont, who lived on that hill, according to the plaque I read.

And then, back to the pleasant, plain reality of Williston. Climbing out of the woods, I was out on Mountain View Road, heading straight toward the burbs. Sidewalks, walking paths, and neat families dressed up for Easter. I didn't have to take so many side road detours, thanks to my donkey/bridge/port-o-let detour into Richmond, and instead headed back to Liz's house. Her neighbor says, "Hey, I heard you were running, like, a million miles today."

Nah. Just 17. Sweet.