Palos Park, IL

Sag Valley Yellow Trail Loop

Running Time: 56:36.5 + 2-minute kick

Hot and muggy, but this was a great trail. A little too long to make the full loop, so I ran out-and-back to the west about a third of the way. Maybe 8 hikers on the loop trail total. No pavement other than an occasional stream bridge. Tree canopy cooled it down several degrees. Elevation changes made it more challenging and varied.

There were a bunch of people walking stairs up to a pagoda from the parking lot. It looked like some sort of ritual ceremony that involved extensive perspiration. There are not many hills in Illinois, so I suppose you have the ornament the steep ones with a pagoda, even if they are only a couple hundred feet.

Summer in the mideast is a strange affair. Hot and muggy can be followed by very scary thunderstorms. I will have to adjust to this, plus the absence of mountains like the one I look at every day from our home in Utah, when we move to Grand Rapids in a month. I worry, because so much of Wisconsin/Illinois/Indiana/Michigan feels like it is below the groundwater level even when it is not raining. I wonder if that is why this place was called Sag Valley.

I am looking forward to less flying. This past year, I have flown into either Chicago or Detroit 10 times. No more. The 4 states around Lake Michigan will all be driving trips now. I will fly to Minneapolis for Minnesota/North Dakota/South Dakota/Iowa. I will fly to Denver for Wyoming/Montana/Idaho/Utah. I can fly direct from Grand Rapids to both. Flying is bad for everyone.

I will miss the beauty of Utah. I will miss sharing a home with my granddaughter and my daughter (and even my son-in-law). I will miss my waterlands trail across the railroad tracks with the hundreds of dragonflies that hatch in the early summer. I will miss the big clear night sky.

I am looking forward to living back in a city, with quick access to the airport and to other points of interest. I am looking forward to learning where the best brewpubs and coffee joints are. I am looking forward to finding a new trail for my home trail, or maybe returning to a junior high track, like I ran in Oregon for 5+ years. I am looking forward to exploring the eastern half of the country, and venturing up to Ontario and Quebec. I am looking forward to visiting my granddaughter and my daughter (and even my son-in-law) in their new home in NY, and to visiting my son in his new home in NC, and to checking up on our other son back in Oregon when I can.

We learned a lot when we moved from Oregon to Utah last year, like the work of moving sucks. We will do better this time. We found a great house for much less than we would have found in Utah or Oregon. It was tough to find a house remotely, but we did it efficiently and effectively. My better half, of course, deserves the credit for driving that project.

I will come back to this trail as my running times get longer, and I will do the full loop. I might even run up to the pagoda, raise my fists, and run in place in slow motion.