Wall, SD

Unnamed Trail

Run Time: 38:05 + 2-minute kick

If Wall Drug thinks I am going to cave to the thousand-billboard marketing ploy, they are wrong. I have no desire to find out if they really still have 5-cent coffee. I do not want to check out the giant Jackelope sculpture. I took a photo of the dinosaur by the off-ramp only because my run took me right past it. I can get 86-cent coffee in Midland, thank you very much, without feeling like a tourist. I can see hundreds of antelope right by the highway all through Wyoming and western SD. Jackelopes aren’t real, and they aren’t interesting.

But the city of Wall is strategically situated just before the turn-off to Pierre, which was my next sales stop, and there are few hotels between Rapid City and Pierre other than in Wall, and the Best Western Plains Hotel in Wall is a delightful throwback with modern conveniences appropriately entwined. A towel folded into the shape of a heart on the bed with a religious recommendation was nice. Quiet and clean, with pleasant staff. I slept well in Wall.

I found a paved trail on the eastern edge of town that was not very long, but I extended my run along the canyon rim, past the trailer park, and down a gravel road that ran by the wastewater treatment pond. This run was a good test of the barefoot shoes, because there were a lot of small pebbles that I could not avoid entirely that would cripple you if you stepped on one in actual bare feet. The shoes held up. I could feel the pebbles, but it did not hurt. Well done, barefoot shoes.

Wind was the weather of the week. This day started with snow flurries north of Cheyenne and ended with bright sunshine in SD, but wind all the way through. A steady 25-30 mph while I ran, with occasional gusts of 40-50. The next day was even worse, but that was all driving, so my only exposures were at rest stops. This run at decent elevation with a constant wind was challenging but refreshing. I felt exfoliated afterward.

Something sad to report from this day of work travel. At a rest area on WY-59, between Douglas and Gillette, a long-hair black cat approached me as soon as I got out of my car. She was clearly abandoned. She meowed to me. She did the same with the next car who stopped. I broke up a meat stick for her. There was a farmhouse about a mile away, so I told myself a story that she had wandered away for whatever reason and would wander back, but cats don’t approach strangers like that if they are not desperate. Later that night, I emailed the Casper Humane Society. They punted to the Laramie Peak Humane Society in Douglas. They punted to the sheriff and suggested I go back and get the cat and bring it to them. I explained that I could not do that and suggested they reach out to the sheriff, or maybe to a local citizen who gives a shit about an abandoned cat. My faith in their follow-through is low, but maybe someone else will save the cat. The rest area coordinates are 43.32120 N 105.35203 W.

I do not believe in hell, but I believe it is possible that someone who abandons a cat at a rest area in Eastern Wyoming might very well manifest one for their self. They might also need to make room for someone who volunteers for a “humane” society and will not make a 30-mile drive out to retrieve a homeless cat that they might take in “if they have room.” Then again, I guess I could have put the cat in my rental car and looked for a shelter in Gillette, if I would have thought harder about it in the moment. So they might have to let me pop in for a guilt session as well. Pets, like children, teach us what it truly means to care, if we care to pay attention.

Sorry, Kitty Cat. I fell short.