Short, but sweet

Ah the parliament buildings, the botanical gardens, the stunning view from Mount Victoria.... what? Oh! We're not in New Zealand; we're in Wellington, Kansas.

Today's Eat & Run trip was a bit hurried and haphazard thanks to a lack of both money and time on the part of we bloggers. Still, we felt compelled to get something new on here before Rachel leaves for camp this week, so we quickly threw this outing together last night. And considering the spontaneous nature of this venture, I think it went pretty well. We went with Wellington because it was close and we didn't have much gas.

Happy, lazy me

Figuring out where to run was the difficult part. We searched Google Maps, mapmyrun and the Rails to Trails site and pretty much came up empty. I did learn that there is a proposed Rails to Trails 13 mile stretch from Wellington to Oxford. That should be pretty cool some day. Good half marathon practice. Anyway, Dan finally found a semi-promising looking park that he though might suit our purposes, so off we went with visions of diner food dancing in our heads. I decided I was going to order pancakes no matter what!

So after some really confusing directions from the gal at the gas station and an unfortunate jaunt in the wrong direction, we finally arrived at Woods Park. Sadly, this was to be a solitary run for me because Rachel injured her foot the night before at a sleepover. Also, there was no actual trail in the park, so I had to settle for running down a partially paved, but mostly gravel road which ran through the park. It was not a long road, so a mile run was all I could do at this location. The lazy part of me was pleased.

So I set off running to the sound of Eric Clapton changing the world. A mellow song for a chill run. And for what it was, it was a pretty nice run. Very green and shady under a mercifully partly cloudy sky. I keep noticing  lovely cypress trees, and I especially enjoyed the part where the road hugged the creek.

Cypress trees

We think this is Slate Creek

If it's a Gray expedition, there's gotta be a railroad connection

Dan had asked me if it would take me about 15 minutes, and Rachel snorted derisively. I told him to back it down to 10. They would meet me at the end of the road.

Most of the time the gravel was pretty fine but there were a few good ankle rolling sections of road.

So a quick little jog ensued and then we checked out the rest of the park. Dan and Rachel showed me the spillway they had found.

And then we went down a short path by the spillway for the world's shortest hike. Blogger seems to want me to stop adding photos on this post, so I'll put the other photos on a separate post. So it wasn't really much of a run, but the park was very green and pleasant. Looks like a great place to picnic or play Frisbee golf, so if you find yourself in Wellington (Kansas), check it out.