Dan, Rachel and I got an early start to try to beat the heat. Dan, whose navigation abilities greatly exceed my own, had figured out roughly where to go to find the beginning of the Sand Creek trail north of Newton. He dropped us off at an unlikely looking spot, just north of the Bethel College campus. Rachel and I started through some trees which eventually led to what looked like a bunch of people's back yards. It seemed a bit awkward running on this sidewalk through people's landscape and Rachel and I kind of giggled nervously about it. We passed a gentleman watering a pretty substantial vegetable garden who hailed us with "nice day for a run!" We felt a little less like oddball trespassers after that.
The sidewalk dipped back into a wooded area where we encountered a bunch of forks in our road. We took a wrong turn and had to double back. We were pretty much clueless as to where to go, but we tried to bear in the direction we thought the college was in and came out there eventually. Then, another wrong turn took us on an unnecessary loop around the campus. I told Rachel she could count this as her first official college visit. She was not amused, particularly since she had advised me to take the other (correct) way. Finally back on track, our paparazzi man, Dan, ambushed us on the trail. It was kind of fortunate, because he kept me from taking another incorrect path.
No more uncertain choices lay ahead after that. We ran past a cool section of land where native tallgrass was being studied and then past an open field where we finally saw another runner. At this point we had a fashion disagreement when Rachel said. "Hey, you're wearing gold hoop earrings. You like the earrings I have on? Oh wait, I'm not wearing any because I am sensible!" Eventually the path hugged Sand Creek on the way into Newton. Rachel and I agreed this was our favorite part of the run. The creek was lovely and the path sloped up and down gently. We saw several varieties of ducks, an egret and a Great Blue Heron. Rachel was quite taken with the old railroad bridge we ran under, exclaiming that it looked like something out of Thomas the Tank Engine. Soon the path led into town and we had a hungry moment running behind the local McDonalds before things got more residential.
Sand Creek runs through a quiet, shaded neighborhood and is intermittently lined with some cute fencing that is often supporting bright white and yellow clumps of honeysuckle. Lots of other flowers, both wild and planned, lined the route as well. The path was nice and flat here. We ran south until we reached a point where across a moderately busy street the trees disappeared and the sidewalk went towards an unpromising looking industrial area with oil tanks. We decided to cross the creek and run back up the parallel path on the west side. By now it was hot and I was sucking air pretty badly, but I still needed to run about two miles to meet my day's quota. Some whining may have occurred as the 13-year-old patiently encouraged and then later not so patiently chastised her mother.Unfortunately, the trees were a lot thinner and more removed from the path on this side, so we really got a chance to "enjoy" the sun. The path doesn't go as far north on this side, so we ended up crossing the creek again and did our final half mile down main street in downtown Newton.
So overall, this was a great place to run--scenic, often shady and flat. Rachel was impressed by the fact that we saw virtually no trash along the creek. The atmosphere was quiet too, except for the frequent sound of train whistles, but then Newton is a town known for its railroad history; in fact, their high school mascot is The Railroaders. All in all, we thought our first destination run went pretty well.
Here we are at a trail marker on the campus of Bethel College.
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