Stone Age

This early March, Saturday run took me from alleys of Highland Park into the heights of Belmar and took care of some intervening areas in Larimer. I was also stretching out the distance, aiming for more than ten miles.

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I started out on a few dead-end alleys in Highland Park, remarkable for their Stone-Age Era wall paintings. Then, I ran into typical streets trouble; colonized streets. This time, it was Glenview Place. I recognize that residents want to make the most of their living space, and a small, dead-end road is an ideal choice for extending your space, for parking, for car washing, for cookouts, for putting greens. However, it is a bit annoying to find public roads plastered with “Private Property” and “No Trespassing” signs a quarter mile before the end. Grrr!

Nonetheless, the pleasant morning made up for the irritation and returned the way I came, this time scaling down Violin Way until it wrapped around St. Marie Street and Chinn Way. Shaking off the dust from Highland Park, I entered the meat of my course in Larimer. I had laid out a route to do all of Indiana Way, finish a section between Larimer Avenue and Negley Run Road, then zig-zag across Larimer to Lincoln.

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It isn’t actually that far. Indiana Way starts out well, makes it past the autobody shop and then disintegrates into a sidewalk along a playground. Orange Street, however, doesn’t really didn’t go through, I had to bushwhack through tall weeds and under broken trees to do it. That, of course, roused the local dogs, and by the time I stopped to take a picture of Orange Street, their howls were unnerving. It was also disappointing to see that a house with newly installed windows had already had its new windows broken. Then, a faded blue and white full sized van crept past me, going not more than 15 mph. Fine, residential area, old guys go slow. Continuing down Lenora, I passed this van as the driver slowly parked. Lenora ends, aptly, at Orphan Street which is high above Negley Run Road. This whole area seemed rather orphaned, honestly.

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Now on a mission to complete the remaining little streets, what should slowly drive by, but the blue and white van. There was a veritable traffic jam as I tried to cross the street, while the van slowly made a right and sporty car quickly came up behind it. At this point I had just about had enough. Why was this guy driving so slowly? At any rate, I figured I could do this section later and zipped onto the other side of the street. I came up Victor Way as it squeezed past two houses en route to Rapidan Way, but two cars up on blocks for repairs impeded my progress to Renfrew Street, so I adjusted my route and crossed over to Lowell. Coming down Lowell, what should I see but the blue and white van slowly coming down the street! Ugh, three times a charm, so I bolted over to Lincoln Avenue, where I caught a picture of the faded glory of the Elks Club.

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Lincoln crosses high above Washington Boulevard, but below a set of train tracks. I was surprised to still see icicles below the rusty trestle. The far side of Washington Boulevard is fairly spread out with long alleys and steeply rising hills. It seems I always find cemeteries on hilltops, and this was no exception. There’s also a juvenile detention center, a defunct veteran’s complex and Job Corp, which seems to be a campus tech school of some sort. Their website is pretty flowery, but the grounds were thoroughly fenced in.

At this point, I made my way back to Highland Park via Negley Run Road. Under the Meadow Street Bridge, soaring high above, defunct steps stood out against the brown winter leaves.

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