Fun run Thursday. Not necessarily a “good” run – I missed both mileage goals and time goals, but I did a little exploring, which is always fun. Guess Jeff got me jonesing to explore strange new worlds and seek out new civilizations.
Anyhow, I parked down at the south end of Jamestown, and figured I’d run to BeaverTail and back to the car (for about 3 or 3.5 miles), then past the car back towards town about a half mile or so, and end up with about 4.5 or 5 depending on how I felt. Well, I didn’t quite make that (did about 4 miles in about 35 minutes), but I had a great run. Pics to follow. Here’s a map – the red spots are Rhode Island parkland in the Bay.
When I got to the park, instead of running along the park road, I ducked down a trail I’d been meaning to follow for a while. Ran about 200 yards, and saw this:
Cool. I thought.
Little ways further on, I saw this old WWII bunker. I’d seen it a couple of times from the road behind it, but had never gone around. All concrete and nifty. Good laser target; set the fuse for a long delay (on the order of tens of miliseconds), and you could pop this easy now-a-days.
AAA emplacement, too. Kind of nuts to think that only 65 years ago, folks were waking up here every morning worried that they’d be shelled by the Germans.
Looking south, towards Bermuda, past the lighthouse.
I’m sure the guy’s a fine tree, but PBS has spoiled me – the only thing I can think when I see a painter is “Happy trees”…
After this, I end up on the serious trails on the western side of the park. Serious, winding, rutty, muddy, singletrack. Good stuff, makes me want knobbies on my MTB again. Sections are right up against the rocks dropping into the bay. Nothing serious like they’ve got out in California (I’m thinking the stretch over on the western side of Point Loma, not quite up to Sea World), but still pretty sketchy. Sorry, but I didn’t take pictures.
Back at the car, I’d parked near a Nature Conservancy bit of land. Here’s the sign:
Here’s the trail:
Here’s the reward:
How cool is that? Unmarked, deserted stretch of beach? I need to start waking up earlier.