Tag Archives: nature

Oh, the Places to Run!

Posted on May 3, 2025 | Leave a comment

Submission guidelines:

  1. Email running photographs for consideration to ohtheplacestorun@gmail.com
  2. Include the location of the photo (i.e., city; state; nation)
  3. Share a brief description of the photo (e.g., the place, the run, the people, etc.)
  4. Categories include: nature (beautiful scenery); roadside attractions (interesting things); humor (funny things); friends/people (running buddies); and travel (pics taken on runs while traveling)
  5. You retain all rights to your photograph and will receive photo credit when posted on Oh, the Places to Run! (note: if you want to promote your personal social media account or running club, please share that information)

——————————————————————————————————————–

I wish I could remember.

There are certain things I do recall. Like joining my wife for a super slow 5k jog in Westlake Village way back in 2010 after I had taken a couple of decades off from running. And my subsequent decision to purchase a cheap pair of running shoes and try running again, knowing it wouldn’t last. And my surprise and excitement later that it did.

And I also remember that someone shared the Nike Run Club app with me even though I never used GPS. And then the app itself remembers that it was July 2, 2013, when I first used it, jogging 1.27 miles with my wife on Malibu Road, which led to thousands and thousands of miles shared with that app over the past twelve years.

But what I don’t remember is the first time I decided to add a picture as a memory of one of my runs. I wish I remembered. Because that changed my life.

I am not a world-class photographer. And I am not a world-class runner. But what I have become is someone with a habit of going out into the world with open eyes, searching for the beauty that is everywhere once you start looking. I want to capture that beauty when I run. To remember.

I have a lot of running pictures now. A lot. And not to brag, but some of them are actually pretty good (if you take enough pictures, you get lucky every now and then). I have shared many running pictures on my social media accounts over the years, and periodically friends have encouraged me to collect them in a book—and I might do that someday. But today I have a different plan.

Today, I am launching a new Facebook page and an Instagram page titled, “Oh, the Places to Run!” (Imagine Humans of New York but for running places.) It will start small, I’m sure, sort of like my running habit, but I hope that it will grow to change the lives of other people, too.

My habit began in Malibu, California, and many said that I would struggle to find beautiful photo material once I moved away from breathtaking ocean and mountain scenery, and I took that as a personal challenge. I soon discovered that my suspicion was correct: There is beauty to be discovered everywhere. At least that’s what I discovered living in urban Tennessee, and then rural Illinois, and now rural Wisconsin—and actually everywhere I have traveled along the way.

I will keep taking pictures and sharing them on my new pages, and I hope you all will add the new pages to your algorithms and follow, like, share, and comment along the way. But my dream is much bigger. I hope that past, present, and future runners will share their favorite running place photos with me, too, and that these pages become places where everyone can discover that there is beauty everywhere when we have eyes to see.

So please click on the following links and follow along on Facebook and/or Instagram if you would be so kind. And, if you are willing to share some of your own running photos for consideration, submission guidelines are at the top of this blog post.

As Dr. Seuss famously wrote: “You’re off to great places! Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting…so get on your way!”

Let’s go!

Leave a comment

Posted in Original Essays, Pictures

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Holy the Firm

Posted on April 16, 2025 | 4 comments

We misplaced our hiking habit in our move to Wisconsin, but it magically reappeared last weekend during our trip to the Wisconsin Dells to celebrate Jody’s birthday. And that makes me happy.

“The Dells” refers to a scenic gorge on the Wisconsin River about an hour’s drive from our home, but the accompanying small town is widely known in the Midwest as a tourist destination, branding itself as the “Waterpark Capital of the World.” We found the touristy town hard to describe but fun to experience. You might imagine Gatlinburg and Las Vegas had a baby that loves cheese curds.

Jody had the brilliant idea of doing a weekend trip in the offseason as our introduction to the Wisconsin Dells, which worked out well. I’m really not sure that either of us can handle it when all the screaming children — um, I mean, when all the well-behaved children arrive en masse with their extraordinary parents on summer vacation. It might be best that we remain an hour’s drive away from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

We had a fantastic weekend. When we arrived on Saturday, we wandered through shops and bought peanut butter fudge. We had way too much fun taking selfies (in “totally rad” costumes) at Totally ’80s Immersive Experience. We had a lovely dinner and tried our luck at bowling afterward. But on Sunday morning, we drove a few miles out of town for a hike at Mirror Lake State Park. That was the best.

Winter is persistent in Wisconsin, as you might suspect, so a mid-April hike has a different appearance than past hikes in many of our former homes. But it was so lovely. We hiked for several miles and were alone the entire time. Nobody around but us.

And the snow birds returning overhead.

And the evergreen trees.

And the crunchy leaves.

And the bare branches with the tiniest buds.

And the mirror lake.

And the quietness and “peace of wild things,” as Wendell Berry called it.

The news seems pretty shitty these days. The rule of law is in question. The economy is drunk texting our 401ks. The government is making mistakes on who they deport to brutal prisons in El Salvador. If you add in a few personal problems, it is enough to make one consider despair.

Going for a walk in the woods might not solve the world’s problems, but I suggest it anyway. At least I found it worthwhile last Sunday morning.

Annie Dillard wrote the mystical masterpiece, Holy the Firm, in 1977 following news of a plane crash that disfigured a small child and got her to wrestling with the problem of pain and evil in the world. How does one carry on in a world that is often cruel and feels meaningless?

Her title, Holy the Firm, as I understand it, referred to something the earliest Christians believed existed beneath the Earth’s surface, something that was connected to their conception of God, which meant that it was connected to absolutely everything. That’s what Annie Dillard pointed toward in her little book. In her quest to find meaning in the meaningless, she went outside and ventured into nature, where she touched the actual planet in a quest to discover the “firm” that is “holy.”

I’m suggesting that, too, for what it is worth.

Last Sunday morning, I noticed the tiniest buds on the bare branches that seemed to say to me that all good things will return to life someday. I noticed the geese squawking above the treetops on their return trip home that seemed to say to me that loneliness won’t last forever. I noticed the evergreens standing proudly over the still water that seemed to say to me that some good things really do last forever. And I happened to notice all of this with my forever friend who was poised to celebrate yet another gorgeous trip around the sun.

As we hiked, we came to joke about the “Caution: Steep Hill” signs that we encountered often, signaling hills that really were somewhat challenging but not that difficult for us. Afterward, I noticed the Northwest Trail loop that we completed described as “the most difficult trail in the park.” We laughed, having navigated some far more difficult trails in our brief hiking careers.

Maybe that’s worth remembering, too. On this hike called life, the more that we experience, the better equipped we can be for the trails that are to come. When you find despair attempting to lock you indoors, crawl out the window and go on an actual hike. And just walk, and watch, and listen.

4 Comments

Posted in Original Essays

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

The Presence of Still Water

Posted on September 3, 2024 | 1 comment

When despair for the world grows in me / and I wake in the night at the least sound / in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, / I go and lie down where the wood drake / rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. / I come into the peace of wild things / who do not tax their lives with forethought / of grief. I come into the presence of still water. / And I feel above me the day-blind stars / waiting with their light. For a time / I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. – Wendell Berry, The Peace of Wild Things And Other Poems (Penguin, 2018).

I read Tom Lake. I should see Swan Lake. I have seen the Great Salt Lake. I remember Ricki Lake. There’s a British steeplechaser named Iona Lake (what a terrific name). For a few more days, I live in a town named Green Lake. It is my favorite lake so far.

Green Lake is a cool little place. It is four miles from Ripon, which is where I work and will live, and it boasts a population of 1,001. (I like to think the 1 is just for me.) But, in the summer, the population of Green Lake explodes. The “Travel Wisconsin” website explains why:

Visit the deepest lake in Wisconsin and the welcoming city on its shore. Located in the central region of the state, the outdoor recreational opportunities here are endless. Fish for trout and walleye, paddle, hike or bike the 27 miles of pristine shoreline, and stay a while with your crew to experience all the area has to offer. Relax after a long day of adventures at one of the resorts and spas and be sure to take a swing at one of the four scenic golf courses.

Not your typical tiny town. Bottom line: I’m not roughing it.

Growing up poor, we never went to “the lake” like many of our more affluent friends, but growing up in deep church culture, I recall the tsk-tsking of church members who I understood needed to spend less time at “the lake” and pay more attention to regular church attendance. Who knew that poverty could actually be a built-in advantage in the eyes of the Lord? I’m quickly learning now what I was missing then.

I have enjoyed several early morning runs along the lake here, listening to its gentle gurgle, the yawning chirps from the trees, and the occasional splash somewhere nearby, while seeing lazy birds glide by alone, an occasional squawking duck, and the wild turkeys trot clumsily across the road. And I have enjoyed a lovely meal with friends at a popular restaurant here, relaxing at the fire pit together while waiting for a table, watching dark clouds roll across the sky. And I have enjoyed watching the day end at Sunset Park here with a boater returning to shore for the evening, the sun painting the horizon with lavender and salamander brushes, and an elderly couple joining me in awe.

I hear that the winter is a little different, with an average high of 26 degrees and the activities transformed into ice fishing and ice skating, snowmobiling and snowshoeing, skiing and sledding. I may be crazy, but I think that sounds lovely, too.

Why is life at the lake so special? The word peaceful comes to mind. And Wendell Berry’s poem seems to capture it best: somehow, mystical though it may be, it is a magical place of still water that moves you from disturbed despair to rest, grace, and freedom.

I’m just thinking about it all today. And the thought occurred to me: When you sense despair someday, and odds are that it could happen, you might remember to visit a lake. Even if it is on a Sunday.

1 Comment

Posted in Original Essays

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

Hooray for (Mt.) Hollywood

Posted on October 7, 2023 | 3 comments

I am pleased to report that we hiked the Mt. Hollywood Trail this morning (not to be confused with Mt. Lee of the famed HOLLYWOOD sign). To do so, we left Malibu just before sunrise and arrived in the Griffith Observatory parking lot before 8am, well before you have to pay to park there but nowhere nearly before significant numbers of folks arrive to enjoy the spectacular hike, e.g., as we approached the trailhead, a large high school cross country team was stretching in preparation for some serious hill work.

From one perspective it turned out to be an easy hike—wide trails, easy to follow, and just 1.2 miles to the summit—but the 550 feet of constant elevation is anything but simple. Case in point: The many runner passersby did not appear to be whistling show tunes. And although I refuse to complain about SoCal weather, while the weather app said it was 67 degrees, most of the trail was exposed to the sun and it was the hottest 67 degrees imaginable, maybe with our slowly approaching the sun and all.

There were fun, quirky parts of the hike, like the Berlin Forest, complete with a road sign sharing that it is 5,795 miles to Berlin, Germany, one of L.A.’s sister cities, and a rest stop sponsored by Tiffany & Company, but of course, where one can sit and enjoy a nice view of the HOLLYWOOD sign. But the panoramic views along the way were the real stars of the show: looking back down on the Observatory and Park, looking out at Downtown Los Angeles, and on a clear day like today, looking all the way to Catalina Island and the vast Pacific Ocean.

For our purposes, it was simply another nice day to be together, out in nature, seeing something special, and not to be overlooked, enjoying the beautiful human diversity found in this City of Angels. It was a good morning from start to finish.

We stopped at one point on the trail in an area ominously named Dante’s View, partly to see what was there, but mostly to stop going uphill for a minute, and in that brief moment yet another small pack of the young cross country team passed us by, and when they did I overheard one young leader encouraging his teammates by saying, “This is going to make us better.”

Well said, my young friend. Well said. That’s why Jody and I got up early today and drove across Los Angeles—to be better, both individually and together.

This morning, thanks to a young runner that I didn’t even look up to see, I was reminded that courageously pushing ourselves up the hills of life surely isn’t easy, but it makes us better, and the views from the top are absolutely worth the struggle.

3 Comments

Posted in Original Essays

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Take a Hike

Posted on September 2, 2023 | 4 comments

My wife and I are proof that opposites attract and can even be happily married forever (twenty-nine years and counting!). Our differences provide some independence, which we count as a strength; however, we battle against being too independent, so we periodically have ideas as to how we might do something together—not something mine or hers, but ours. The latest idea is hiking.

Oh, we have hiked off and on over the years in various parts of these United States, but intentional, regular hiking is a new adventure for us. We plan to target some spectacular part of Southern California once a month, and today was our first.

There’s a joke about camping as rich people pretending to be homeless, which I considered last night as I removed tags from the new hiking apparel we purchased at the super-hip store for outdoors enthusiasts, REI, which I also learned does not technically stand for Really Expensive Items (Recreational Equipment, Incorporated, but who knew?). This morning I slipped on my new forest-green REI hiking pants and my new black Salomon Speedcross 6 trail shoes and off we went to the Santa Ynez Mountains of Santa Barbara.

Because we are just getting started and not in great shape, we chose a “moderate” hike, and I’m sure that in some level of hell the four miles and 800-feet of elevation we encountered could be described as moderate, so I won’t quibble. But we struggled. When it comes to sure-footedness, I, for one, have the clumsy coordination of a baby giraffe. We were passed twice by the same young trail runner going up and down the trail we hoped to conquer once and felt a little intimidated by the parents carrying small children on their backs as well as the two guys carrying their mountain bikes up a switchback. We climbed, slowly, toward our destination, Inspiration Point, and I did discover inspiration on the journey: I felt a strong inspiration to curse. I felt inspired to consider a different activity to do together. I often felt inspired to stop.

But my goodness it turned out to be incredible. Somewhere between a heavy mist and a light rain accompanied us as we hiked our way up into the puffy, saturated clouds, and we reveled in the mesmerizing sound of nature, which included the breathtaking sound of silence. Slowly, deliberately, we climbed, and when we finally reached Inspiration Point, we discovered that we had it all to ourselves, which felt appropriate, since our initial inspiration was to do it for ourselves anyway.

I am embarrassed to say that I rarely touch the actual planet that we live on. My feet touch pavement and concrete, carpet and hardwood flooring, tile and vinyl, laminate and linoleum, but how often do I come into contact with Mother Earth? Not often enough. Not. Often. Enough.

But the best part of a remarkable day? Holding hands when the trail was wide enough. Simple conversations. Making each other laugh. Cheering each other on. Sharing spectacular scenes together. Feeling less alone in this world. Feeling more connected to each other, not to mention the universe.

We’ll be doing this again. And again, and again.

Don’t be offended, but if you asked us for a little marital advice, we’d tell you to take a hike.

4 Comments

Posted in Original Essays

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

Happy Earth Day to You

Posted on April 22, 2019 | Leave a comment

IMG_0239“Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces up, snow is exhilarating; there is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.” – John Ruskin

I am apparently not immune from turning into my parents.

Neither of my parents grew up in the age of television but once cable television arrived in their adult years they agreed on a favorite hangout: The Weather Channel. Now boys and girls this was back in the day when The Weather Channel spent most of its time reporting on the weather and therefore before tantalizing shows with titles like “Natural Born Monsters” and “Storm Riders” and “Weather Geeks.” No, it was pretty much all-day weather forecasts and updates, and for the life of me I could not understand why my parents would care about dew points and barometric pressure and precipitation levels. I preferred going outside where there was actual weather to analyzing the hourly forecast.

Now, it is me. No, the background noise of my life is not The Weather Channel. What I do is check the weather on my iPhone a million times each day. Hot or cold, sunshine or rain, calm or wind—I suddenly seem to care.

Our move to The South is partly to blame for the marked increase in said weather-checking because Southern California weather is, in a word, predictable, while Tennessee weather is anything but. I knew this in my little brain before arriving, having spent the first three decades of my life in similar conditions, but coastal living for the past two decades created a form of amnesia that I am working to overcome.

So maybe it is simply that I now need to know when to carry an umbrella. But maybe I am learning to care more about the beauty of our natural world?

Today is Earth Day, an annual day to draw our attention to nature and remember our collective responsibility to take good care of this planet we call home. Earth Day began the year I was born, and although much good work has occurred in my lifetime, it is apparent that revolutionary action is required to provide the care necessary for sustaining this big, beautiful world. I want to care more about that and care less about things far less important.

I grew up caring primarily about sports. And then I grew interested in the news. And now I prefer the weather. It could be that I am finally growing up.

Leave a comment

Posted in Original Essays

Tagged , , , ,

Sunset on the Mara

Posted on June 25, 2018 | Leave a comment

Mara PicMy great privilege occurred to me as we raced along the bumpy roads of the Maasai Mara. The tans, browns, and yellows of the passing landscape waved our direction and the unspoiled breeze blasted our faces as we stood and braced for the ride of a lifetime. There are many in the world whose primary dream is an African safari, and in a moment it occurred to me that I have now been twice. What a humbling thought.

The hunt for rare sightings was exhilarating, and the sensation of racing through the Kenyan wonderland defies description, but the animals themselves are the superstars. Of course I snapped pictures. The lioness and her cubs. The curious giraffe. The lumbering elephant. The lazy leopard. The stalking cheetah. The ridiculous ostrich. The enormous hippopotamus. But every so often I remembered to put the camera away and simply be present in the wild with the magnificent creatures. It was in those moments that I discovered an unforced smile and a childlike sense of joy and wonder.

The sun set on the Mara at the end of our first game drive, and our driver stopped so we could behold the glory. From our vantage point the flaming ball of fire descended through an iconic acacia tree as we furiously snapped pictures as if we could ever forget. Yes, the animals are the stars of the safari, but the sunset stole the show.

Nature. That’s the word we use to describe the indescribable reality of that which is beyond human production. We create platforms to simply to stand as humble spectators and observe the magnificent world that we did nothing to create. Such primal beauty is difficult to see and even more difficult to comprehend immersed in what we call civilization. But I was privileged to catch a glimpse as the sun set on the Mara.

Leave a comment

Posted in Original Essays

Tagged , , , , ,

Transcendent Experiences

Posted on October 21, 2016 | 2 comments

1

Famed journalist, David Brooks, was the featured speaker at a recent conference at Pepperdine, and much of the conversation focused on an op-ed he wrote a year ago in The New York Times titled, “The Big University.”  The thought behind the article is summed up in a single sentence/paragraph:

In short, for the past many decades colleges narrowed down to focus on professional academic disciplines, but now there are a series of forces leading them to widen out so that they leave a mark on the full human being.

Brooks applauded this development and prescribed four tasks for colleges and universities:

  1. Reveal moral options.
  2. Foster transcendent experiences.
  3. Investigate current loves and teach new things to love.
  4. Apply the humanities.

While all four are worthy of reflective conversation, I am particularly drawn to the call to foster transcendent experiences.  Brooks wrote:

If a student spends four years in regular and concentrated contact with beauty—with poetry or music, extended time in a cathedral, serving a child with Down syndrome, waking up with loving friends on a mountain—there’s a good chance something transcendent and imagination-altering will happen.

Yeah, I dig it.

Last week, I was thousands of miles from home in Akron, Ohio, with a couple of unexpected hours and zero plans and somehow ended up hiking through a beautiful park amid the blazing colors of autumn.  The very next day, even farther from home in the heart of Manhattan in New York City, I had more unexpected time to spend while awaiting a meeting in a Fifth Avenue skyscraper and wandered into iconic St. Patrick’s Cathedral to experience an early afternoon Mass in that stunning venue.

A peaceful forest.  A majestic cathedral.  Two good choices.  And why did I have to travel so far to make such choices?

Brooks’s encouragement may have simply been intended for college students, but seeing that I feel a little thirsty for transcendence myself, my choices in those two moments make me wonder what might happen if I altered my routines to create “regular and concentrated contact with beauty.”

I just might do it.  And if nothing else, fostering transcendent experiences in my own life might make me more effective in fostering such moments for others.

2 Comments

Posted in Original Essays

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dawn

Posted on March 28, 2016 | 2 comments

I rise at dawn, lace up my running shoes, and step out into the cool pre-morning air.  There is no sign that anyone in the world is awake, other than the faint chirping of the early birds whom I presume are getting the worms.  For a moment, I feel privileged.

The sky is a bold shade of ambiguity.  It is neither dark night nor bright day, and if forced to decide I would declare it silver, although it is a bluish-grayish silver like the color of the Dallas Cowboys britches that I never have been able to properly identify.  The conservative moon shines brightly overhead to testify that night remains, but there is an unmistakable sense that night is transforming into a new day.  You can see the anticipation in the air.

On days like this, the day simply arrives without fanfare.  I like it that way.  The glorious sunrise is such a showoff, demanding adjectives like “glorious” and bursting on to the sky like Justin Bieber enters a party.  Sure, everyone wants to see a sunrise, but there is something comforting about the typical, understated way most days just seem to happen.  For those of us who struggle to keep it together, it is nice to know that you might just wake up and discover a new day.

I salute the dawn, nature’s way of saying that life and light are on the way.

2 Comments

Posted in Original Essays, Uncategorized

Tagged , , , , ,

Hope SPRINGs Eternal

Posted on March 25, 2016 | Leave a comment

“People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball.  I’ll tell you what I do.  I stare out the window and wait for spring.” — Rogers Hornsby

Well, spring has sprung, or so I hear: it is hard to tell living in a land of perpetual spring, but the calendar seems rather confident about it.

There is an idyllic conception of spring where the frigid death of winter awakens to butterflies and chirping birds, colorful explosions of flowers, cottony clouds floating across a bright blue sky, and Julie Andrews twirling in musical exultation.  This has not always been my experience, at least on the first day or two.

But spring is real.  Nature is rhythm, and the very planet is predictably reincarnated each year in a birth-death-birth cycle that generates hope in all things if you let it.  In an increasingly insulated and distracted world, however, it takes effort to notice.

Anne Lamott wrote, “I am going to try to pay attention to the spring. I am going to look around at all the flowers, and look up at the hectic trees. I am going to close my eyes and listen.”

I’m with her.  I want to sense hope in every way—to see it, and hear it, and smell it, and taste it, and touch it—and even engage an ineffable (sixth) supernatural sense.¹  I will work at it.  Hope is imperative.

The woods and pastures are joyous
in their abundance now
in a season of warmth and much rain.
We walk amidst foliage, amidst
song. The sheep and cattle graze
like souls in bliss (except for flies)
and lie down satisfied. Who now
can believe in winter? In winter
who could have hoped for this?

– Wendell Berry, Given 58 (2005).

—————————————————————————————————-

¹ Inexplicable hope is the substance that undergirds Easter.

 

Leave a comment

Posted in Original Essays, Poems, Uncategorized

Tagged , , , ,