Durham

I am currently sitting alone in a James Joyce-themed bar (called, duh, James Joyce) in Durham, North Carolina. I am expecting the arrival of Anne and Emmi momentarily from their thrift store shopping foray, and have been so for about a half hour: I just ordered lunch...

We drove down last Saturday to visit Emmi, staying for the week, seeing the sights and getting in some mountain biking as well as some remedial running -- we've both been out of the loop for a while, injured reserve -- and a lot of great BBQ.

The Biking: We rode at a place called Lake Crabtree Park on Monday. Pretty nice, the trails reminded me of a cross between Nockamixon (or maybe Allegrippis) and Huber/Hartshorne in NJ: pine trees, twisty smooth hardpack on the verge of being sandy, with occasional pine roots. The park is tucked into a corporate-campus area near the Research triangle, nestled close to freeways (you can usually see them and always hear them while riding) and abutting a polluted lake with signs not to eat the fish because of PCB's. Like the rest of this area, it kind of reminded me of Oryx & Crake.

Yesterday we did some riding down near Chapel Hill, in an area that was more woodsy-subdivision than corporate, but again the woods were huge without managing to seem very back-country at all... The trails here were more technical, with a few rocky areas that looked like home, but the general terrain was still mostly pine forest, lots of fun, but a bit more tiring than the day before, and the heat here has starting to climb.

Today we went for a morning run, and ended up being followed home by a lost dog. She had a tag with contact info, but Anne called the owner twice (no answer), so the hotel manager got "Missy" a bowl of water and called Animal Control.

Anyway, we'll be here for a few more days, will probably do some museums or movies, since the weather is about to get stormy.