Spirited Thirteen

It wasn't my first time to pass the spot, but this morning I was on foot in Cullen Park on my long run and finally noticed a small cemetery tucked into the thick vegetation beside the trail less than a mile away from Barker-Cypress Road. A historical marker identifies the spot as being in use since antebellum days. The plots are surrounded by a fifty-foot square of chain-link fence, so I wasn't able to get a close look at the markers themselves, especially to satisfy my curiosity about the headstone where a medal appears to have been left very recently.

All the other times I've taken this path I have simply wheeled by on the saddle of my bicycle, so once again having my feet on the ground reveals details missed when being occupied with riding or driving. Before moving south to present-day Interstate 10, the town of Addicks was actually located in this area until the Corps of Engineers built the dam and created the reservoir for floodwater containment. I find it a little haunting to see the burial sites left behind.

And now I have another reason to refrain from going for any late-night runs on this unlit trail!

The run itself went reasonably well. I learned my lesson from Sunday and brought some extra get-up-and-go in the form of Extreme Sport Beans. (There was nothing wrong with the beans, but I think product names like this are an unfortunate "Generation X" legacy of the 1990s. The word extreme should not be allowed on any packaging unless it's accompanied by a frank medical warning that what's inside actually pushes the boundaries of what is considered edible.) My total distance was thirteen miles at my usual snail-like pace, with the last two mostly walked as the heat index had uncomfortably escalated past 90F.

What's your favorite not-so-extreme use of the word extreme? And have you recently noticed any sights in your neighborhood while running that someone in a car would surely miss?