Hawk too

On my run this evening I saw this hawk on the pole below a bridge outside of Schenley Park. It was a good day for wild birds in the city. My previous post was about turkeys I saw on my way to work in the AM. This bird was beautiful and my crappy cell phone camera did a poor job of capturing any of its splendor.

Oakland runabout

Silas and I went on a nice hour-long run around Oakland today. We parked by the Cathedral of Learning (on the University of Pittsburgh campus) and ran over to the Allegheny County Soldier's Memorial, also known as the Soldiers and Sailors National Memorial.

There, Silas found the propeller of a WWII torpedo highly fascinating.

Then we ran over the bridge over Panther Hollow and looked at the steam plant and the Carnegie Mellon University building in the background.

From the next bridge, we watched the sun start setting over the city.

We did some loops through Schenley Park and popped back out with a nice evening view of the building at CMU we looked at before, but this time, there is a handsome parking lot in the foreground.

Running behind the Carnegie Museum of Art, we spent a little time in their open-air art courtyard and gawked at the waterfall.


Opposite the waterfall are the stairs from the lobby up to the galleries.


Just after this point, Bethany called and said she was on her way home. We didn't beat her there, nor have dinner ready. That's really my fault for forgetting to buy rice noodles at one of the Asian stores in the Strip District during my lunch break at work. It was a beautiful night for a run and well worth the consequences of eating at Ritter's Diner instead of my home-cooking.

Boys running video

Here is a brief video of how much Silas enjoyed running with me and Guthrie in Schenley Park yesterday. I can't believe he decides to try to put his foot in his mouth while he's bouncing down the trail in the jogger.

Running with Silas and Guthrie

Guthrie, Silas, and I went for an evening run in Schenley Park today. The weather and temperature were great. Bethany was teaching yoga, so the boys got to go outside and play. I'm still getting used to running with the jogger and dog leash. It was better than last time, in that I didn't get the leash wrapped up in the wheels and didn't almost topple the whole thing over.

Our route is shown below. The outer loop, all on trails, was 2.0 miles exactly, per my GPS watch. So we ran up the hill to do two loops of the running course around the track and tennis courts, as well as a couple of detours into other areas to bump it up to 3.8 miles. We're still building mileage, because of my poor old sore joints can't take much more yet. Plus, I can't keep myself from sprinting up the hill from work home, so my thighs are trashed. :)


There is a nice vista of the city, including a disc-golf course that Guthrie was eyeing.


The prenatal yoga class that Bethany teaches is longer than it takes to get to the park, run, and get back, so we hung out for a bit and played in the grass.



Silas found a dried tree seed pod, the name of which I can't remember right now. I looked up what I thought it was, but I was wrong. I'll add the name when/if it ocurrs to me.