Halloween Decorations: updated

Today's run was 8 miles and I decided to go through Stephanie and David's neighborhood.  It took a bit of looping around, but I ran around there twice, then back to my neighborhood and added on a teeny bit at the end.  Booyah, 8 miles.  And the weather was not awful.  I was a bit concerned because it is more hot and humid today than it has been a while.  Tonight it should cool off again.  A friend at work said that it might get down to 54F tonight.  Whoa.

The most fun part of my run was meeting a little dog named Chrissy today.  Chrissy was supposed to follow her owner back to the house and didn't, so instead we hung out for a bit.  I figured that being a tiny dog, maybe Chrissy would not want to finish another 2 miles with me.  Then she went back inside.  Also, I saw a dog in a bike basket today.  Only one.  I think that it was a different person.  So apparently taking your dog around in a bike basket is trendy in this neighborhood.

On to the Halloween decorations:

I'm not sure that fake spiderweb on the shrubs is that good a look.

Like I said, this neighborhood is in the Halloween spirit!

This would be a lot of fun if you were a kid, I think.

I'm not sure that I would want a large, fake spider on my porch in Florida.  Too similar to a large, real spider.

This is actually at the house that was featured last time.  A later add.  I wonder if they also put it up for Gasparilla, Tampa's local pirate festival.

These next few photos are all taken from the same place.  Remember the house with the ghost link fence from last time?  They've expanded a bit.

This is *just* the driveway.

The whole yard.

Close-up of the ghosts out front.

For the final picture, I have included a yard that is not in any way decorated for Halloween but would be the perfect setting for some kind of Southern horror story, I think:

That swing is spooky!

Day behind

Yesterday was a 7-mile run in the continued ridiculously pleasant Florida weather.  I wore a running shirt with sleeves if you can imagine.  It was in the 60s I think throughout the run -- very unusual.  The route was around Stephanie and David's neighborhood, then with an extended route back through my neighborhood.  Pretty sure I wouldn't have wanted to do this in warmer weather because there were a lot of exposed places in the sun.

There are tons more Halloween decorations in Stephanie and David's neighborhood.  Pics to follow.  Also, I saw the woman with the dogs in the bike basket.

I didn't get a chance to write yesterday because I had to get to California, where I am now.  So pretty!  And cool.  In the low 60s right now.  Tomorrow's run, which will hit various scenic places around San Francisco, should be a pleasure.

Dog-sitting

I'm dog-sitting for Stephanie and David (of the Random Stephanie Encounters fame), which is always fun.  They have two whippet mixes who are very well behaved and fun dogs.  Last night, we all hung out on the couch that the dogs are allowed to it on and they blatantly ignored scary-sounding animals barking (or something!) outside.

Random fact: Florida has coyotes.

What dose this have to do with running?  You can't sleep in too late when you dog-sit because the dogs will let you know when it is time to get up.  They are crated at night, but one gets pretty active if you aren't up around 7am.  So I knew that this would be helpful for going relatively early.  The weather this morning at 7:15am was absolutely beautiful...but I couldn't go running yet because I had to feed the dogs, then take them out.  Ah well.  They found an absolutely enormous caterpillar in the back yard.  Disturbingly big.

I did finally get out around 8am, which wasn't so bad.  Today was 4 miles again.  If you feel like I'm always running 4 miles, actually that's exactly how I'm starting to feel.  I'm sure that it will vary soon enough.  The run was just me circling around Stephanie and David's neighborhood.  I had to do a bit of backtracking at one point, but for the most part there were enough streets to get through the 4 miles without repeats.

I kept passing a couple that has two small chihuahuas.  I've seen this couple before: they take a baby stroller with them, presumably in case the dogs get tired.  As I was on the very last part of my run (I think 3.8 miles in or something), I passed the woman for a third time -- she was actually now biking around the neighborhood with her dogs in the bike basket.  She looked at me and said, 'You're good!'  Always nice to get random encouragement from strangers.  Actually, I felt pretty good through the end because it was shady and I still had a little oomph in my step.  Nice change from some days!