And but for the sky there are no fences facing.

I guess it's Friday again. Just took a test, actually. In my History of the American West class. Had to write a little bit about the Whitman Massacre, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the Camp Grant Massacre, the Battle of Little Bighorn, and the Nez Perce War. Fun stuff. Well, for me. Not so much for the Native Americans. Or Custer. But he kinda had it coming.

On Tuesday I took a map quiz in my Geopolitics of Europe class. I'm not going to berate all of you for not knowing where those countries are, because I assume you know where the UK and France and Italy are, and if you don't know Montenegro from Kosovo or Latvia from Lithuania, I'm not really gonna care. But you should still know Syria and Iran and Libya. I should probably change the subject now, shouldn't I?

In Geopolitics of Europe, we watched a little video about the settlement movement in Israel. Reminds me of something Carl Sagan once said.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

I've read the Franklin's Tale and the Prioress' Tale since I last updated you on Chaucer. Not super exciting tales, to be honest. The Prioress' thesis is essentially that Jews are evil. Great. But next week is the Pardoner's Tale (which we've all read) and the Nun's Priest's Tale (which is supposed to be good), so I'm looking forward to that.

Last Sunday's run turned into a little bit of an adventure. The first ten miles or so were nothing out of the ordinary, and as such I have nothing to say about them. But as we approached Middlebury, we (Chuck, Patrick, Sebastian, and myself) decided to take a detour along the train tracks. So we ran down the railroad line for a while, crossing the bridge along the way. (This is a picture I found on Google. Obviously, the bridge and surrounding area were covered in snow on Sunday, and there were no leaves on the trees. But other than that, yes, this is the same bridge.) Eventually, we reached the spot where the TAM (Trail Around Middlebury) intersects the railroad, but before we turned right on to the TAM, we (meaning everyone but Sebastian) decided to pull back and quietly turn, and in doing so test whether or not Seb knew that we had to turn there. Because Sebastian is not very spatially aware. And it's fun to confuse him.
So we made a quick turn, Sebastian pretended not to notice, and we kept going, but taking another left turn, one that we never take. A few minutes later, Seb caught up to us, though he had to jump through some trees to do it. And at that point we found ourselves on a trail we'd never run on before.
We now had but one choice: We must brave the long dark of that trail.
Not far into this trail, it became apparent that it wasn't meant for running on in the winter. We were padding our way on top of a powdery dusting that lay on top of a crusty layer of ice, and below this layer of ice was a not insignificant amount of liquid water. We started breaking through the ice, little by little, and every once in a while Pat would take an unfortunate step and sink in to his ankle. We went on like this for a while, and then Sebastian (who else?) introduced himself to the fact that we were running on top of something resembling a creek. He planted his foot and the ice started to crack, but it didn't just crack around his foot. As his foot sank into the snow, he tripped and almost sprawled out across the ice, but managed to save himself at the last second. All the while, the initial crack spread out behind him, and the entire trail behind him gave way and collapsed into the water below. Since this all happened behind him, he didn't see it right away, but Pat and I did. We escaped the plunge, but it gave us a good jump.

Not long after that, we reached a little depression where there was a pool of water without any ice on top. We stood there for a minute or two, trying to figure out the best way to get around, when Chuck takes a few steps back and makes clear his intentions. He gets a running start, makes the leap, and gaps it clean, clear to the other side. Well done, Chuck. Seb and Pat, however, think they've got better chances walking across a section that looks safe. Seb does alright, but Pat ends up sinking all the way in, with water halfway to his knees. I take Chuck's mark and jump it, but in a different spot because taking the same spot would be safe and therefore boring. I make it without getting wet.

At that point, we had less than two miles to go, so we pulled it in slowly and took our time eating brunch. All in all, an excellent Sunday.

I've realized I don't talk about what it's like to run around Midd very much. Suffice to say that it is beautiful. Nicole, I'm sorry that we didn't get to explore or hike around much when you were here. The best part about Middlebury, in my opinion, is being able to get out and run on a wide open dirt road through the countryside, with the Green Mountains on one side and the Adirondacks on the other. We run by dozens of horses here, and hundreds of cows and sheep. And once you get out of Middlebury, it's just wide open country road, no lights, no traffic. Lots of farms and silos and hay bales. How abouts I Google some pictures, eh?

Pulp Mill Covered Bridge. We run over this at least twice a week.

View from our outdoor track.

A farm just northwest of the college that we run by all the time.

Big old house in Weybridge we run by.

Bittersweet Falls. This is far enough a way that we only run by it on our longest runs, maybe a few times each semester. Last time we ran by, a few weeks ago, we went up to the falls and explored a little, because they were ice falls at that point. You could hear the running water underneath the ice, but you couldn't see it, at least not until Mac picked up a rock and threw it through the ice.

I didn't find any of my three favorite views, which are, in ascending order: Heading east on Hamilton Road after Cave Road but before Sheep Farm Road, Heading west from Weybridge on Bittersweet Falls Road, and, of course, heading east on Morse Road right after you get to the top of that little hill off Route 30. I'm being specific for my benefit, not yours; maybe at some point in the next couple years I'll take pictures at these spots. But probably not because I never go to these places unless I'm running, and I don't plan on bringing a camera on a run, ever.

Great news, just happened about five minutes ago: Ducks just signed Ryan Getzlaf (their captain and arguably their best player) to an eight year contract extension. Woohoo!