10 miles plus...

Today is one of our "adults only" days, since all of the kids are in school.  I decided to do a semi-long run of 10 or so miles, but I didn't feel like doing an out and back run because I'm getting a little bit bored with my usual routes.  I asked my husband if he wouldn't mind coming to pick me up if I ran out 10 or more miles from the house, and he was fine with that.  So, after a 20 minute warm up of Pilates and as soon as I dropped the kids off at school, I headed out and decided to go towards the mountain area of Mink Creek.  A little (lot) of uphill, but what the heck.  It was a beautiful run.  The weather is perfect right now.  My husband came and picked me up just as I was about to reach a recreational nature trail hiking area, so we parked for a minute and took some pictures.

As we headed back down the hill, we decided to take a little drive a few ridges over to an area called City Creek, where there are hiking/biking trails.  We had heard rumors there have been moose spotted in that area recently.  We parked at the trail head then got out and started walking, equipped only with a camera and a pair of binoculars.

After hiking the trail for about a mile, we saw this:

But, we saw some other people on the trail, including a guy on a bike, so we decided to keep going on the main trail.  At some point we decided to turn around and head back to the car.  I was just enjoying the sun and the scenery and breathing in the fresh air as we walked, when suddenly Chris yells: "Stop! Stop! Stop!"  I look off to the side of the trail into the trees where he is pointing and there is the bull moose coming right towards us.

My heart was in my throat because for a moment he was literally yards away from us.  Chris called to me to follow him off the trail on the opposite side from the moose into some thick brush and up a little hill.  Once we got to a place we felt sort of safe, we just paused and took some pictures of him as he wandered on down the trail and eventually out of sight.  I love these animals, and I love this time of year when they are out and about in the beauty of autumn and it's coolness and colors.

In this photo, you can see the moose over in the trees (center screen) across the trail from us.  Crazy!

After the excitement of seeing the moose so up close and personal, we decided it was time to head back before he decided to come after us!  By the time we got back to the car, my Garmin said I had run/walked/hiked a total of 12 miles.