The Wednesday Post

Greetings from Polk County, Oregon!
The Avatar checks in.

Since we last saw my Avatar in the Hypothetical Hypermarathon, he has left Corvallis and Oregon State University and ran north through the rolling fields of the western Willamette Valley.

Except that it has been late winter or, in the last week or so, very early spring, so it has looked more like this:

Monmouth!

After Corvallis, his first goal of note was wee Monmouth, Oregon, home of Western Oregon University.  Both of my big sisters went to college here, before it was Western Oregon University and even before it was Western Oregon State College -- yet after it was the Oregon Normal School and well after the Monmouth College period.  They are of the Oregon College of Education era.

I believe that one or both of them lived in this dormitory complex.  They might even have sent this very postcard back home to their little brother.  They were good like that.

After running down the main drag of the MU/ONS/OCE/WOSC/WOU campus, the Avatar started north and west towards the next town of note, beautiful Dallas, Oregon.  But then I, Michael5000, came down with a persistent case of bronchitis that kept me off the streets for more than two weeks.  This sucked for me, but was even worse for the Avatar, who spent 16 days at the corner of Clow Corner Road and Adams Road, staring at the farmland, digging his toe in the gravel, and wishing he had more than one hobby.

Dallas!

Last weekend, I was able to do enough modest running to get me to and through beautiful Dallas.  I haven't really spent any time in this prosperous and cosmopolitan trading center, but since two of my main running buddies proudly hail from there it seemed like a good place to run through on the Hypermarathon. 

The postcards from Dallas that I was able to drum up are not boring, but neither are they particularly current.

Whither the Avatar?

As of Sunday, the Avatar had reached Oregon Highway 22 north of Dallas and made a left turn towards the Coast.  In 40 or 50 miles he will hit the beach at Pacific City, dipping his virtual feet in the very real surf.  After heading north for a day or two along the coast, he will begin the long, long journey east, stopping through the City of Roses first to rest up, do his virtual laundry, and check out the new paint job in the Castle5000 entryway.  Then it's New Jersey or bust.