When you run in a new place or setting, does the novelty add some spark to your running like it does for me?

We’ve had a stretch of warm, sunny weather in Spokane, so I made plans to drive to a new place where I’d never been.

Driving north from Spokane, you see fewer stores, homes, and farms. It’s not long before the road ends. I parked and after a couple miles of running on a trail, it ended too. I was in uncharted territory.

It doesn’t take that long to reach this area where civilization has yet to be established. It’s a large, unexplored area, and using a map is no help. They all have a big blank area with the phrase, ‘Yet to be explored or mapped.’

It’s neat having unexplored frontier so close to town. There are rumors of undiscovered animal species, and some people say a remnant population of dinosaurs exist. I consider it a bunch of hootenanny.

I hadn’t run long before I started hearing an occasional loud roar in the distance. I was startled by a huge, airplane-size, flying creature gliding across my path just ahead.

A couple times the sound of a large predator attacking prey that viciously fought back echoed through the valley. Hmmm…….maybe there’s more to this area than I thought.

Twice I came to piles of excrement that were as tall as me. The animal that did it must be huge. Then I came to an unsettling scene. It appeared a solitary hiker had been devoured, and parts of limbs lay scattered about.

Disturbing as the scene was, I pushed on because I wanted to get in more mileage.

I came to a clearing and whoa! I startled a large animal feeding on carrion. It looked like a saber-tooth tiger, an extinct animal. It sprinted to me and attacked.

I desperately fought back with all I had, and for some reason, the creature broke off the attack and ran away.

I was unscathed except one of my fingers really hurt. It wasn’t hard to tell why. The creature had bitten it off.

Lucky for me, I found the bloody, missing digit on the ground. I grabbed it and ran at a really fast pace back to my car. I put my finger in a small box I had in the trunk, hoping doctors could reattach it.

Arriving home, I was too stressed-out to attend to my injury. I put my finger in the frig, fixed a bowl of my favorite comfort food and watched Seinfeld re-runs. 

My visit to the hospital will have to wait until tomorrow.