Rundle (2) Norwood

Norwood Young America or NYA, depending on your point of view, is one, or two places. Historically speaking, Young America came first, being platted in 1856. Norwood in 1872. The two settlements merged in 1972. Depending on which you live in, the settlement can be known as Norwood, or Young America. Divided by Highway 212, I think of Young America as north of the highway and Norwood south. Having run in Young America on Tuesday, and spied the highway underpass as I finished, I thought that as today was Global Running Day. I would discover Norwood.

Whats down here?

As with the previous day, I warmed up on the exercise bike in the gym for 20 minutes. Setting out, I looped around the public trail through the school grounds before hitting the underpass on my voyage of discovery. 

NYA appears to have a good selection of new trails and sidewalks, judging by those that I ran on. It was nice to have a good trail away from the highway as heavy semis and cars sped by.  
I had planned out a route of 4 miles on Google Earth. I find it a quite handy tool to use for plotting routes. The measurement of distances is accurate, and you can always take a look in Streetview to see if there are any notable features on the route, should you think you’ll get lost running in a new locale.

Is that a train I see?

As I’m a bit of a railroad enthusiast, turning onto Railroad Avenue filled me with hope that I’d see a train. But it wasn’t until I had done a loop around the strip mall and was heading back the way I came, that I spied a couple of locomotives at the head of a train on the Minnesota Prairie Line spur. It was hidden by trees, if the motors had been running, I would have for sure heard and seen it the first time!

Running on more good sidewalks I soon found myself at the ballpark fields, a very nice community facility. My Garmin had chirped at three miles, so I was pretty confident that the Google Earth prediction of 4 miles would be correct. I slalomed through the trees for good measure. 

The Karmann Ghia is the Orange/Red car in the middle

Crossing over the railroad. I hoped to hear the horn of an approaching train in the distance, but no such luck. However, on the other side of the road, I saw a small industrial unit signed as “Dune Buggy Supply”. Outside were parked a couple of VW Beetles, a pair of Microbuses, and a Karmann Ghia. I secretly covet a Volkswagen Karmann Ghia. So it was pretty sweet to see one. 
That was it really. Back to the underpass, under 212, and just as I entered the gym parking lot, my Garmin chirped four miles. Excellent.
Once again, the run could be said to be a bit on the fast side, but I was having fun exploring, and I hadn’t worked too hard, despite the humidity feeling higher than the previous day.