museo

Crazy Horse & Rushmore

Published May 13, 2017

4 weekends marathoning – this Saturday: kick around, do laundry? Heck no – road trippin’ SD: “Great Places, Great Faces”.

Ended Friday work week with my final father-daughter dance lesson. Too far/too late to reach South Dakota – but how ‘bout Lusk? [Wyoming of course 🙂 ] Small but clean digs, free buffet breakfast. Short hour-half drive to Custer State Park, car-dodging buffalo by 9am. FAAANNNTASTIC! Native to the U.S.A, our American bison – BIG, STRONG, MASSIVE. Personal fave of the animal kingdom.

20 minutes west thru Custer, 20 minutes north to Crazy Horse Memorial. Had heard mixed reviews ‘bout the Monument. Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear commissioned the project in 1939 – Crazy Horse’s massive 87ft face wasn’t completed ’til 1998. Current work is focused on Crazy Horse’s hand, finger & his horse’s mane. Timeline? Long after my life span.

Paid an extra $10 to school bus-ride near the base of the Mountain. Felt a bit nickel-n-dimed but WOW – gotta say, being so close to something so massive, was well worth the $$. Wrong time to be short-sighted with cash. Once completed Crazy Horse will rival nearby Mt. Rushmore. Sculpted to ‘honor the culture & heritage of all North American Indians’. Just WOW.

Didn’t leave the Memorial Museum for almost 2 hours. LOVE LOVE LOVED! Native American artifacts, photographs, sculptures, paintings. Completely unexpected. WELL WORTH GOING!

Wait, wait – the day’s not over. Next up: Mount Rushmore. Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt & Lincoln – literally carved IN the Black Hills of South Dakota. Short-hiked up-n-down the Presidential Walk. Fave spot? Rushmore’s ‘Walk of Flags’ entrance. Every state, every U.S. territory represented. Left beaming USA pride. Bought an ice cream recipe’d by Pres. Thomas Jefferson himself ❤

Sleeps in historic Deadwood. Dinner above the saloon where Wild Bill Hickok was killed, tomorrow visiting his marker.

: TATANKA!

: BIG, STRONG, MASSIVE

: Pronghorn antelope

: commissioned in 1939, Crazy Horse’s face wasn’t completed ’til 1998

: ‘completed’ (left), ‘in-progress’ (right)

: Native American artifacts, photographs, sculptures & paintings

: ‘Walk of Flags’ entry

: U-S-A pride

: short-hiked the Presidential Walk

: Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt & Lincoln

Posted in Heartland | Tagged buffalo, museo, nat'l-park, native-american, road-signs, us-presidents, wildlife | 3 Comments

Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon

Published April 30, 2017

6:30am Start – up early, 5:30 shuttle last transport from my hotel. One block from the Outdoor Memorial. National Anthem, followed by 168 seconds of silence – respect for the lives lost in 1995.

Chilly start – gusty wind & light rain. Running in shorts again…gotta check the weather app before I leave home. LOL> 25,000 runners, corral start. Lotta local crowd support, much appreciated.

Started tenth-mile behind the 4:15 pace group. Hung close thru mile 2. Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark (home to OKC’s Triple-A Dodgers). Past two [Phillips 66] oil derricks, 500 feet outside the Oklahoma State Capitol. Caught the 4 hour pacers at mile 5. Halfers peeled off before 8.

Gorilla Hill, Nichols Hills, Rose Hill, Heritage Hills – not a flat course 🙂

2:01 first Half. Couple minutes slower than last Saturday…on a more technical course – I’ll take it. Struggled the two miles ‘round Lake Hefner. High gusty winds. Head lowered, pushed thru the day’s weather obstacle. Misty rain blew sideways. 4 hour pace group matched me, moved past me.

Tree cover at mile 16, more at 18. Downhill stretch [thru mile 20] before a quad-burning 4 mile climb…topping out in OKC’s scenic Heritage Hills. Mighty late in the day for 4 miles of UP.

Run/walk combination last 2 miles. Mental dip/endorphin drop but not a bad performance – maintained posture, felt good in my shoes. Hilly run…third straight weekend marathoning – finished just over 4:15, an Oklahoma PR. 2^nd fastest of 2017, 16^th best of my 88. 128 consecutive run days – feelin’ STRONG!

2017 Results – OKC Marathon

Haga, K R LOUISVILLE CO 4:17:20

6 hours to burn before my Colorado flight home. Fried pickles at Toby Keith’s (while in Oklahoma, gotta/hafta), feet up/giant Coke & a movie….then, 2 stops of interest: Oklahoma’s Land Run Monument & a brief pull-over at the State Capitol.

More than 50,000 Americans lined up at noon on April 22^nd 1889 for our country’s last great Land Run. Towns were formed, homesteads staked. Ironically, monuments outside the state’s Capitol Dome celebrate Oklahoma’s Native American population (from whom the land was taken). Cowboys, Indians & Oil. American history is kinda messed up, huh?

Far North next weekend, adventuring with my Canadian bestie Sarah. Marathoning of course but ALSO…Niagara Falls!

: marathon #88; an Oklahoma PR

: Oklahoma Land Run of 1889

: “one of the world’s largest bronze sculptures featuring 45 heroic figures of land run participants, frozen in motion as they race to claim new homesteads”

: OK’s Field of Flags

: Cowboys, Indians & Oil

Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon

Posted in Heartland, Marathons/Ultras | Tagged capitol-domes, horses, museo, native-american | Leave a comment

168 lives #RUNtoREMEMBER

Published April 29, 2017

Why We #RUNtoREMEMBER

Twenty two years ago on April 19, 1995, the unthinkable happened. 168 innocent people were killed by a truck bomb detonated by a fellow American. In the first hours after the Oklahoma City bombing, Oklahomans began to immediately respond by helping and creating small makeshift memorials around the perimeter of the bombsite – mounds of flowers, stuffed animals, personal notes, cards and prayers. Each person remembered and honored those killed in their own way. In 11 days, you and around 25,000 other runners will do the same. You run to keep their memory alive and by doing so, help to ensure people around the world know the impact of violence.

We hope at 9:02am today you will pause for 168 seconds of silence with us. During this time of reflection, honor those who were killed, those who survived, and those changed forever, and feel gratitude for being able to carry their legacy with you on April 30th.

The Gates of Time

Direct flight from Denver but arrived an hour late in Oklahoma City. Who knew it would be snowing two days before the start of May? Spring in Colorado – LOVE it! High wind & rain greeted in OKC. Trees down, traffic lights out (all weekend long) but…NO tornadoes, I call it a win 🙂

Marathon bib pickup, home to NBA’s Thunder. Walked 4 long blocks to the Oklahoma City Memorial Museum. This is the reason I chose tomorrow’s run – proceeds fund the Memorial…and we remember. We remember the victims of America’s first domestic terrorist attack. 168 lives.

The Museum was as moving as it was upsetting. Multimedia news feeds, recorded audio (blast occurred during a local ‘water rights’ court case), relics & interviews. I felt as if I were reliving the events of the day. Well done…just not my thing.

[despite the rain] found the Outdoor Memorial a better fit/more my style.

— Reflecting Pool

— Survivor Tree

— The Gates of Time

— Field of Empty Chairs

At each of these outdoor memorials, I reflected. Reflected on what I had seen in the Museum: on the lines of people giving blood, on the crowd of locals assisting firefighters digging thru rubble. One of the most moving experiences of my life. Proud American moment.