Run Photo of the Day 4.25.11: Scenes from a creepy 9-miler

I went on a solo 9-mile long run, taking a route I sketched out on Gmap-Pedometer.com, but had never actually ran before. It was a tough, hilly route, but I thought I'd get out and see the sights. 

Like the city's Industrial Park. About 2 miles of the run was through our mostly deserted and kind of spooky Industrial Park. A few businesses call it home and all, but I didn't see anyone at all for about a mile and a half, and didn't hear any noise except my own feet and an occasional bird. The road is long and straight -- if someone decided to chase me for some reason, there'd be nowhere to go. These are the things I think about on the run. Also, see that thing that looks like a mountain in the background? That's a landfill.

I ran south along North Main Street, which was much pleasanter.

Then I spotted this thing in someone's front yard. It's a star shape made out of sticks and twine, and the dog from "Family Guy" seems to be hanged from the center. What is this, some Wiccan ritualistic sacrifice? The rest of the house looked a shambles, with dirty windows and peeling paint and dead bushes, so quite frankly I ran the hell away from there.

On my way home, I cut through a park by our house. I've been thinking about hiding a geocache somewhere in there (my first hide), so I decided to scout for places that might be safe, interesting places to share with people. Instead I came across this: it's some sort of abandoned building inside the park. I've seen it there a million times, because I've walked through this park more times than I can count, but I never actually went up to this building before. From the outside and front, it looks like some kind of shack. Behind it, the wood has rotted away and you can peek through to see the interior. We've got what looks like an old sofa, chair, oven and stove, possibly the remains of a bureau. There were several rooms  in here I could see into, all full of trash and rotted furniture. I also got the hell away from here ASAP, because there's a definite willies vibe coming from there. Also, I didn't know if anybody -- or anything -- was living in it. It's the kind of place you can picture some monster crawling out of and dragging you inside to make a meal of you. It probably didn't help that I was listening to Stephen King's It on my iPod at the time.