So where the hell have I been? I can't recall in the 3 year life of this blog being away for this long. Time accelerates and distance between seems less until you look.

I just got back from a 4 mile run into town. (well actually by now its a few hours ago) Between volunteer commitments on the weekends and several nights and a more hectic work schedule, the time and energy for runs has bee sparse. It help that I keep a log of every time I run with the distance and time to keep a visual reminder of how long its been and what impact the lapse has had on my times.

It a bright sunny morning and has to be in the mid 50s, which is clearly spring and that seems unusual for early April. The past week has been up in the 60s which is definitely unusual, but I'll take it. The forsythia is in bloom, which when I look at photos from last year, came a few weeks later. The daffodils are blooming in the yard and that has been known to not happen til May.


As I ran around in the little downtown of Lenox I was thinking how similar this is to areas like Cape Cod. (I run in one side look around a large circle the run back out to the "other side of town" where we live.) I am sure I have written about this before but it always strike me how life in a tourist area goes on outside the "show" that is for the tourists. There were a few tourists are around (you can tell by the out of state cars) but clearly off season.

The town of Lenox has a small village center but also has a good amount of area outside and the tourists mostly know the village and the "downtown" as all there is to the town. There seem to be more empty store fronts and for rent signs around. Some businesses that just can't make it over the dry spells of the winter and especially January and February which is really dead. Others were places where you knew the business owner had been trying to sell or retire for a while and eventually just closed when the lease ran out. There are still several restaurants and galleries that have been around for years and they seem to have enough of a following with the locals to pull them through the winter.

It will be interesting to see what returns and reopens in the later spring. As a local who works out of the area, the openings of closing of businesses in the business has been more of a remote interest but having two kids who have relied on the local tourist industry for summer jobs makes it more personal than it has been in the past.

More later as now I dash out for another Sunday morning volunteer assignment, I am recycling guy at church this week.