the bear trail game

in my journeys through my new neighborhood with norman-the-world's-best-golden-retriever, we tend to go a different path every time we go out. especially with running, you don't necessarily want the same route everyday or it starts to get boring.

there are plenty of great places to run right outside my front door...dirt paths along the trinity river, various parks, and of course, just hitting the streets and looking at houses while you jog. yesterday we ran in the 'hood, and ended up running through the tcu campus. i've never thought about it much, the fact that i live so close to a university...a large university that is swarming with students. it is so strange to live so close you could almost feel a part of campus life, yet you are not associated with the school in any way. i guess i just like the fact that i do, it's nice to have all that energy around me.

so anyway, jogging across campus, i thought back to my days at baylor and how excited i would be to run the "bear trail" (yes, i know it sounds totally gay, but it was fun and a social event in-and-of itself to run on it) again. this took me back in time and i began reminiscing
on a game we invented, "the bear trail game." ( see photo below, a young baylor girl stretches before her jog) the rules were simple, you would drive around the trail with a car full of girlfriends, and as you approached a jogger/runner/walker that was alone, you would do one of the following:

a.) upon spotting a jogger/runner/walker coming toward you, turn off your lights, pull slowly toward the curb, then suddenly SCREAM bloody murder at the top of your lungs. this one was funny, but even i thought a bit cruel. possibly because of the fact that gangs do this just before they "put a cap in you" but maybe not...

b.) go out with bottles of water and in a strange and creepy voice, all the while flailing out the window, offer the water to the jogger/runner/walker. if it was cold outside, "you want water? it's really hot out here!" as long as you appeared insane or mentally unstable, this was hysterical.

c.) while running, find spots on the trail to hide quietly. as jogger/walker/runner approaches, jump out and scare the pee out of them. we usually reserved this for close friends, but who knows? sometimes you just couldn't resist.

d.) this one is my favorite, the car sneak approach...the jogger/runner/walker is in your sites, but has their back to you. again, you turn off the lights, but this time they do not see you approaching. just as you get next to them, everyone bursts out of the windows SCREAMING and the driver honks the horn loudly. this one definitely got the most laughs, and truly was a gem. we had one guy friend that literally almost jumped over the railing of a bridge (a short fall, i promise) we scared him so bad.

i know, i know, it sounds cruel, and i think at the time we actually thought we were kind of crazy or scary, but who is really frightened by a bunch of college girls in kappa t-shirts with baylor stickers and "KKG" license plate covers?? usually people ended up laughing after the initial scare, unless of course they got me. i hate being scared. ;)

i'm thinking of starting a "horned-frog-trail game," but it might finally be creepy, in my late 20's, alone, cruising the tcu campus trolling for college kids to yell at...yeah, i think i'll leave it alone. it was fun while it lasted. ;)