If you’re a runner, no doubt you have your regular route you run when you step out your front door.  Lately I’ve been doing the same 4 miles through my neighborhood, so on yesterday’s run I decided to take some pictures to document what I see every day for about 50 minutes.

I start near this…a Dead End…that drops off into a canal. My neighbor put his truck and boat trailer there…I’m assuming because too many cars flew off into the water in the middle of the night. I don’t know that for a fact, but it sounds good

I live in a weird area.  We’re on a lake bordered by a nature preserve and a Mormon Ranch.  The area is a kind of rural retiree fishing community. Lots of streets named after fish. Oh..and there’s a police shooting range a few miles away so we get to hear gunfire on the regular.  It reminds me of the Beverly Hillbillies. On one side of the street you have lakefront homes and on the other side of the street you’ll find small cottages and fixer-uppers on dirt roads.

After the first quarter mile or so is the public boat ramp.  It was dead yesterday so you get a nice view of the lake.

This is one of my favorite houses…and it’s not on the lake side. I just love how it has lots of trees and is always perfectly landscaped.  Who can deny the beauty of a Grandfather Oak?

My road has big…long…stretches in it.

and snake carcases.

and headless cow mailboxes

and lighthouses…on the non-lake side mind you.

There’s a $#!t ton of these birds too. They’re Sandhill Cranes. Rednecks call em Whoopin Cranes because of the sound they make. Whoop! Whoop!

Nearly half of my run is done in this neighborhood.

It’s got four cul-de-sacs  and the HOA here must be a bear cause the houses and yards always look pristine.

Here’s their private boat ramp.

They’ve also got a tiny nature walk. I’m always tempted to run it, but it would slow my pace and Sasquatch could be waiting for me in there.

I see tons of planes. We’re right in the landing path for Orlando International Airport (MCO). Lot’s of families coming to visit the Most Magical Place on Earth!

Here’s a house I like alot. It reminds me of my grandparents’ house in West Virginia. You don’t see to many brick homes in Florida.  And this one hasn’t quite made up its mind if it wants to be brick or siding.

and here’s one I don’t like alot..or a little. Pink and gray. I kid you not. Reminds me of a baby shower. I wonder if Mary Kay lives here?

This dead tree is an accident waiting to happen. Mayhem is everywhere. I’m always looking over my shoulder to see if Dean Winters is going to push this dead pine on top of me. It’s right on the property line of two homes. I wonder if they have Hatfield and McCoy convos about the tree. You cut it down. No YOU cut it down. Pew! Pew!

You know the guy who gives out pennies on Halloween? Yeah.  That’s this guy.

and there’s a real bitch sourpuss who lives in that house behind the bushes. When my daughter and I were training for the Inaugural  Twilight Zone Tower of Terror 10 Miler, we would drive our car down to this neighborhood to run at night.  ToT was a night race and we wanted our training conditions as close to the real thing as possible. This is the only neighborhood that is lit well enough for us to feel safe.

We parked the car on the shoulder the first night and started out on our run until the lady who lives here popped out of the bushes and told us we couldn’t park our car there cause the grass would get smushed. Mind you, we were on the public road side and not in front of her house.  I moved the car to the opposite side of the neighborhood in front of the boat ramp and we restarted our run from there. By the time we had gotten back over in front of this lady’s house she was still standing there like a creeper in the dark. I told my daughter, “Watch…I bet she called the cops”.

A few miles later and we were coming up to our vehicle by the boat ramp and what did we see? Yep. Two cops shining a flashlight into the car. We ran up to them and were told in not so many words that the roadside was public property and we could park where we wanted and there was nothing they could to to stop us. =) Take THAT sourpuss!

That’s the last house I see before leaving NorthShore and hooking a right back onto my road.  I’ve seen this squished pink tampon on the ‘regular’ and  I don’t like it…’period’.  But it does signify the end of Mile 3.

and there’s this dog. You know…that scary’ish dog who is just dying to jump over the fence and rip you to shreds run with you.

and that pretty much sums it up. That’s what my daily run consists of.

What do you see on your neighborhood runs that stick out in your mind?