Hindman Park

The Great Cross Country Race will be about two and a half miles long. It took me an hour and 15 minutes to set this morning. It starts by the main pavilion in the Hindman Park recreation area, crosses the bridge over Fouche Creek (the one we crossed in our vehicles to get to the clubhouse), goes along the Hindman Park Golf Course cart path past the green and tee box of No. 15, the next-to-last par 3, and to the creek side of the No. 16 green, the last par 5. Then it follows a long-abandoned, weed-strewn road for about a half mile until it reaches, much to my surprise, a cart path for Western Hills Country Club, which closed about three years ago (I think the course is closed for keeps; at one point on the cart path I passed a stripe of red paint, indicating a green was once 100 yards away. The weeds on the fairway, which I had not recognized, were chest high. Some were well over my head. Nothing looked anything at all like a green). I followed the path until I noticed a concrete pipe, about four feet in diameter, running across the creek. It is maybe 75 yards long, and took me seven minutes to butt-scoot across (my butt still feels almost burned). Once across I followed the nightmare road I waded along Monday, and was almost driven insane by mosquitos and horse flies before I reached the pavilion. I'm not sure, but I think I heard monkeys. Fuck.