Run 086 - Around Amend Park Neighborhood

July 22, 2023

I spent the past 3 days on a camping trip and hadn’t thought about this morning’s usual run until Shelley texted me about it last night.  We’ve been running the Southside recently and she said she’d like to see the big liftoff of hot air balloons at 6am from Amend park which is right in the area we’ve been running so I texted back that I’d make up a map and meet her behind Newman School at 5:50am.

The planning map:

We got on our way, ran down Stone, crossed South Billings Blvd. and went around the Holiday gas station on a newer street.  It exited us onto King Ave. next to the out-of-business Popeye’s.  

This place was started by our former congressman Denny Rehberg (R) who made a big deal when running for office about bringing “high paying jobs” to Montana.  While in office he didn’t do that but after he was out he started this place as an example of the “high paying jobs” he was bringing to Montana.  The place folded after the pandemic and I think I remember a piece in one of the local news sources with him whining about not finding enough workers and that’s why it was closing.  Maybe all those workers had found other “high paying jobs” elsewhere.

We continued on and saw lots of cars parked at Amend Park but only one balloon was inflated.  A bunch of cars were leaving and guy told Shelley that the event had been canceled.  The was a slight breeze in the air but not much to notice.  I guess all these people got up early nothing.  At least we have a run to do.

We continued on our way…I found money…

Some views along the way.

We ran all the streets in the neighborhood west of Amend ark.  This is a really nice enclave with smaller houses but all are well-kept and there’s a nice little park in the middle.

We got back on Laurel Road and ran this little out-and-back with a motel on one side of the street, houses on the other, and round-a-bout at the end.

A nice collection of birdhouses.

Looking into the Department of Transportation yard on Foote Ave.

We got onto Simpson and could they had just one balloon inflated.

We finished up by adding a short piece on King (South Billings Blved to the Popeyes and back) that I’d missed on the map and then back to where we parked our cars behind Newman school.  We were glad to be done because it started getting warmer out.  It supposed to be about 100 degrees today.

The official results:

Run 085 - More West End Neighborhoods

July 18, 2023

My regular Tuesday running partner, Jerry, is still unavailable for one of our usual treks so I did another block of streets for this project.  I selected the streets bounded by 32 St. West, Broadwater, Central, and 29th St. West.  I’d already run a few of these as it’s on our 5th Wednesday runs with the Rim Runners but it still left 6 miles of streets to cover.

I parked near Meadowlark Elementary school and got started a bit after 6am.  Here’s my planning map.

Who knew that this place had a name?

Meadowlark Shool

There a bunch of construction going on in this area.  It looks like some curbs and gutters but lots of water mains.

Centennial Park, looking toward the dog park.

Temporary water supply.  I like the cradles at the driveways.

Empty space.

Far be it from me to criticize someone’s aesthetic choices but I’ll guess that this brickwork looked better in the brochure.

The house across the street is unlike every other house in the neighborhood.

Central Ave. looking East.

Looking West.

That was it.  A pretty unexciting outing.  No dog chasing me, no close calls with vehicles, no weirdos complaining about me taking photos, but no found money either.  Here are the stats:

Run 084 - East of Newman School

July 16, 2023

This was going to be yesterday’s run but Shelley wanted to run it with me and she’s was headed out of town for that so we decided to do it this morning.  That was a good move because we’ve been socked in with smoke from Canada and it’s better today than yesterday.

The route is another ladder design, running back and forth between two north/south streets.

It’s great weather temperature-wise and we met behind Newman School at 7am and got going right away.  The neighborhoods are very nice, quiet, and well-kept and belie the reputation that the South Side gets for being the city’s ghetto.  Here’s some photos from along the way.

We were not sure what kind of try this was but it had lots of pods/fruit on it.

OK, not every house in the area is “well-kept.”  This one had a fire.

A nice front garden.

Great lawn ornaments.

Someone’s garden gnome had come to a violent end on Calhoun.  We cleaned it up the best we could.

The only unpaved street on the route: Frances Ave.

I was glad to find this over by the underpass construction area.

The corner of State and Orchard.

Looks like an unused farm house on Orchard.

They have a few cars.

A big backyard.

Optimist Park.

Only a minor financial haul today.

        

And the statistics: