Nothing Happening in Highlands

We look forward to our Saturday morning group runs every week; it's generally a long run, but more importantly it is a social run, when we catch up with the lives of our running friends, share stories, and talk about anything and everything.  I had posted a notice that our group runs had been cancelled, and I deliberately showed up at the Park a half-hour late.  Fred was parking his little red MG just as I was arriving, and he hesitated as he walked toward me.  "Is this a group?"  I laughed and assured him two runners would be just fine.  A half-mile down the road, we met Karen, and stopped to chat with her, and then we passed Art and Vicki; Martha started after I did.  So there would have been a group of six of us had we all started at the same time.

Governor Cooper's statewide Stay at Home order thankfully permits outdoor exercise, but we did not see very many people out at all on this second unusually warm and sunny day in a row at the end of March, just a couple of dog walkers.  There was no traffic to speak of, and only two or three cars on Main Street; gone were the throngs of visitors who would normally be here on a morning like this, walking down the sidewalks past open shop doors, and the auto enthusiasts gathered at the Loafer's Bench.  It looked like this photo that Martha had found posted on the "Highlands Happening" Facebook page:

The pollen is still in the "red zone," so we both ran fewer miles than we had planned.  Temperatures climbed into the 80s again in the afternoon and the prudent thing to do would have been to stay indoors or sit in the shade with a book, but I felt restless, and ended up working in the yard after lunch, turning the raised garden beds on which I had spread compost last week with a spade.

Martha felt restless, too.  "What would we normally be doing on a Saturday?" she asked me this afternoon.  I suppose we might have driven up to Town, top down on the Mini, perhaps ordered some take-out from the Asia House, watching people walk by on the street. Or gone out of Town to shop for groceries and eaten lunch at an open restaurant.  Imagine that!

Our old life.