maybe the world isn't ready for bloggers like us

so here's a story that's long overdue for the telling. a suburban legend, if you will.

being the hip young urban professionals that we are, we sometimes like to seek refuge from our rather wholesome professions by engaging in something a little more badass. you guessed it: trail running in the suburbs. so off we go on a saturday morning in search of one of the many forest preserves in suburban chicago to find something that vaguely resembles wilderness so that we can combine the self-satisfaction of having gone running with the sheer and utter delight of being covered with mud. i am, of course, hungover. the other, we'll call her blogger #2, is the one with the sense of direction. i am the driver. blogger #2 is somewhat competently navigating, but she's also telling me a story about some guy who traveled around living in yert which i is making me laugh uncontrollably. whether or not yerts are funny is a question to ponder some other time- this is more important.

anyway, the first trail head in berwyn is a bust. it just looks sucky so we move on to the next one. still in berwyn. in we go. it's green. there are picnic tables, BBQ pits, bathrooms. looks promising. so we drive along trying to find the trail head. it's this long driveway thing with lots of angle parking- oddly populated for a saturday morning. lots of cars, each parked a few spots away from the others. mini-vans, sedans. sitting in the family cars are somewhat family looking men. middle-aged, not too fashionable, but we're in berwyn. vertical striped shirts that look a little too early 90's, mustaches. nascar dads, if you will. we pass car after car of single men. a few have ventured out of their cars. a couple of smalls groups of men talking to each other. the bloggers are silent. we drive on to the end of the driveway thing and have to make a u-turn at the dead end, coming back to take in the scene again. still silent, we are, until we find ourselves back on the road. finally, blogger #2 breaks the silence. "you know, in madison there's this park where middle aged men go for same sex hookups..."

maybe you had to be there.