ironton rail trail spur

I live in a city. A small city, but still a city. All the Christmas snow is pretty much gone. Or so I thought.

For the first official walk of the new year, I choose the spur trail of the Ironton Rail Trail. The IRT is a paved loop. The spur is straight and about two miles. I think it's the part that was actually the railroad tracks.

Bonnie was early and we headed off to pick up Lyd in the boonies.  (AKA bumfucknowhere) Her address is Northampton, but she's out in farm country. The closer we got to her house the more snow was on the ground. Ut oh.

Lyd got in the car, we waved hi to the dog, and headed to the IRT. We had hoped not to park at the first lot in the Whitehall Parkway, but couldn't find any others, so we parked there. It was plowed. There's a barn covered with hex signs, and tiles with hex signs. I took too many pics.

Thank goodness most of the snow on that trail from that lot had melted.

After walking a bit we arrived on the IRT. It was snow covered with ruts. It didn't look horrible so we headed out, walking in single file, often in the ruts.

When we reached Egypt (the town, not the country) the trail was totally snow covered. We walked on it for a bit, but the road was running parallel, so we moved out into the street.  (Facing traffic of course.)

When we arrived at the Troxell Steckel House the trail bent to the left. We left the trail and walked up to the house. It wasn't open, but we could around the grounds. One day we'll come back when it's open.  The counties website says "this colonial stone farmhouse is an excellent example of German medieval style architecture brought to eastern Pennsylvania by German settlers." It was built in 1756 and is on the historic register.

I really like the inlaid stone sign. Can't read a word of it. Maybe I'll ask when we go again.

We continued on the trail until it ended, turned around and came back. We walked past our entrance point and headed toward MacArthur Road. The trail got worse and worse. It was clear that this section was plowed and it was icy. We tried to double back, and hit dead ends. We ended up going back on the main trail, the way we came.

We walked about 4 miles in 1.5 hours. Clearly we need to get ice grips for days like this. I think I might have a pair up in my camping stuff. Unless I gave them away.

We drove back to Lyds, and dropped her off. And headed toward my house. Bonnie had an appointment and time was running short. I had her drop me off at New Bethany and walked home.

Tomorrow we're meeting at Planet Fitness and doing the East Allentown triangle we planned to do last week.