easton pre-walk

Today was the Easton Pre-Walk for the big regional event May 14.  What is a pre-walk? It's when a group gets together, walks the route, and makes sure that the directions are understandable by strangers to the area.

Angel, Bonnie, the tween and I laid out this route awhile ago. We tested and measured it. Then Pat the trail master and Dave, the club president walked it.  Today our group was lead by the direction-ally challenged Emily.  I think. She questioned everything. Pat took notes. I think some she'll use. Some she won't use.

I never realized how long a walk takes when you do this. It was 1:00 when we left the group and they were still at the Library. We had to have the girls to Girl Scouts at 2:00 in Hellertown.

We did discover that that the city added another pedestrian crossing sign, which knocked off our count in a direction. And that the fencing was down at Lafayette College's new arts campus. And that there was a trash cleanup on the Arts trail.  Outside of that, no surprises.

When Pat and Dave did the walk, they did a small rerouting to avoid triangles. That is quite the hill. Some of the older members had a little difficulty. I waited at the top. If I stopped. There would be no starting again.

There was 8 in our group including Pat, Angel and myself. Another group from the Susquehanna Rovers left about 15 minutes earlier. And a pair of Rovers came to do the bike portion on the towpath. They did the walk yesterday.

If you want to read about the route, check this post from 2015.

Hoping to walk tomorrow, but downpours are expected. Of course, Angel has the weekend off.

today's walk

Today I did one of the regular routes in south Bethlehem. Up to the hospital, out Ostrum, down the bridge ramp. You've heard it all before. Brighton Street was filled with flowering dogwood.

I talked on my cell to the "patient" (Bonnie) while I climbed Bishopthorpe and out Ostrum. I told her she was going for a walk! She demanded to know exactly where we were going. Of course what I started with and told her changed. It often does.

I was headed home when I remembered I wanted to walk down Cherokee Street.  From the car I saw someone had painted their fence. and I wanted a closer look. From the car I thought it was a plastic fence. They are popular in my neighborhood. But it turned out to be wood.

This part is closest to the sidewalk. They made a stencil of some tulips and spray painted them to the fence. It will be really nice when those pots of real flowers grow.

Further down is a lovely DIY project. Flowers from plastic soda/water bottles. I love upcycling. The part attached to the fence is the bumpy bottom. The "flowers" are made by hot gluing the cap end into the bottom, and then cutting the remaining bottle to make the petals. There were short ones and long ones and bumpy ones. Now I would have made stems and leaves on the fence, but I'm weird.

Then it was back down the hill and home.

i don't remember signing up

I don't remember signing up for the Great Saunter, but my packet arrived today in the mail. I'm up 30 pounds and haven't walked more than 4 miles consistently all winter. Clearly I am not ready for a 32 mile trek. In two weeks.

Now I did renew my membership. I like their walks. I just never go to them. The whole driving to NYC or further gets in the way.

I also signed up for the tail On The Trail challenge. As you might remember, my account went wonkers during the weekend challenge and I had to delete it. So I am no longer a inaugural walker. This week our prizes came from the winter challenge. It was a black fleece scarf with the logo.

In 34 days I am going to sign up for this walk in 2017—Ever Walk. "EverWalk is a movement of long, epic walks across the United States. Over the next five years we are going to walk--thousands of us together, away from our screens, engaged in our great outdoors ... With the Surgeon General on our side, we aim to improve the collective health of America." Diana Nyad is spearheading it.

The first couple years reminds me a game Angel's family plays—Ticket to Ride. (American edition) Lots of short connecting walks between major cities.

In our area it's DC to Philly. About 139 miles how the crow flies. That would be about a week at 20 miles a day. I'm going to have to train for it. And save for it. It's probably going to be expensive for food and lodging. I doubt they will be camping.

Training for it would be like training for the 3-Day. And that's what I need. I take care of myself better when I have that goal dangling in front of me. Excuses stop. So unless it is outrageous, I'm going for it. And as long as the walk isn't the same weekend as next year's Saunter I could count it as a training walk!

I'd love to do the cross country one in 2020, but I can barely do the hills in the Lehigh Valley. How will I do the Great Smokey Mountains or the Rockies?

Anyone interested in joining me for DC-Philly, let me know. We'll have details by June.

spring in south bethlehem

This giant south Bethlehem street party used to be called "Spring on 4th, What's on Third". But now it covers a lot more ground and the chili cook-off is not the start of the show. Now you need to buy the chili cook-off tickets ahead of time!

I decided to skip the Greenway, which was probably a mistake, festival wise.  But what the hell. Make lemons out of lemonade.

I walked straight down Fourth, past Hayes, toward Donegan. There was a Ghost sign I wanted to take a picture of. Turns out it's a double. Be still my heart.

As I was climbing the Fourth Street hill, I saw St. Thomas cemetery. Of course I knew it was there, I've passed it a zillion times. But this time I was on foot. So I headed to the main gate. It was padlocked several times.

They weren't carrying coffins up those front stairs. There had to be another way in. I walked backed down the hill, and hiked up State Street to the entrance road.  I found the "back door". This one wasn't padlocked. Who'd walk up that hill to do anything but honor the dead.

You may ask, why this cemetery, this day? I decided to have my Walker Evans moment. Who is Walker Evans? A WPA era photographer who took this famous photo:

But I didn't have the reference photo with me.  And there are tons of tall crosses in the cemetery. I was way too far over. I could have sworn State Street was not in the photo. I tried to avoid it. But the cross is actually blocking State Street.

 Here's four of the many I took. Too high up the hill. To far east. Epic fail.

I soon discovered why the front gate was padlocked. It makes my blood boil.

I found a way out of the cemetery without going back down State Street.  Then it was further up the hill to take the photo that started this adventure.

After getting my bearings I found a way down to the Greenway and back to ArtsQuest and teh festivities on Third. The children's tent was at NCC southside. The Wellness Expo at the charter school, and chili everywhere.

There was a lot of art and entertainment at the Banana Factory.  I took pics of some of the art. But not the entertainment. It's way to tough to shot with a phone.

Then it was a quick stop at the store and home. The walk was just shy of 6 miles.

fab lab day

Today was my spring term walk to the Fab Lab at the south side campus. As always, I took pictures along the way. And 8 kids showed up. Way better than the three Monday night!

The Fab Lab is my happy place. Until tonight, I never had a fail.

I decided to gut my initial out of my sketchbook. But when I did the stick test, it wasn't cut thru. So I redid it. I swear it didn't move, but clearly it did. It's okay, I'll change it into something else...beautiful and multicolored.

 This is the sign in front of Molly's Pub. I thought of my friend Angel when I read it.

A couple weeks ago the windows started falling out of the old steel offices. Twenty years of neglect is a lot. So now they are covering them with this black mesh. I want to hire a truck and paint it. It would be so cool.

a walk into the past

It was beautiful yesterday and I knew I wanted to walk. I just couldn't decide where. I decided maybe to see if I could find the trails at Fountain Hill Reservoir. The park closed decades ago. We picnicked there as kids. I think I broke my collarbone there. The original ruins of St. Luke's are back there, from when it was a holistic water cure facility.

I hiked up the hill, and the one sign that said "private property" (which hikers used to ignored) was replaced by the one above. Clearly they were serious. Back when I worked for the Bethlehem News I used to go to council meetings. And after seeing the sign I remembered the conversation at one of those meetings saying water sources were protected by homeland security and the reservoir was one. Think about it. Put a biologic in the water supply; kill lots of people. But it's a shame you can't go back there anymore.

So then I decided to go take pictures of the ghost signs in Fountain Hill. The mills are all being re-purposed and the signs are quickly being painted over.

 (Seneca and Clewell)

It wasn't a long walk, but it had plenty of hills.

Next walk is the ghost signs on 4th street. I know there is a Mail Pouch tobacco one down near Donegan.

(Broadway / Itaska / Benner triangle. There was many more on this mill. They've all been replaced by current tenants. These are the only ones left.)

startling discovery in the hood

Today I walked in the hood, with my ultimate destination —you guessed it—the market.

I walked up Bishopthorpe to Seneca, Out Seneca past the old house. The plan was to go down the 3rd street hill and maybe as far as the HMT before coming home.

At Seneca and Dakotah streets I noticed the street sign. Something was wrong. (Bottom) It was spelled DAKTAH. Say what? I've only recently gotten used to the H being there. Now they are taking away letters? Then I went up to Delaware, and this time it was spelled correctly in lower case letters.

Then I walked down to Cherokee and it was spelled correctly with Capital letters. Now the hunt was on. Could I find one without the H? No. But clearly the city needs continuity and a proofreader. And if they fix it, the Indian Hills neighborhood would like their tribes spelled correctly— In this case Dakota.

And if this graphic designer has a choice, she chooses all cap with the block number. Makes things easier to find. Especially if one is going the wrong direction.

croquet?

This week I did not walk every day, but I walked several, at least for an hour. So I'm feeling a success here.

Yesterday Bonnie and I went with the Liberty Bell Wanderers to Annapolis on a bus trip. Bonnies last big event before hip replacement surgery. Soon we'll just call her the Bionic Woman. Wait. She needs the super hearing. Nah. She's a mother. She's already got it. (I wonder how much of that technology that we thought radical in the 70s is now common place?)

We left Bonnie's at 5:30 am and headed to the VE in Horham, which was the bus stop.  We saw a lot of the members at the local Wawa. I think it took about 3 hours to get there.

I tried working on the bus, with limited success. It's just hard to sit with a lap top on your lap and work, and not have it slide at every corner. I'm not sure how commuters do it.

We arrived on the waterfront and were told to report back at 2:40. We met Clair from the Annapolis Ramblers and stuck with her most of the day. She's our age. Then it was off to the Academy.

We were told to bring photo ID and expect "airport" type security. Everyone was ready, and we just walked right in past the guards. Disappointing. There was a guided tour, our president is a grad, but it was slow. Dave likes to talk. So several of us, including Clair, headed off on our own. Quickly we became misplaced, but nobody with guns came after us. With the exception of co-eds in uniform, it looked like every other college campus.

The town however was dressed to kill. There was a big croquet match at St. John's College. Yes, you read that correctly, croquet. Collegiate croquet. I had no idea. The last time I played that game was in the 60s at a family reunion.

It was sunny and warm, a beautiful day for the sport.  But not sunny enough for those tiny sundresses. There was so many hats I thought I was in Lousiville on Derby Day. The men wore suits from the waist up, and hats and a whole lot of bow ties. Some had long pants and dockers on. Most had Bermuda shorts.

After visiting the State House and several other sites, we finished the 11K.  Then headed down Main Street in search of lunch. We ended up at a taco joint with odd tacos. Bonnie had fried avocado and fried calamari.

Then it was back to the waterfront for the harbor cruise. Timing was perfect. Bonnie's hip was screaming STOP. So we did. Claire headed for home and we waited for the boat.

It was a nice cruise, but a bit short. We didn't need to be back fro the bus for 2 more hours. Way too much time. So we went to a pub for dinner. Bonnie got hard cider. I got Yuengling's.  I didn't have Allison with me to pick my beer. It was happy hour. The Pottsville water was on sale 32 oz for $5. Regular is 12 oz. is $6. Angel, I got the 32! But I didn't finish it.

We wandered around the neighborhoods a while and looked at houses, then returned to the dock to watch life float by, eating delicious ice cream and waiting for the bus.

Didn't get much work done on the bus ride home either.

We returned to the VE until 9:30. I didn't get home till 11 and went straight to bed.

i lost the tween

Yesterday when we picked up the packets, the volunteer did not remove the Tweens beer coupons from her bib. Angel decided to ask her husband if he wanted to come along to drink the "child's" beer. She was willing to drink five, but maybe that wasn't a good idea.

At 7 am, Darrell, Angel and the tween arrived. And we were off to Pottsville. It was 43 here and cloudy.

They have a lot of parking designated, and we ended up in on of the further away spots. Yesterday, on my way home I took of my beer band and put it on the gear shift. The tween even remarked about it when she got in the car. After parking I took my coat out of the trunk and finished getting dressed. It was 34 degrees in the mountains. I closed up and locked the car and then we were off. We climbed the hill to the main street and headed towards the brewery. A group passed us and were talking about how they almost forgot their arm bands.

Shit. I forgot mine. Back down to the car.

On the way up, the second time, to the brewery I saw a coca cola ghost sign. This one I could have gotten a picture of. I decided to do it on the way back. Dumb mistake. I forgot. We were only about 25 minutes early. So we walked around, took our picture in front of the beer bottle, and got ready for the race. My goal was 55 minutes with all those hill and just being sick. The tween stayed with me. Angel decided to run. But we all started in the 11 minute chute. Darrell explored Pottsville. He came for the beer.

And we're off. Angel pulls out ahead never to be seen again. The tween and I chug up the first hill. It begins to snow. She wants me to go faster. I told her this was it. Then it was down the hill, and up a really steep hill. That one was tough. Lots of people passed me. I made it. One more hill to go. That one wasn't quite as bad. By this time it's snowing hard. Finally the last mile is downhill.

We did a couple power walk intervals to make up time on the downhill. When we were about a block away the child did a sprint across the finish line.  I came 30 seconds later. My time was horrific. 63:43. I think that was my worse time in any race. Ever.

Angel and Darrell were to meet us at the gift shop beer line. The tween and I made our way past the snacks grabbing as we wet. We also got some water. Then we reached a stand that had towels and gum. The child took one, and was right behind me. I went to text Angel that we had arrived, and the tween was gone. Now I know how moms of toddler's think.

Apparently the gum lady told her she could take a handful, so she went back. I didn't hear that, so I moved a few feet. She turned around and didn't see me. I texted Angel. "I lost E."  She didn't reply. Three minutes later. "I lost E." I had decided to go to the DJ and have him announce for her to meet me. Like at a mall.

But his time she replied. "We have her." Apparently when she got the first text she went into full mommy search mode. Meanwhile I stayed put.  Turns out the whole time we were about 20-30 feet away from each other.

Angel had three, I had one, and Darrell had two. A Wawa stop on the way back was in our future.

 The route. Basically we go around the block. Her finish time was much better than mine.

road trip

The Yuengling Lager Jogger 5K was today. Friday was packet pickup at 11 am Pottsville. But I now have a class at 3 at LCCC on a Friday. I didn't want to drive to Whitehall twice.

Angel came her, and we took both cars to Betsy's, then left Angel's there. And headed out on our way. When we arrived at the Pottsville Ramada, I quickly realized that I was dressed warm enough for the Lehigh Valley, but not Pottsville. There was a strong head wind.

First stop, of course, was the Ramada. That was the location of packet pick-up. It's a huge ball room, with lots of tables. The local volunteer fire departments sell t-shirts and raffles. The Kiwani's were holding a racers spaghetti supper. We picked up our mugs and tees and received our beer id bands.

We took our items back to the car and decided to walk to the brewery. You get a free tour with the race entry but we did that last year.

From the street I see this ghost sign on the side of a building. Let's walk up there so I can take a picture. (Above.)

So we climb this long steep hill (22 floors on Fitbit) to the brewery. But once we get tot he top of the hill, we can no longer see the sign. I think you need to be on the other side of the highway, at the bottom of the hill to see it.

Since we were at the brewery, we walked thru the complex, and down the hill to the store. But it wasn't there. They've moved it across the street to the ice cream building.  In fact, they've restored the whole building. The tour check-in, museum and store is now all over there. Like a proper 2016 visitor's center. It's lovely. It will be even lovelier when it's done. But I missed the quaint, homespun feel of the old cluttered cave-like space. Bet there is even a proper potty there.

After checking out the new digs, we headed down the hill to the car and back to Betsy's. After a quick stop at Target, I headed to work.

the parcel

Wednesday during class I received an email from Lydia. No power. Could she spend the night. I asked her to ask Pat. I didn't want to get my head chewed off.

She said yes.

Thursday morning I came down and the dog was waiting for me. He wanted a walk. And he knew where to go. Lydia's ride was picking her up at the five points so I decided to walk down with her, then come back up Wyandotte, back to the house, and get the dog.

Only one problem. The dog knows words like "walk", "leash", "cemetery". I had to get clever to tell Pat.

Here is what I told her. "I am going to escort Lydia to TD Bank and come home Wyandotte street. When I reach the top of our hill I will call. You get the parcel ready for delivery." The dog totally ignored me and it worked! When I got to the house he was just starting to go ape-shit. When he saw the leash he figured it out.

We had three walks Thursday, and one on Friday.

idita-walk

The Idita-walk is over for another year. Today I received my finishers certificate. As I looked at it I wondered why there was a rifle on it. And more importantly why the girl was walking toward the rifle. Then I realized it's the "Welcome to Nome" sign. Oops. It must be the angle.

This weekend was a bust for walking. Saturday I took a short but aerobic walk up Wyandotte Street to Frederick and then down to Broadway and back up. After a day of solid work it felt good. But it happened at 6PM. I was determined to go earlier yesterday and to do a long route.

I didn't.

I got up and decided to do the laundry and watch a news magazine and then head out. But I started working instead. Then Sharon came and she looked bored so I gave her the plastic ware to match up. It's been on my to-do list all winter. Except I had to get it out and put it away. then back to work.

While I was on the porch I noticed the snow shovel was still there, so the plan was to take things out to the garage, then head out for a walk. And hour later Sharon and I were still cleaning up the yard from winter.  And I had a 5:00 deadline looming.

Basically, I put it off and off and never went. (But on the upside, every paid and unpaid jop on my list got done!)

Two things are clear. If walking alone. need to walk the minute this fat butt leaves the bed. Or it doesn't get done.

Second. I need to make concrete plans for each weekend day. I stopped pre-planning and sending out emails because people rarely came. (Of the core group, Bonnie's family is out—she's having her hip replaced in 2 weeks. Lydia's out because she no longer drives except to go to work. And Angel often works weekends.) But when I have concrete plans I don't do the laundry, or watch news magazines, or go grocery shopping or work. Because I've made a commitment. So I will start doing that again. I want to do some drive-to Volkssport events. Maybe one of the Shorewalker's events. And maybe go wild and crazy and do the Nordic walking clinic.

I'm going to make those plans this week and then post them here. That way, it's a solid commitment.

no, joke, we walked on april fools day.

My mommy would have been 101 yesterday. She was an April Fools baby.

On the trip on Wednesday we decided to walk on Friday. Thursday after school I called Bonnie. The weather report looks dreary. Downpours, storms, everything but the swarms of locusts. We decided to wait till morning and decided.

It was dark and dreary but not raining, so we went.

We parked at the Hotel Bethlehem and went in to get the 1st quarter Volkssport paperwork. Then we walked thru town, and made our way to the Fahy bridge. Then it was off to the Comfort Suites to grab the south Bethlehem Paperwork, and then back over the bridge. I have no idea how far we walked because Bonnie's phone died. Of course I didn't have mine. (And even if I did, I deleted the app because it never worked right.)

Thursday I didn't walk. I had planned to. I need to do it when I get up. But I made the mistake of checking my email. A project I'm doing is imploding and there were dozens of emails about it. One thing led to another and soon it was time to make dinner (lunch), and get ready for work. I leave at two.

Overall this week I did pretty good. I got out nearly every day.

___ ___ ___ ___

The Idita-Walk is over for another year. I think I'm the only one that did it this year. I missed the silly stories we'd make up about who was where, and who was bringing the bourbon. I missed David's updates about the real race. (Dallas Seavey won. Ally Zirkle, the one I always root for, came in 3rd.)

Previously it was run by volunteers from the Nome Boy Scouts to benefit the BS camp. It's been taken over by the Nome Community Center. (My guess is that the volunteers children aged out of BS.) It was quite confusing at first, and more than a little unorganized, but they found their rhythm. The on-line log came back, and also the list of finishers. But there was only about 130 participants this year. That, I think is a sizable decrease. I finished at about #8. Even with half as many minutes as usual. Usually I'm down around 60 or 70. Thankfully one of the people that didn't come back was the annoying participants who would have 30K minutes by week three. The highest person had a much more reasonable 10K on March 31.

I'll do it again next year. It's only $10. And it gives me a winter goal.

the nyc tourist walk

Wednesday Bonnie, Megan and I boarded an early morning bus for NYC. It was the Christmas in March trip to see Kinky Boots.

Traffic was heavy and it was well after 9 when we arrived. Because of recent events in Brussels, Turkey and Pakistan, the Port Authority had a huge security presence. Sadly, that creeps me out more.

Like tourists, we headed to Times Square. Bonnie and Megan had no pre-show-plans. We were just going to wander. At some point we decided to be tourists. Especially since the weekend crowds weren't around.

First stop. The theatre. Bonnie needed to pick up the tickets. She bought them through some program at Megan's job for a discount. The catch, you physically had to pick them up. Odd in the days of e-tickets.

While we were waiting for the theatre box office to open, we took pictures as Lola. The lead queen. Wayne Brady was in the roll on Sunday. By Wednesday a new person took over.

Walked up a street and found the Hope statue. Deciding it was a tourist day, we took a pic. We wandered and walked and wandered some more. We found a really cool shop with locally made crafts. Could have spent a fortune there. We even went into a tacky tourist shop—one of the big ones of course—  Bonnie bought a vintage taxi and cop car for the wee one. Megan thought they were too expensive, but Bonnie used the Grandmother card. Child loves them. Bonus. Cop car makes noise.

It was 11:30 and we thought we'd start looking for a place to eat. We had our eyes on an Irish Pub, but then Megan asked if Sardi's was still open.  We were standing in front of it.

It was more expensive than a regular restaurant, but what the hell. It's something you do once. And we were there 1.5 hours. No bum rush. When we arrived it was empty. When we left it was full. We had 5 people wait on us. One main waiter, then one person brought out the food, one person kept bringing the tastiest bread around, the beverage guy ...  you get the idea. Everyone was dressed similarly. The jackets denoted their jobs. So the guys wearing the "smock" were support people, while the guys in the blazers were true wait staff.

They have over 3000 portraits on 4 floors. The first floor has the newest people. The fourth floor has the most valuable pieces in the collection. That's a private party room.

Our waiter was a fountain of information.

Speaking of fountains, I ordered ice tea. Bonnie and Megan, water. He comes out with a tea pot, fills my glass and leaves the pot. The three of us drank it and we had to force down the last glass.

This is my dinner. Yes, dinner, not lunch. It was the only meal I was having to I was going to eat well. Mashed sweat potatoes, spinach and salmon with black and white sesame seeds and a soy sauce. It was almost healthy.

On the way back to the theatre I took the side of this building. I get easily distracted.

Last time I went to a show — Wicked— they practically strip searched you before you went in.  It was not conducive to having a good time. They looked in your bags and you had to check everything except your purse. No food or beverages at all. Not even a pack of gum.

Wednesday we were waiting outside the theatre to get in, and a usher comes out. Sorry, he says, I need to look in your bags. That's it. 30 seconds. I think it takes longer at Coca Cola Park!

Then we were in. This theatre was small. No curtain, the set was right there. It almost looked real. They did an amazing job. Right before the show started one of the actors came out looking like he was going to work. His phone rings. He does a whole two minutes about how the person knows he can't have his phone on at work, and no he can't text either. And heaven forbid if you get caught with the vibrating thing on. Then he turns off the phone, opens the door and goes in.

A great way to do the no cell phone policy.

All in all we did about 5 miles of walking in NYC, and saw a great show.