the fifth day of christmas

After finishing the laundry I headed toward Hellertown to walk on the Saucon Rail Trail. I thought I might come back Main Street, find a jewelry store and get the 5 golden rings.  About halfway there the sky opened up and it started raining. Hard.

Well, I could mall walk, that would certainly let me find 5 gold rings. But really, who wants to go to the mall the week after Christmas? All the crazy people will be returning things. Then I remembered the casino.

Now I wasn't sure whether the outlet mall has a jewelry store (it does), but casinos have a lot of money. There would have to be gold rings somewhere, right?

The outlet mall is in the mist of change. The casino is now owned by Wind Creek and they upped the rents. Lots of stores are moving out as their leases expire. The new ones haven't arrived yet. A giant hole was left by Dress Barn's exit.  What was also interesting is that Christmas was totally gone. Not a decoration to be found.

The outlet mall is small. I decided to walk in each store, make a loop around the perimeter and then move on to the next on. I had no ID on me so I couldn't loop the casino floor.

Miles/Steps:                   1 miles 

Weather:                        high 40sh, raining

12 Days of Christmas:   #5: As I walked into loop the Bass store, there was a display of crappy jewelry. It looked cheap, even though it wasn't.  But there it was. Five gold(en) rings. Mission accomplished.

the fourth day of christmas

So much for my great plans like posting an entry on each day of Christmas.

Scheduled for Thursday was the Bethlehem-North volkssport group walk. But there was no interest. I went to the hotel Thursday, waited till ten and no one came. So instead I did a bunch of errands on foot.

I didn't do a walk at all on Friday.

Today, I had to go to Target for my RX and decided to go to Hanover Townships section of canal  park. It's right off Irving Street and easy to get to from teh shopping center.

The last time I was here they were still working on the bridge and the trail was blocked on the southern end. Previous to that it was rustic, to say the least. People or bikes had forged a small path. On the D&L map it calls this section to Allentown, unimproved.

I was quite surprised when I reached the bridge and the path was open, and was an actual gravel path. It went about a half-mile before it stopped. If it goes another half-mile it will reach the Kimmett's lock trailhead. Hope springs eternal. I'm hoping once the renovations to the Tilghman Street Bridge are completed, maybe the pedestrian bridge will be built and the trail will continue to Allentown.

I returned to the park and took the loop around the lake. Part of the lake was frozen. It surprised me because it's quite warm out, and it has been for a few days. At least since Tuesday.

You might be asking why there are no photos. I forgot my phone.

Miles/Steps:                   2 miles 

Weather:                        high 40sh, cloudy

Money  found:                5 cents

12 Days of Christmas:   #2: I was hoping for mourning doves since clearly I wouldn't see turtle doves (European pigeons). However, nothing was flying at all.

12 Days of Christmas:   #3: I didn't leave the house. Unless there were three French hens in my office, I saw nothing.

Miles/Steps:                   2 miles 

Weather:                        50-ish, sunny

Wildlife:                         1 Canada goose flying. I didn't know geese traveled alone. I duck call. Various other birds squeaking. This was very odd since this pond is always full of geese and ducks.  

12 Days of Christmas:   #4: I was sure I'd see birds here. I heard some. I didn't know what calling birds were. Were they song birds? " ...Calling birds is an Americanization of the traditional English wording four colly birds. ...  Colly is a dialect word meaning black and refers to the European blackbird Turdus merula."

the first day of christmas

I'm trying to get my shit together. Christmas day seemed like a good day to start. I'm shooting for the 12 Days of Christmas. That will bring me almost to the start of the new term. I'm going to challenge myself even further by trying to match locations with the song. Clearly it will not be a literal linking.

Today I expected to be on the trail alone. But it was no different than any other day. Everyone was out. The lot was full.

I chose Boroline Park and the Alpine Trail specifically. Being the fool in my Santa cap, I forgot to take my walking stick. I had forgotten how rocky and challenging the second half of the trail is. Until I got to it. The higher I climbed up the mountain the less muddy it was...because it was frozen. At certain sections there was ice on the trail.

The brook was flowing at some points in the trail and as hard as I tried, I could not stay dry. I finished the hike with one wet set of toes. But I didn't fall in, so I guess that's a win.

To get the sense of how large these rocks are I took this photo. (I was standing near the drop-off to get it all in.) If you look at this section of boulders, on the left between the 3rd and 4th tree is a doorway that doesn't go all the way through.  It looks like a big black arch.

Here I am standing in that doorway. Yep, I even took a selfie -- hold on to your Santa cap -- with a selfie stick. You can see that my head is nowhere near the top of the rock. Now if Lydia was along she would have taken 400 photos, but I don't see her climbing up the mountain to do that.

It took me almost two hours to. do this two mile walk. All the other people passed me and were long gone when I finished. I was envious of the children running over the rocks, and young people walking over them with no fear of breaking something. I think I'm getting too old for Rockyslvania.

Miles/Steps:                   2 miles 

Weather:                        40-ish when I began, sunny

Wildlife:                         Pretty quiet today. I think everyone is hunkering down for winter. I heard rustling with might have been squirrels or chippies and a few bird calls near the end

Bathrooms:                    None 
12 Days of Christmas:   #1: No partridges, no pear trees. Nothing flying at all.

catching up is hard to do

I cannot believe I haven't posted since December 7? I realize I'm not walking as much but that's nuts.

The semester is now over. We're back in school January 13. That's a really short break. I also had a short deadline for a design project. I did walk. I've walked around the neighborhood and to the local supermarket.

Last Saturday was a busy day it started with Wreaths Across America at Cedar Hill Cemetery. My friend Marlin (center) is involved and they needed help putting wreaths on graves. So my walk Saturday was back and forth across a cemetery.

Since my income had been greatly reduced, just teaching, I've been participating in many workshops at the library. Both on the north and south sides. As always, it's December in the Christmas City and the Martha Stewart in me is  jonesing for a Christmas fix so I signed up to learn to make Moravian trimmed candles. If I had a bucket list, I could cross it off.  It was very interesting learning how to make these, but mine were ruined by the time I got home. It was raining.

I parked at the shelter at Market and Center, then walked to the library and walked back. I had about forty-five minutes to kill. I needed up at Central church to see the putz. It hasn't changed a bit.

Then I walked to the shelter and did my cooking shift. The guy who hates port is named Thor. I no longer have to call him no-pork guy.

Afterwards I drove to my friend Angel's for a tree-trimming party.

Wednesday, maybe Thursday, my swag arrived from Tail On The Trail. It came in handy Saturday night. It will live in the car.

I'm not sure where I walked Sunday or even if I walked.

Friday I did paid home care.  These two fellas left me take their picture. Their owner said they never pose for pictures. I think they thought they'd get a cookie.

Saturday morning I baked cookies at Bonnie's. Let's rephrase that. I watched them bake cookies. I did very little. They are a well-oiled machine.

But while we were baking Santa came by. I think I was more excited than the child.

I had a choice between two solstice walks. One was near Clinton and one in Easton. I picked the Easton one, but it was very short. It was at the Silk Mills on 13th street. It has all been redeveloped and is now apartments and hipster restaurants and things. I explored before the event. The place is massive with multiple buildings.

We started at one called Tuckers Silk Mills, a cafe, where there was stories for the children.Then we walked the perimeter of the property with a trumpeter leading the way. When we reached 13th Street, we walked down the hill to the Arts Trail, and out the Arts Trail, but not far. I thought we were going to do the main section, to the cemetery,but we didn't. We could still see the silk mill on the other side of the creek. There, there was more stories and music.  Since I parked at the trail, I just headed home from there.

Today we baked cookies at my house. Lydia took some to Dave's. Sharon took some home, and the rest  are here. Who's going to eat them all?

golv: lock ridge park

Today's walk was in Alburtis at Lock Ridge Park. This Lehigh County park boasts impressive stone structures and arches. What looks like stone, was once a coal-burning iron furnace and was an important part of the early iron industry in the region. It's a great place to take pictures.

It's been a while since I've been there. Bonnie and I used to do the August 5K, and we've done some training walks. When I looked back in this blog, the most recent dates were for 2014. Five years is a long time in the life of a park.

Of course, the ruins have deteriorated more. They now have fenced in most of the historic area. The county is spending no money on restoration. They'd rather have history crumble. The trails are now paved, as well as the parking lot. Cheaper fixes which make them more user-friendly I guess. Also, the park is no longer at the edge of town. The development has encroached and there is very visible house while on the trail. Of course, it is winter, so maybe in summer, you can't see them. Twice I saw paths to the developments.

There was a fair crowd today. No dogs, but one baby.  We did two loops of the park.

Miles/Steps:         2.5 miles total, but that included extra walking without the group

Weather:               mid-30s, sunny

Wildlife:                blue jay, chipmunk, squirrel. Pretty quiet today. I think everyone is hunkering down for winter.

Bathrooms:           I-4.5 at Wawa.  Park bathrooms closed for winter. 
Extra:                    Wednesday in Stroudsburg my feet really hurt. My toenails felt like they were clawing out of my sneakers. Yesterday I took the time to do my feet. Walking today was almost heaven. I had happy feet.

snowmen in stroudsburg

Right before Thanksgiving, I saw a post from Pocono Arts that the Go Collective was doing the artsy snowmen again. I messaged Bonnie and we planned to go today.

She dropped her grandchild off a school and we were off. Traffic was surprisingly heavy going up 33. It looked like a winter wonderland. Clearly, the storm that by-passed us, hit there.  I download the map before we left.

We found about 22 downtown. Bonnie had the map and planned the route. We really didn't do any backtracking. We could not find one. I think it was inside a gallery and it was closed.

The rest we needed to drive to. Three were out on 611 near shopping malls. I'm glad we didn't walk there. The other set was also out of town, those might have been walkable. At least the first one was. The second one was much more rural and the road a little busy.

We had a good time. It's been quite a while since we've walked together.

Miles/Steps:          4 miles total, but that included the driving portion. I think it was closer to 3

Weather:               mid-40s, sunny

Bathrooms:           I-3.5 at the Turkey Hill. 
Extra:                    We stopped at Calandra's and to drop off the Holiday Hope Chests. They changed the drop off location so we had to use the GPS to take us there!

looking for christmas spirit in the christmas city

Yesterday was the #optoutside volkssport walk. I was the only one that showed. SO instead of doing the walk myself I went to ArtsQuest and watched "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood" which I thought was about Mr. Rogers, but it really wasn't.

Today I had no planned walk. It's a nice day and I really needed to get my ass in gear. I've been such a sloth lately. Where to go. I really need to find some walking buddies. I decided to go uptown (My mother split hairs—downtown is 3rd Street, uptown is Main Street.) and look at Christmas decorations. Maybe that would pull me out of my funk.

Town was crowded. I decided to go to the Kemerer Museum and see the purse exhibit (3 Museums). They are on loan from Ilene Hochberg Wood who owns more than 3000 purses that span three centuries ranging in style from folk art to contemporary designer to embroidered.

I ultimately bought the combo pass for this and the Trees of Bethlehem Christmas Couture exhibit. That exhibit is done by the Garden Club and always pairs with whatever the main exhibit is at the Kemerer (Aside: Wow, the dollhouse ...) and was at the Kemerer, Sister's House, Moravian Museum, and Goundie House. The Moravian Museum also had more purses. One room had them from the 17-18 century that was part of their collection, and 20th-century needlepoint purses from the Wood collection.

Each tree represented a designer.

Most of the trees are at Kemerer. They included Dior, Judith Leiber, Philip Treacy, Valentino, Betsy Johnson, Alexander McQueen, Givenchy, Comme des Garcons, Vera Wang, and Anne Marie of Paris.

There are a half dozen at the Moravian Museum including Ralph Lauren, Eric De Kolb, Burberry, Versace, Fendi, and Gucci. The triangle tree is there every year. Instead of cutting down a whole tree, they cut off branches and made the triangle. Then added to fruit and candles.

And four —Louis Vuitton, Lilly Pulitzer, Jeanne Lanvin, Dolce & Gabanna— at the Sister's House. There is also a large collection of Putz's (nativities, creches) there. 

I only saw three at the Goundie House — Chanel, Carolina Herrera, Yves Saint Laurent, and Kate Spade. Where was Channel? Maybe in the visitors center. I have no idea.

It's been a while since I've been in any of those places and they have changed, yet stayed the same.

My final stop was at the Hotel Bethlehem. When I was there last week I was disappointed that they were already decorated for Christmas, and worse, half-way decorated. Thankfully they finished the job yesterday and it is spectacular as always. The huts were selling stuff, and the shoppes on Main Street had a window decorating contest so everything was very festive.

My friend now lives in Virginia, but at one time lived here. She would have loved the purses and the trees. And she probably would have also gone with me to the Art Museum to see the Hollywood costumes.  It's curated by Gene London. Does anybody remember him? He was a kids television host when I was little. Angel does want to see the costumes but she's very busy with a teen, a fairly new job and adapting to being single. It's hard to make time.

When I headed for home I was feeling Christmasy. Then I opened the door to Ebenezer Scrooge and any Christmas cheer gathered was gone in an instant.

Miles/Steps:          2 miles

Weather:               mid-40s, sunny

Bathrooms:           I-5 at the Kemerer. And they were unisex.

complete and incomplete

I'm involved in two virtual programs for 2019. One is "Walking Canada" which is an AVA event, and the other is "Run the Year", in other words, I had to walk 2019 miles, in 2019. Noth are linked to my FitBit. I don't need to manually put in the data like you do with "Tail On The Trail". It's annoying.

About six weeks ago, I updated my FitBit software on my phone. And the app stopped working. I didn't realize it wasn't syncing as well. Yesterday while walking I decided to remove the app and redownload it. When I went into the app store I had 15 updates, including FitBit. I did them all.

Fit Bit now works. That's when I discovered I lost all my data for the last six weeks, or so I thought. That's important. Both walking Canada and Run The Year are synced to my FitBit. Shit.

You can tell by this blog that I am not walking like previous years. Part of it is a lack of motivation. I just don't care. I did manual sync and retrieved a month's worth. Both of these normally would have been done in July, maybe August.

I received my 900 miles badge yesterday for "Run the Year". Clearly, I shall fail at "Run The Year". There is no way I will get half the miles in five weeks. But maybe I can get 1000. That might be doable.

I finished "Canada" today. I thought I had a way to go, but when I logged in (first time this year) I was done. 

I also collected badges. They send an email every week but I don't read it. I guess the badges were in the email.

I did finish "Tail on the Trail". This year we are getting a folding flashlight. I guess that will live in the car. 

a little of this. a little of that.

Yesterday I had no planned walk. My roomie kept saying why not go to the exercise class at the library? I finally decided to do that.

Now should I walk or drive? Walking seemed to be the logical choice, but I needed to take photos of the two Bethlehem volkssport walks for the national AVA. I decided on a combo of walk and drive.

I started at the Comfort Suites and signed in for the South Bethlehem Volkssport walk. Then I walked down the greenway to Polk to take a couple shots and came back. Then I drove to Arts Quest, parked and took some shots of the furnaces, ruins and the NMIH. Then it was back in the car and to the north side. I still had enough time to shoot the sculpture garden before I had to head to the library for the Qigong. I never explained to my sister that this wasn't an "exercise" class. At least not in the western sense.

When I arrived they were talking about Chinese calligraphy. The class soon started and we learned one set of five. It's always sets of five. After learning it we do the movements as one two or three times. Then end with meditation. (Or torture. It depends on your point of view.) It was a hard set. My legs were killing me and I was seriously thinking of skipping the north side walking and head right home. Then the instructor said he was changing it up and we were going to learn some Xing Qi meditation. (Must be spelling that wrong. I can't find it on google.) I looked at the clock. The class had 40 minutes to go. Forty minutes of meditation? I'd rather walk home on my hands.

I cannot sit still. I cannot visualize. I can fidget. I can listen to the children in the hall. I can hear the heat come on and off. And I can watch Elsa and Anna cosplayers on the plaza entertaining the children.  You know it's bad when Frozen characters are more interesting than what you're doing. I did visualize something: My route from the library to all the places I needed to go.

The gong finally rang and it was time to get the hell out of there. I was pretty much the only one that left. Everyone else stayed and talked about the wonderful time they had in this meditative state.

I headed to the Hotel Bethlehem. The town was a Christmas fantasy ... already. Even the hotel was decorated. I always appreciated that they stayed in autumn until the day after Thanksgiving.  Then I headed down to the industrial quarter for pictures, then to the canal. then back up to church street to the serenity garden and the view from the Plaza wall. Finally, I was back at the car.

Then I drove to Moravian College, took more pics, and to the Wind Creek Casino for the final ones. The only "key spot on the walks that I did not take was Lehigh. It was the Lehigh Lafayette game day. No way I was stumbling on campus then. Driving back Fourth Street there was a line to get in the Tally Ho.

Miles/Steps:           4 miles

Weather:                low 40s, sunny

Wildlife:                 none

golv: jacobsburg

This week was the Jacobsburg Get Out Lehigh Valley Walk. I felt like shit, but I went anyway. I have my first full-blown cold of the year.  I broke down and bought the high blood pressure cold medicine. Don't. It sucks. It might not raise my blood pressure but it doesn't do anything else either. It's useless.

Being outside actually helps more. Now if I could blow my nose and keep walking, it would be perfect.

Again, no photos. (Stole the lead photo from the GOLV FB page. )We started at the big lot and went on the orange Henry's woods trail, then picked up the red trail. It was flat and I was in the front of the pack. Then we changed to the red trail, crossed the road, and headed up a hill to Rt. 33. Now I was at the back of the pack. As we walked carrell to Rt. 33 you could hear all the traffic, but there was enough brush and trees that you couldn't actually see it.

We finally reached a place that was flat, and I broke ahead of the slow group, but never caught the fast group. They were too far ahead. I had to keep stopping at intersections until the sweep yelled left, right or straight. Ultimately we crossed the road again and were at the parking lot.

Miles/Steps:           3 miles

Weather:                high 30s by the end of the walk, sunny

Wildlife:                 none

Bathrooms:            I-4.5

no photos

My inability lately to use a calendar came to a head-on Saturday. I invited Debbie along for the Get Out Lehigh Valley walk in Jacobsburg. But alas it's the 16th. Oops. We went anyway. But I didn't take a single picture.

It has been unseasonably cold here. I'm glad I took a scarf and a hat along. I haven't broken out the winder coat yeat but I did have five layers on — long underwear, ls shirt, pullover fleece, zip fleece, and sweatshirt. In the end, I was only carrying the sweatshirt.

I don't know a lot of the trails at Jacobsburg so we took the orange Henry's woods trail to the other entrance. That parking lot was a mess. They are enlarging and paving it. Hurray! Then we came a little way back, crossed the creek and continued up the other side. We went for a while and it wasn't back. Then it started to get rocky and rooty. But there were stairs and we took them. That was a big mistake. They were steep and uneven and took us nowhere. We had to climb back up them. At the top we met two women with dogs who told us to go back the way we came, the trail only got worse.

So we did.

i am out of control

Here it is Tuesday and I never posted about Saturday's walk. Yep, I'm in one of those moods again where life is spiraling out of control.

School isn't going well. I don't know if it's the students or it's me but I feel like my Type II classes are imploding. that isn't good. On the other hand, I have two sections of Type I next term, and two sections of Photoshop next term, so I can stop worrying about money.

In 54 weeks I'll qualify for Medicare and will stop worrying about health care. But then I'll start worrying about being an official old fart.

In the past four weeks, I lost both my Discover card (I think at Walmart picking up Sharon's RX) and my debit card (at the farm, buying eggs.) Thankfully I froze the Discover and then replaced it two weeks later. I canceled the debit card. Neither has reappeared. I still haven't replaced the debit card.

My school email was hacked. I'm surprised it took 18 years.  I had a super simple password (not quite as bad as 12345, but close) and I hadn't changed it since I received the account in 2003. Apparently, I am sending emails all over Europe.  What I'd like to know is which website did I use it on that got hit. Was it the typographic day planner I ordered from Sweden?

Speaking of calendars, I apparently can no longer read one. I am getting days and weeks mixed up. I really think it's my lack of work. I only work two days a week and it all kind of blends together. I know that I am spending way too much time with the roommate.

I shut down my doodling blog in October, on it's 10th anniversary. Nobody notice. I wonder if the same would happen here?

time to break out the scarves

It was 31 degrees when I left the house at 7:30 for my walk. I was unprepared. Tuesday I wore a sweater to work and I was hot.

The volkssport walk in Langhorne began at 9. I hopped it would warm up by the time I got there. By the time I turned onto 413 I had the heater off in the car. Things were looking up.

I was supposed to do the registration table for the first hour and a half, but someone took my job. I headed out at 8:55.  Langhorne is a borough, so it's not very big. It was a stagecoach stop on the road to Philadelphia, and hosted a military hospital during the Revolutionary War.

The start point was a historic farm house owned by the town and operated by the Open Space group. It's still a working farm and they also hold educational programs there. The last owners of the farm were murdered and the killer never caught.

I only wore a hoodies and I was fine. Except for my neck. I needed a scarf. I need to put both a scarf and gloves in the car. Especially until the weather stabilizes.

The walk was nice. It was mostly in town. There was a lot of historic buildings and some great 19th-century architecture. There was a small nature preserve. I even ran into a few people I knew.

When I returned to the start point, I took over at the registration table.

Miles/Steps:           5k

Weather:                high 40s by the end of the walk, sunny

Wildlife:                 5 doe crossing the road driving down Route 412

Bathrooms:            I-5 at the start point and also at the public library

athletic advernture: archery

Today I took my international student to the archery range. I'm glad I picked the indoor one. It was pouring.

When I called Friday I wasn't sure what was going on, so I decided not to shoot. My girl kicked butt. She ended up having a class. When testing her strength for the bow the instructor noticed how she held the arrow. Americans don't do it that way. (He called her hold medieval. Pretty spot-on for a country as old as Turkey. Thankfully I don't think she heard it.)

She started with a regular bow, then moved on to one with a scope. She missed the target twice. One hit the bottom wall and came tearing back at us. Mostly she hit red, and quite often, yellow.

Given some practiced she'd really be good at this. She told the instructor she wanted to learn Olympic style archery. He said, you just did. Turkey's Olympic team, here she comes.

athletic adventure: walking with llamas

Back in spring, I saw something on one of the news magazines about a farm that allows you to walk llamas.  I was immediately smitten and contacted the farm. So did a lot of other people. Since they don't walk in the summer heat, we accepted a reservation for Wednesday.

It took nearly two hours to get there. I should have hairbrained ideas closer to home. When we made the reservation Lydia was working retail. Now she's back to social work. She told them she needed the day off when they hired her. They said send pictures. She did.

We arrived a half-hour early. But she didn't mind. Another family was joining us.  While we waited, we met the chickens. They were growing their winter feathers. It was kind of cool to see them. I know now more about chickens than I ever need. Their chicken coop is a palace.

After the other family arrived, we met the llamas. We were allowed to choose, but as you can see here with Bonnie and Carbon, they kind-of picked you. They were mostly laying down when we arrived, but as soon as they hear the barn door they were on their feet. We met each llama. Included was their name, age, breed, and because we asked, what kind of fiber the llama yielded. It's amazing—the age and the breed determine the fiber. Some are course, some are fine, some soft ...

After learning the commands we spent some time practicing in the pasture with cones and logs. And then we were off to the woods.

Lydia's llama, Eduardo (Eddie) is the biggest and usually leads the walks. He was pissed that he was second. Lydia had her hands full. He kept stopping. Once he pooped he was actually better. What was really interesting is when one pooped, they all pooped. Bonnies was last. We were ready to head out from the poop-stop and Carbon decided he'd poop now. Llamas pick one place to poop. There are three places on the route. In fact, at the barn, they have a "litterbox".

We walked against the fence rail and into the woods. I got the lyrics to "Into The Woods" stuck in my head. Crossing into the woods trail was a bit tricky because neighbors use ATVs. Or else there is a huge erosion issue.

On the way back we stopped for a "candy" break. Pine needles. They couldn't eat too much or they'd get a belly ache.

We walked to the lake, and then came back to the barn.

My llama's name was Clemente.  Here he is with Bev, the owner.

Was it exercise? Probably not. Maybe more of a saunter. Was it fun? Yes.

golv: woodland hills nature preserve

I haven't done the last two Get Out Lehigh Valley walks. The one at Lake Nockamixion was rocky and steep. The one at Bake Oven Nob was very rocky. A girl without health insurance should not be playing on rocks. Especially when she has a track record of falling.

Each time I come to this place something has changed. This year was the addition of a third loop. An ADA-approved macadam path that's about a half mile long. We used this trail, as well as the inner blue loop.

It's been about 10 years since this 148-acre property was left to go back to nature. The meadows are fairly established and most vestiges of the old golf course are pretty much gone. I saw a few posts, but no signs. I did notice that someone has been planting seedlings in the meadows. Some were oak. Others had no leaves so I couldn't tell. My guess is that they are mixed varieties which have different growth times and life spans. Perhaps one day this will be shadier and more forested.

These walks start at 10 am. I have plenty of time do things before I leave. Since I cancelled my newspaper subscription I no longer have a morning paper to read. It's been 6 months and I still haven't adjusted. Sharon brings over the weekly paper so I read that. On the "faith" page there with a picture of a pumpkin labyrinth, located at a church in Emmaus. I thought about going, but I wasn't headed that direction at all.

Since today's walk was short I decided to waste the gas and go. I like that ancient stuff. And the ball and chain roommate wouldn't notice the difference. So I hopped on the highway in Hellertown and got off Cedar Crest Blvd.  The church was easy to find. And the pumpkins not too difficult either. However, they were well hidden from traffic.

It's interesting to visit a maze and a labyrinth in the same week. One is designed to lose yourself (which we did quite well), and the other to find yourself. The rhythm of slowly putting one foot in front of the other is supposed to empty the mind, relax the body and refresh the spirit. Needless to say I was not successful there.

But I did it anyway. I was surprised how long I was there walking that very tight circle.

Miles/Steps:           2 for both activities. Clearly the GOLV walk was short. It makes sense because of how early we finished

Weather:                my car said 49 degrees when I left. My guess mid-50s, sunny

Bathrooms:            Port-A-Potty in lot. But I didn't use it