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!