golv: riverview park

Today the Get Out walk was in Carbon County.  It was at Riverview Park in Bowmanstown, which is outside of Palmerton. This was the first of the Carbon/Monroe county walks.

I had no trouble finding it. I'm pretty sure I've never been to the park. Now I have walked north on the D&L to a park that had a boat dock, but this looked nothing like what I remembered. Of course, it's been five years. Things do change. But nothing looked familiar. And more importantly I couldn't see the turnpike tunnel.

The township must have known we were coming. They plowed a few spaces, and the two handicapped spaces. Few people parked in them. Most parked in the snow!

Because this was the Carbon/Monroe group I knew few people, including the leaders. Jen, the leader, must never have done a group walk before she just kept plowing ahead. Finally she looked back to see how stretched out people were. She also made the classic mistake of moving the second the tail end arrived. Christine, who does the LV walks, stops a lot to talk about invasive plants, look at scat and prints, and flowers. Informative, not really exercise. This one was exercise.

She had planned to go out the D&L and then loop back through the park, but with the storm decided to just do a out and back.

We were almost back, and I wanted to take a picture of this pole. I was mid-pack and started moving left. My toe hit a rock and splat. My pole went one way. My phone another. Several people came over to help. I couldn't get up till my knee stopped stinging.

When we arrived back to the start point there was apples on the grill and hot chocolate in the orange cooler. They forgot forks. Eating a baked apple without utensils is interesting. And messy.

Miles/Steps:                  6 miles including snow shoveling. I didn't look at my Fitbit before we started walking. 

Weather:                       36, windy, partly cloudy
Bathrooms:                    locked for the winter 

Wildlife:                         lots of tracks. No animals visible. No birds singing

Extra:                            driving down MacArthur Road, I spied, with my one good eye, little girls wearing Girl Scout vests jumping up and down. Cookies. The car stopped.

Fall update:                   Upon arriving home I checked my knee and lower leg. It hurts, but there was no blood. I thought it was okay. When I took my bath, I knelt down in the tub and wanted to scream. It wasn't my knee. It's the bone that extends from the knee down. The water stung. Clearly I must have bruised it. Plus the rib under my boobs hurts when I cough. Good thing I'm going to the fall prevention workshop next week. Oh wait. Walking in snow will be on the no-no list. Not gonna happen.