walking vacation, day 7

We arrived Saturday night and went to the hotel that hosts the walk box. They were booked. They sent us to a town a couple miles away to the Comfort Suites. They were booked to. Everyone was booked. There was a film festival in town, a motorcycle rally, and a huge accident on the Interstate. Who would have thought that a sleepy town in West Virginia would have no room at the inn?

The Comfort Suites clerk was wonderful. She called around. The Knights Inn 10 miles away had 2 rooms left, but wouldn't hold them. By the time we got there, they were gone. They sent us across the street to the Roadway Inn. Finally, a room for the night.

Since we did the Volkssport check-in at the host hotel Saturday night, we parked near the middle school. No use walking the long driveway for nothing. Getting the instructions early allowed us to read them, and become familiar with them. That saved us a lot of time.

I believe this was an 11K. We headed toward "downtown" and they were setting up the Farmer's Market. Bonnie decided to get peaches on the way back. there is a historical marker on every block in this town. We walked around town a bit more, then headed into the university, and across the bridge to Maryland. Once we crossed the bridge we headed down the path and snaked around to almost the canal path. Instead, we turned right into the woods. It was a rustic trail. I wished I would have brought my walking stick. It was a climb back up the hill.

When we reached the lawn of Fairy Hill we were soaked with sweat. So what do we do? Take a tour of the house. Lucky for us the air conditioning was broken. They had fans running. We did not get overly cooled down. While there we bought National Park Passports and started collecting stamps. Something else to carry and never fill.

Then it was back down the drive, and back over the bridge.  Back thru the university's athletic fields, and back thru town. Somehow we read the instructions wrong, and I missed the farmers market. So we drove down, Bonnie hopped out of the car, and I drove around the block. Those peaches smelled good.

On the way out we stopped at Antietam National Battle field. Why not? We were in the 'hood.

walking vacation, day 6

Not much walking done on day 6. It was the long drive to Shephardstown, West Virginia. I think Kentucky is nearly as long as Pennsylvania. We tried stopping at the Kentucky Folk Art Museum, but their A/C was broken and they were closed. This train platform is on their property.

We walked a bit a rest stops. At the Maryland Welcome Center we parked at the top of the hill and walked the 60 stairs down to the bottom parking lot. Then walked back up. (Nice butt shot Bonnie!) It was wonderful. I should have done it twice.

walking vacation, day 5

We got a late start on the day. The kids need to finish their barn chores before we can go. Then we had to stop for gas, and things snowball. Before you know it we are leaving at 10. In Kentucky. In July. Thankfully it wasn't humid.

We head out to the farm to collect the kids, and off we go. We get to Rt. 64 and head to the state capitol, Frankfort. Sixty-Four  is pretty much a parking lot. Swell. The backup turns out to be an accident involving two 18 wheelers and a large tree.

We arrive at the Frankford exit and the kids see a sign Rebecca Ruth Candy Factory Tour.  At this point I have no idea what this is, but I love a factory tour. Sure, we can go when we are done walking.

We find the Y, check in, and set off. First stop is across the street at the huge mural on the railroad tracks wall. It went a couple blocks.

Finally we are off on the Frankfort Volkssport walk. Kentucky history abounded at every corner.

There were a lot of streets to cross, and the girls took turns pushing the button to wait for walking man. We were at a corner near the train station, the walk-man comes on and we start to cross. The person making the left onto our street stops. The guy behind her hits her. Thank goodness no one was gong more than 2mph. Bonnie stayed to make sure everything was okay. The girls and I found shade to wait in.

There isn't much shade in Frankfort.

Our next discovery was a beautiful garden next to the original governors house (#1-33). Clearly it wasn't open because all the gates were lock. But looking for an opening we found another park with a fake liberty bell. They painted the crack on it. Foxy said "I wish I could see the real one with the crack."

[No more pixs. Bonnie's camera battery died.]

One thing on our route was a "singing bridge". An old metal open bridge that hums when you cross it. The girls thought I was crazy when I told them we had to sing on the singing bridge. But they did. And at the end of the bridge was a park to play in. Suddenly they were not tired or hot anymore.

Final stop before heading back to the Y was the capitol building of course.

Our final check point was "What is the name of the candy shop of the corner of 2nd and" whatever. "Oh look, they sell Rebecca Ruth candies. Can we go in." Us, being logical said, we're going on the factory tour. Let's get back to the car and we'll go. So we did.

We get back to the Y and head to the Steak and Shake (girls pick), then backtrack to that sign at the interstate exit. We make the turn, then another, and where the heck are they taking us? You guess back into town. To the candy shop on the corner of 2nd and whatever. We laughed so hard. The girls mentioned that if we had stopped earlier we could have gotten cool. When it comes to candy, listen to the children.

We were gone so long that Bonnie called Maria and told her we had not left the state with her children.

Back at the farm we loaded the car with baby stuff. It will be interesting going home. Hope there's enough room for our stuff.

No walking today. Just driving.

walking vacation, day 1 and 2

My nieces "Foxy" and "Kitty" were supposed to come up and stay with their Aunt Bonnie for two weeks. A set of circumstances prevented that. But I already had the vacation planned, and we still needed to pick up the crib, so off to Louisville we went.

I thought we'd get about 1000 steps day one. Mostly a driving day. We headed from Eastern Pennsylvania and went to The Wilds. I saw this animal conservation park on television maybe 15 years ago on Jack Hanna's show. Mom and I used to watch it Saturday afternoon.

 On the open air bus. It was hot and windy.

We planned this because we thought Foxy and Kitty would enjoy it. They would have. It was excellent. Two and a half hours of driving thru pastures looking at wild animals do what comes naturally. It was a safari, so to speak. There were two places where we did some walking. It really added up.

When we pulled off the interstate, we were at about 1/8 of a tank. We were going to get gas before heading into The Wilds.  All the gas stations at the exchange were boarded up. We wnt anyway. Bonnie said the car didn't ding yet.  It dinged as we were leaving. She get's 18 miles to a gallon. OnStar said the nearest gas station was 17 miles. We breezed into the BP on fumes.

Then it was off to Xenia, the sight of Tuesday's walk. We had horrible storms driving thru Columbus and missed the by-pass. The 2 hour drive to Xenia took over three hours. We were going 35 on the interstate!

After checking into the Ramada in Xenia, we walked across the shopping center lot to the Mexican restaurant. It was delicious. It was 8 pm. We last ate at breakfast at 8 am.

Total steps was about 13,000. Far cry from the 1000 I thought we would get. I also  discovered I left my FitBit at home.

The next morning we got up and did the Xenia walk. Why Xenia? There is a Volkssport program were you walk in all the cities from A-Z. There are four places in the entire US to do X. You guessed it, Xenia is one.  The instructions were one side long, with no map. My south Bethlehem instructions are three pages plus a map. No history, no information. Turn left, turn right. That's it.

After walking we went to Bob Evans on the outskirts of town, stopped at Radio Shack for a new FitBit, and headed to Louisville.

haunted gettysburg

Yesterday we treked to Gettysburg for the "Haunted Gettysburg" volkssport walk. There were walks all weekend. We just did one day. We chose the ghost walk. The ghost stories—except one—were pretty lame. You'd think they could do better with so much death in one place. There has to be a few thousand spirits hanging out. Maybe they don't like tourists?

We checked in at the Day's Inn and drove to the battlefield. After parking near the ampitheater, we headed out toward the Peach Orchard. It was cold and windy.

After the orchard we took the loop to Devils Den. Other than that I can't tell you where we walked.

We saw little roundtop, and round top, and a lot of monuments to Irish regiments. I climbed up the monument to get this guys face. Isn't it great?

The ghost stories in the narrative were okay. Lot's dealing with picture taking. Yawn. Old stories. These people were having film developed. One was very good, we read it at Devils Den. It had to do with a dulcimer, a car and a song. Yeah, if it was dark it could have been creepy.

At the end of the walk, Bonnie and I climbed a tower with 125 steps, one-way. Great view of the battlefields, but it was twice as cold as on the ground. And the wind was piercing. It felt good to go down.

We returned to the car and drove around looking at more monuments and places. Stopping occasionally, walking more, and taking pixs.

Then we headed back downtown in the car for lunch. We ate at The Pub, like usual. Bonnie and Lydia both had Rubens. Bonnie's w/o bread, of course. I had a veggie wrap. It was good. Since we were parked at a meter we popped into a couple stores. One had all the inventory made in the USA. COol, but really expensive. The one next door was about 50/50. Prices not quite so high. And to everyones amazement I actually shopped!

We headed back to the Days Inn to check in, then hit the road home. Just in time for rush hour. It took two hours to get there, and a little more than three to come home.

day three—canals, bridges and zoos

Bonnie says I should not blog when extremely tired. I make lots of typos and create the worlds worse sentences. Since I do not want Miss Schmidt to come back from her grave and haunt me, I went back and fixed it. I've also added photos. The sign is on the Francis Key Bridge.

We decided Saturday night to only do the 6K on Saturday. Then we could go to the zoo. Walking started at 8.

We arrived at check-in promptly at 8 and headed out the same direction as every other day. Once we crossed the Francis Key Bridge, on the right side this time,  into Georgetown, we headed under the bridge and walked on the Chesapeake and Ohio tow path. It's much different than our D&L. It's very narrow, and lined with walls or factories that have been converted into apartment/condos.

Even their boats are different.

The trail ended and we headed into town, walking toward the Kennedy Center. Around the Center, back over the Teddy Roosevelt and back to the hotel. We had about a 15-20 minute break while the Army 10-mile runners crossed the road. I have no idea how many people were running, but it never let up. When it thinned a hair, we were able to get across.

Earlier int he day we found out that there was a Volkssport Zoo walk. So when we were having our books stamped, we asked. The volunteers printed us the info and we were off.

Starr was having a really bad day. First she wouldn't pick up, then she was slow. We were nearly across the bridge when she was telling us to cross the bridge. This provided some serious issues in town. It probably took a half hour for a 10 minute trip. Also, there was detours. If she said "recalculating" one more time I was going to scream at her. Finally she got us to the McDonalds checkpoint. Finding the zoo was easy.

Finding parking was not.

 I now understand why the pedestrian gate is so large. They want you to use the bus, train or foot. They don't want you to drive. We ended up parking at the end of the zoo. We did the volkssport walk fromt he middle to the end and then from nearly the beginning to the the middle. We cut off the walk from McD's part.

Heavy traffic coming home, but all in all a good weekend.

Our only selfie of the weekend.

day two, the exorcist, getting off course, and a visit to the white house

Today I was signed up for the 12K. I figured 10 one day, 15 the second, 10 the third. Instead Bonnie thought it would be fun to do the 21K—13 miles. It turned out to be 24K plus.

The day began with opening ceremonies. I was quite disappointed that Surgeon General didn't come. She sent a Lieutenant. Walking is one of her initiatives, so I thought since it was in DC this was a must attend event. Apparently not.

After signing in, we left the hotel and began the walk the same way as yesterday using overpasses and pedestrian overpasses. Then we headed over The Francis Key Bridge and into Georgetown.

Remember when I did the 50K, I couldn't find The Exorcist stairs? Today, there they were. Right in front of me. We went up them. The Belgium walker passed us. He's wearing the blue jacket in front of Bonnie.

We reached the top and Bonnie said the Belgium walker didn't come back down. He might know a shortcut. We tried. We got close but then ran into Georgetown University. A maze with no street names. We had no campus map. We had the map they gave us at the start that was poop. After an hour of walking we were two blocks from The Exorcist stairs.

Back on course, we headed into the woods. It said it was Rock Creek National Park. It was a rustic trail. Hard to walk on, with few other paths. We walked about two miles with minimum signs, and no crossroads. I didn't even think we'd ever get out. But we did. Then we crossed a street and went back into the woods. Repeat a mile later.

Finally we emerged near the National Cathedral. There we found Bill, another member of the Wanderers. (he'll be testing my South Bethlehem walk.) We walked together till the cathedral. Then he continued and we went in. It's beautiful. I was there many years ago and had forgotten how beautiful it was. We also met up again with the singing Germans.

We exited the Cathedral and headed down Massachusetts Avenue past all the embassy's. The checkpoint was the Danish embassy. I've never checked in with a cop standing by. (Actually I think he was secret service.). Then it was about six miles down Massachusetts. Massachusetts has a bunch of circles. We got off course and ended up on Connecticut.  Poop. Off course again. Instead of backtracking we decided to look at the lame map. It looked like Connecticut ran straight thru and met up with Massachusetts again. We got some burgers and headed off with positive energy and full bellies.

Connecticut ended at 15th. The road was blocked. Lot's of cops. And restricted signs. The White House was dead ahead. We went to visit the Obama's and tried to get our bearing again. Just when we thought we were lost yet again, there was the Washington Monument—Constitution Avenue. We were only 14 blocks from the next checkpoint! While we were deciding which way to turn a really cute guy asked if we were lost. He confirmed that we were going correctly and walked with us for several blocks. He's an aide to the Republican senator from Maine. (She helped broker the compromise.)

By going our way, off course, we ended up seeing a lot more of DC. We actually were on the Federal Heritage Trail.

We came back Independence, thru the Smithsonian's, and stopped to ride the carousel across from the castle.

Another check point was ahead. The check points were spaced quite odd this time. At the Monument we turned down 14th and headed back to Constitution.  Out Constitution then up Virginia to 25, and past the Kennedy Center. We missed most of the monuments on the mall and that was disappointing. Apparently that is one of the year round walks.

Several times during this journey we considered taxis, busses, subways and bike rentals. We kept walking.

At the Kennedy Center we entered a bike trail that ran adjacent to the highway, crossed Roosevelt Island, and returned to the hotel.

My pedometer read 41,960. The first time I've crossed the 40K mark.

if I put it in writing she can't back out.

 Sunday, during the Volkssport hike, we talked a lot. At some point the conversation landed on the half marathon in November. Lydia said, that's my last long distance walk. Never again. I reminded her that two years ago during the Hershey walk, she wanted to do a 40K when she turned 40.

Ut oh. That's 6 months away.

So we talked about it. How about 40 miles over 3 or 4 days? She agreed. So we have a plan. She would like to go to Salem, Mass. or Savannah, Georgia. Salem, mostly in fall. I guess that's why we settled on Savannah. But it's a 12 hour drive! Boston is only 5 hours.

I've looked up Volkssport walks. The one for Savannah is by the Florida Happy Wanderers.  There are places she wants to go, but I know one is the Garden of Good and Evil. Though I just found out that the statue is now in an art museum and not in the cemetery. The one place I want to go is Juliette Low's house. I've wanted to go there since I was a Brownie. There is only 1 walk in Savannah. There are about 12 walks for Atlanta by the Georgia Walkers. I have no idea how far out of the way that is.

I also looked up Boston. There are several walks. And some near Salem in Danvers. None in Salem proper.

Bottom line. It looks like where going on a road trip. Not sure where. Not sure when.

friday in erie

It was a very busy Friday.

The day started with a 10K Volkssport walk that cover every square inch of downtown Erie and the waterfront. It began at the Avalon Hotel. We were sitting there and saw an interesting sculpture in the courtyard. Turns out it was a frog. In medieval armor. It was created in 2001, and executed by someone I went to grad school with. Small world. It was not the last frog we encountered. Some survived the years better than others.

The trail we took was part of the Great Lakes Seaway Trail series. There's maybe nine of them. Mostly in New York. There was a lot of history on this trail, and a lot of historic markers—both Pennsylvania and Erie. We read some of them.

It also went past the Civic Center and the Seawolves. In the lot we found this little guy ready to batter up. 

Then we headed down to the waterfront. The Niagra was out of town. Kind of disappointing. But we went to Bicentennial tower. But they don't let you use the stairs. You must use the elevator—the view is fantastic from the top. You can see Presque Isle, the monument and one of the lighthouses, not to mention downtown Erie.

As we walked the route,  we walked around and thru "Celebrate Erie" several times. It took several blocks and a couple of parks. It is a four day celebration of music, art, and really delicious-looking carnival food, and a little real food too. Part of the festivities included chalk drawings down one full block. Above they are working on Jim Morrison. His hair will be pink and purple.

After picking up the car, we headed to Presque Isle. The goal was to survey the route for tomorrows race—the terrain, how long it took to get there, and of course look at lighthouses. There were none to climb.  The course is fairly flat, and has sections of shade and sun.

Bonnie had picked up some brochures and one thing was a boat tour.  So we took it. It was 90 minutes. Captain Gene was informative but I had a hard time hearing him. The girls in front of me were possessed by a Chatty Kathy dolls! He kept shooting them "the look". They didn't notice. I wanted to say shut the f*@k up. But I didn't.

The cruise was 90 minutes. Afterwards we drove the second half of the course.  With a stop at the Presque Isle lighthouse (now someone's home), walking in the sand, and dipping our toes into Lake Erie.

Our final stop before an early dinner—we had no lunch—was to pick up our race packets at the convention center.

We are all set for the main event tomorrow. We need to be there by 6, so we are leaving the hotel at 5:30 am.

Early to bed tonight!

erie or bust!

Wednesday I went to Zumba. I was the first time in about three weeks. They changed everything. But it was nice. People missed me. There was even a guy there.

Thursday at 5:30 am we packed up the car and headed to Erie. We picked up Lyd at 6, and headed up the turnpike and out the long expanse of Interstate 80. Then finally up Interstate 79. The hotel was at the exit ramp! It only took about 6.5 hours with a break for dinner.

Megan arrived about a hour and a half later. Our first stop. The Presque Isle Winery. After tasting and buying we headed back to the hotels. No tours. Bummer. We parked at the hotel and went to the o'Charleys for dinner.

Clearly not much exercising happening.

I managed to stay on the stupid diet, even in the car. And there was Tootsie Rolls!

hershey park

They have a walking path at Hershey Park. Okay, maybe I'm the only one that ever noticed it, but I thought it was cool anyhow. I couldn't find out how far it was but I put 14K steps on my pedometer today. (Maybe 500 of that was doing the laundry.)

The kids has a blast walking from coaster to coaster, until they got drenched on the water one. Do you know how hard it is to find a hooded sweatshirt in May? They had all the tanks and tees out. But we found a few in Chocolate World. And some lovely heat. It was chilly today.

On the way home I said we should stop at Roadside America. She needed to see American kitch. But it was too late and they were closed. She was quite happy with just the Dutchy man and woman. I never noticed as a kid that the lady has huge club hands.

Sadly, she won't get to see any real Amish people. Her 8 months in America is up. Hopefully it's true you can't get sick if you are wet walking in the cold. She leaves for home on Wednesday, 5 am! With an 18 hour layover, it will take two days to go home.

light lager jogger, day one

Tomorrow is the Light Lager Jogger 5k at the Yuengling Brewery in Pottsville. Today was packet pickup day. Glad we went today. Six thousand people are registered. The lines were long today. Can you image what they'd be like tomorrow?

Pickup started at 11, and it takes a generous hour to get there. We headed up to Pottsville around 11:15. I had a mini school crises, and we wanted to take the brewery tour at 3 and eat lunch.

Packet pickup was at a pub. It took about twenty minutes to get thru the line. Before heading up to the pick up, we put our name in at the pub for lunch. They were busy. Captive audience. With doing that, we still had to wait a few minutes when we were done.

After lunch, we headed to the brewery. All the streets were blocked already (there's a block party after the race.) and the meters closed. It proably took a good ten, maybe fifteen minutes, to find a parking space. (Let me assure you that Pottsville is a hill. It makes Bethlehem look flat.We discovered that quite quickly.)

I like when I can walk a route ahead of time. I think the race goes more quickly. I'm familiar with my surroundings, and I'm not stopping to take pixs of art. I'm so happy I did that this time because this race is all up hill for the first mile. But what goes up must come down, and the second half is downhill!

The walk took longer than anticipated, so we had to wait for the 3:30 tour. It took an hour. Lots of walking. Lots of stairs. Even a hill.

Who says being a tourist isn't exercise!

Tomorrow Jillian and I leave at 5:45 for the race. We need to be there at 7! Race kicks off at 8.

Ghost mural on the side of the pub. I took a lot of pixs of type. I will take even more tomorrow. Pottsville is a typofile's paradise. I need at least a week there to capture it all.

bernheim forest

Friday I drove to Kentucky for the weekend. It's my sister's 75th birthday.  Last year at this time she was gravely ill—a party was in order.

Lucky for me it's fall break at I had off from the community college. However, I still have my online class and a 16 page catalog to do. And the exhibit opens Wednesday!

My sister calls every Friday and I told her I was in a design conference in NYC. Of course I was driving south. Saturday morning when I called her I told her we were going walking in the forest. Just not which one. Lydia played along and made believe she was coming in the front door. She really was coming from the hotel bathroom.

So fun. She was surprised several times.

The walk in the forest was Bernheim Forest. A beautiful place with tons of hiking trails. We met Bob and Carol from the Derby City Walkers, a Volkssport group. Bob and Carol are also volunteers at the forest, so they knew a lot about the flora and fauna.

We all walked the first 5K. Part paved, part gravel, part dirt trail in the forest. Flat and small hills. It turns out that Bob and Carol also mapped out the trail at Bernheim!

We were at the last section of the 5K and there was steps to a memorial. They headed back to the visitor center. Bob, Lyd and I finished the 5K and then Bob and I did the second 5K.

We bid goodbye to Bob and Carol and went up the street to Jim Beam's Distillery. We did the self-tour and saved ourselves $8. The best part was the tasting. The look on Lyd's face when she tasted it was priceless.

Our final stop before the party was the Louisville Slugger factory/museum. I wore my Iron Pigs Diamond Diva shirt for the occasion.

The poor guy who was trying to do repair work on the bat. He was getting nothing done!

Today we are going to my niece's studio Polesque dance inspired fitness. We'll try pole , Vegas stelittos fitness, and burlesque strut. Then finish the morning with mimosa's and croissants. Totally negating any calories we burned!

solomons island

At 7 am we hopped on a bus and headed to Solomon's Island, Maryland, with the Liberty Bell Wanderers Volkssport group.

The bus driver and the man in the front row (who will be walking cross country in February) were very, very chatty. It's how I found about about another group, Shorewalkers, that does walks in Jersey and New York. Including a 50K around Manhatten Island in May.

The bus was brand spanking new and even had seatbelts. It also had Wifi, which was pretty spotty. It depends on cellphone towers, and we went thru many areas where the signal was weak. After losing many student posts, I gave up trying to work, and went on to knitting. I also took my Kindle, but never opened it.

We arrived at about 11, and finally hit the asphalt at maybe 11:45.

can you see the lighthouse? It has a red roof.

The weekend was sponsored by the Freestate Happy Wanderers Volkssport Group. There was a 6K and a 4K, making a figure 8 and the Holiday Inn was the start/end point. The 6K wove around the downtown area and beaches and the 4K around a ritzy gated community.

We ate breakfast at 6, so our first stop was lunch. We were about 1.5K into the walk. We ate at Stoney's, who had their own dock. That's how we role at a shore town. Bonnie had tuna, Lyd had scallops, and me, salmon salad. Food was delicious. service sucked. Clearly, they were still gearing up for the summer season.

Then we took off and did the rest of the 6K on the island.  We we close to the Holiday Inn and the route led us thru a shopping center. The poles had hand knitted socks on them? Maybe the were cold. I wasn't—it was hot and humid!

Lydia decided after we did the museum and Drum Point lighthouse, she'd stay behind (horrible chaffing issues), and Bonnie and I could finish the 10K. It never happened. As you know we get easily distracted.

The maritime museum was small but nice. The lighthouse was only three stories and tiny. The third floor was the lamp. Seven people lived in that house. Total square feet was about the size of my living room.

On the way to the lighthouse there was a children's activity tent. As it turned out the children could be any age. The three of us made boats.  Theoretically they float. floats. It was fun. 

Our room was the room used to store all the luggage. You couldn't check in till three. So we had lots of visitors.

When we got back to the room, I volunteered to walk to the 7-11 for Vaseline and baby powder for Lydia's chaffing. Then I went exploring to find a close pub to get a snack after our sunrise cruise, at 7:30.

It's 6:58. We board at 7:15. We gotta hit the asphalt. We found out a couple of things on this trip. Whatever time they tell you be there 15 minutes early. We gotta hit the road!