An “Ausflug” is a German word meaning to fly out or away for brief time. We were scheduled for a Volksmarch in Westminster, Maryland for Saturday morning on the 21 of November, but Westminster is so far North that it meant 2 hours of driving up, 2 hours of walking, and 2 hours of driving back. All together it sounded like too much driving and not enough walking. I had the idea that we could extend the driving a little bit and get a whole lot more walking if we drove further North into Pennsylvania and did some of the year-round Volksmarches.

So we got out the book for the year-round events and found some in Harrisburg, PA. That was attractive because it was the capital of Pennsylvania and would give us a state and state capital stamp for our 50-state and 51-capital books. These stamps are very important to us Volksmarchers—if there’s no stamp, we don’t walk! We decided to head up to Harrisburg after the Westminster walk and stay overnight—basically making a weekend of it.

We tried to drive 2-lane roads up thru Maryland to Westminster, so it was very scenic but did take a couple of hours. The farms started at the edge of Montgomery County and continued thereafter, intermixed with small towns. The day started crystal clear and quite cold. We knew we were close to the wildlife area for our walk when a large red-tailed hawk burst from the bushes at the side of the road and flew off through the trees.

The walk started in the Hashawha Nature Center, and was rated a 2+ on a 1-5 scale where 1=flat streets and 5=rock climb. It turned out to have enough hills and valleys to really earn that rating! Fortunately it had not rained much in the last month, so the valley parts of the trails were not muddy. The trail was a big loop around the wildlife area surrounding the Nature Center. Near the end of the walk we passed a cage for injured raptors that were kept by the park service and used in demonstrations. We saw a barn owl, two horned owls, and several hawks and it was very interesting to see them “up close and personal”. Very soft looking feathers on the owls.

The sky clouded over as we did the walk, which mainly meant that we weren’t warmed by the sun any longer. We were alternately cold when we were coming down a hill in the wind and hot when we were working at climbing a hill where it was sheltered from the wind. Monika was constantly putting her jacket on and off, also called in German the “jacke an, jacke aus” trick. I gave her my knit cap and wore my sweatband as a headband around my ears. The place was scenic like a forest preserve and the up- and down-hill exercise felt good.

We were a little tired after the 10 kilometers and hungry to boot, but the natural trail was easy on our feet so at least they weren’t bruised on the bottom the way they sometimes were after pavement walks. We drove up past Gettysburg toward Harrisburg, looking for a Roy Rogers or some fast-but-low-fat food place. (Those requirements really cut down the possibilities!) We finally settled for an Arby’s where I could eat a light chicken sandwich and baked potato. We also bought some of the Christmas wine-glasses they had as a promotion, $ .99 each.

Across the street we saw a Giant, and since we were short on cash and had a Giant check-cashing card, we decided to cash a check. We bought Utz pretzel nibs (Fat-Free!), but then found out this Giant was NOT the same as the D.C. area chain. However, the store manager was very polite about it and cashed our out-of-state check for $25 over the purchase price. I found the trust a little unusual as it would not happen in our area.

Flush with money, we drove on to Harrisburg and found the Holiday Inn Express which was our starting point. Monika suggested staying there for the night, and since it was getting on towards 3:00 p.m. and they had a $59 discount for Volksmarchers, I agreed. We carried our overnight bag to the room and had a couple of cups of hot coffee to warm up before we began our hike.

The Harrisburg trail looped through the downtown area and past a restored train station, the State Capitol, the state museum and library, and then looped out to the Governor’s mansion. The leg out to the mansion passed thru neighborhoods much like Alexandria, VA’s “Old Town” section with brick sidewalks and old row houses, most of which were nicely restored and kept up.

During the return along the riverfront, the sun was going down and the cold North wind was whipping into us after blowing across the Susquehanna River—we got really chilled. We crossed an old bridge, called “Old Shaky” (and it did shift a bit in the wind), to get to City Island in the middle of the river. This island has a small railroad, bathouse, minor-league baseball stadium, slip for a small ship giving river cruises, miniature golf course, shops, and small carnival-like rides. Usually this is a summer thing, obviously, but just the weekend we arrived they had started their “Winter Fest” celebration so it was lit up with Christmas lights and had Christmas carols playing over the loudspeakers.

We circled the island and ended up in two tents, which were thankfully heated. The first had entertainment for children, and the second had shops with more things that adults would buy. We bought candied almonds and munched them as we looked over several of the stalls. One stall had Russian artwork by “Igor”, and we found a very nice set of painted jewelry—a pendant, brooch, and bracelet of a matching design, a rather evocative evergreen tree in a winter setting. I found a hand-tooled leather belt, which I really needed, and the guy charged us only $22 for a $35 belt. At both of these booths, they were quite happy to accept an out-of-state check with no problems. Again I got a sense of trust of strangers that would not be found in our area.

It was really dark and cold when we left the tents to complete our walk, but having the Christmas lights on the bridge helped us find our way back. Fortunately the wind had died down, so we didn’t get too chilled on the way back to the hotel. We stamped our books, had some more hot coffee, and worked a crossword puzzle before limping over to the “Passage to India” restaurant adjacent to our hotel. But we needed reservations, so we had to put our name down and then go back and wait a half an hour to eat.

But it was worth it, the food was excellent Indian cuisine (at least I think it was!). I partly think it was good because there were a lot of Indian folks in the crowd there with us, and the place was packed. We had a very nice meal, but there was just too much of it so we had our leftovers put in a container and popped it in the car for safekeeping, figuring that with the temperature in the 30s the car was as cold or colder than a refrigerator.

Since the second Harrisburg walk was not available (no directions), we decided to walk the York, PA walk on Sunday as it was on our way home. We knew it wouldn’t open until 9, so we had a leisurely morning and complementary breakfast at the hotel—fortunately they had skim milk, etc. The drive to York was quite quick and we arrived early just as the two old ladies who ran the center also arrived, so we began our walk about 9 a.m. exactly.

The walk thru York was a city walk that went downtown from the outskirts and then looped around downtown and a couple of parks before returning to the shopping center on the edge of town where we were parked. We saw several impressive murals about different industries of the town such as the pottery, the Harley-Davidson factory, and so forth. We also walked past an older section of town that had beautiful Victorian homes, a miniature Statue of Liberty, and a nice old cemetery.

We were both getting tired at the end; probably it was some cumulative fatigue over the day and a half of walking. So after stamping our books at the visitor’s center we just hopped in the car and headed straight for home. However, we first made one small detour to the entrance of the Harley-Davidson factory which was only ½ mile away. Unfortunately, they only give factory tours during the week and the motorcycle museum is closed on Sundays, so I will have to wait for another time to get a visit to the factory and museum. We got home at 1:15 p.m., which was just in time to watch the Redskins lose another football game while we washed the clothes. Oh well, but we had a nice weekend aside from that.