Things did not start out too well for this particular Ausflug. The morning we were going to leave, I locked myself out of the house. I was trying to meditate after exercising on the treadmill when I heard the recycling truck. I threw on a pair shorts, grabbed the recycling bin, and rushed outside to the sidewalk only to find that they had already passed by. I put down the bin, hoping that they would pick it up on the way back, but when I tried to get back in a house I found the door was locked. I had no keys, but I remembered that we had given keys to Dee and Janice across the street, so I went over to their house and knocked on the door. But they weren't home, which left me steadily getting colder outside my own house. I thought about going to Mike and Laura's house next door, but I just had my shorts on which would've been pretty embarrassing so I decided to break into my house.

First I tried to force the latch on the garage door, but succeeded only in breaking the handle. So then I went into the backyard and tried to force one of the windows open. They wouldn't budge, so I looked in the tool shed to see what tools I could use. I finally found a hoe and used the edge of the hoe to slip between the window in the sash and pry open the kitchen window. It worked like a charm. Although I was glad to get a window open, I was surprised at how easily the screws on the window latch were pulled out of the sash.

Since the kitchen window was pretty high off the ground, I had to stand on a wheel barrel full of dirt and jump up to pull myself through the window. The wheel barrel naturally fell over and spilled dirt into a window well below. But I successfully hoisted myself up, clambered over the kitchen sink, and was back in my house. What a relief. When I looked at a clock, I was surprised to find that only 15 minutes had gone by! I was very grateful to be a warm house again, but I was disgusted at how easy it had been to break into my own house, so the first thing I did was to find some longer wood screws and replace the latch screws on every sash on the lower level of the house. I hope I don't lock myself out again because next time it's going to be a lot harder to break in!

After meditating, I tried to get back to writing my book, but had 57 phone calls the next couple of hours. Just about the time I would get to the end of editing a page, I'd get another phone call! Finally I was called in to work by an important conference call which lasted over an hour. That pretty much shot the morning, and I just managed to get back home in time to help Monika pack for the trip. Packing was pretty easy since we were only going for two days, but we were expecting to do a lot of walking so we packed a lot of foot gear. I had shoes for pavement walking, shoes for natural trails, boots for mud, and extra-large shoes for relaxation. In fact, I had so many pairs of shoes that I was starting to feel like Imelda Marcos. We also packed a lot of snacks for eating on the trail -- we sometimes don't know if we eat to walk or walk to eat! Fortunately, the Buick had a big back seat and trunk and easily accommodated all our stuff.

We left early enough that we missed all the rush-hour traffic on the drive out to Cumberland, Maryland, which was a relief. The drive around the Beltway was hectic, but the last part of the drive out to the mountains of Western Maryland was quite scenic and relaxing. We had driven out here the previous month, and the trees had all been bare, but now they were almost fully leafed out, which made it prettier. We checked into the Best Western hotel in La Vale, which was about four miles beyond Cumberland, and were happy to find out that it had an indoor heated pool, spa, and exercise room with a treadmill. The hotel was set directly beside a babbling brook, and had a nicely landscaped little trail alongside the brook with an outdoor grill, swings, and so forth. The interior was equally nice and we were particularly impressed by the way the halls were brightly but naturally lighted with many overhead skylights. Our room had two comfortable chairs, a desk and desk chair, and the usual color TV, queen size bed, and so forth. The window of our room opened out onto a view of the brook below, which was very pleasant.

But we didn't stand there and enjoy the view too long, because we were pretty hungry after that long drive! We both felt like some exercise, so we walked a half-mile down the road where we had seen a cluster of shops and restaurants. We had initially thought of eating at Denny's, but we walked a little farther along and found a "Texas Grill House" which advertised grilled steak and chicken. The parking lot was full of cars, so we thought eating there was a good bet. We were initially overlooked by our waiter, but once he knew we were there the service was good and the food was excellent. Monika had the filet mignon and I had the grilled chicken (but as I had hoped, I ended up with some of her filet mignon!). I found baked sweet potato on the menu, which I almost never find elsewhere, and it was very good. On our way back, we passed a discount food store and decided to buy skim milk and cereal so that we could have a low-fat breakfast in our room. Finding a low-fat breakfast is always a problem on the road. The food was cheap, but I also found some handcrafted wooden cars which raised the tab about twenty-five dollars. I sure hope that our future grandchildren appreciate all the toys I'm buying for them!

We left the milk in the car trunk as it was going down into the 40's overnight and we felt that would be about as cold as a refrigerator. After watching the news and reading for a while, we turned in early. Monika had a good night's sleep, but I awoke early and couldn't get back to sleep because I was so excited about the things that we were going to do the next day. Our bus didn't leave until 9 a.m., so we had plenty of time to take a shower, eat breakfast in our room, and prepare for the walk. In my case, preparing for the walk involved putting bandages on eight out of 10 toes so that I wouldn't get any blisters, and that took awhile. I also poured Gatorade into our water bottles for drinking along the walk. For keeping the milk cold over the day, I prepared a Rube Goldberg contraption using the two garbage cans in our room and a lot of ice to make an impromptu cooler. This all took time, but we still had a lot of spare time when we drove to the pickup point at Lock 75 of the C & O Canal.

It was a beautiful morning for a walk. This sky was clear and blue, the temperature was in the '50s, and the wind was calm. With a straight and level trail, who could ask for anything more? We walked along taking pictures and chatting with Tom, Joyce, and Francine. Joyce knew the names of all wildflowers we were seeing, so we finally got to learn their names as well as taking pictures of them. We heard many birds calling from the trees and saw them flitting across the path. Where the pools beside the trail were marshy, we saw red-wing black birds, and along the more wooded parts of the trail we saw robins, sparrows and so forth. One very unusual thing we saw was a beaver swimming along in a place where the Canal had been dammed up into a pool. Beavers don't usually come out during the day, so we were quite surprised, but later we saw several beaver lodges along the shore of the Canal.

The walk was so pleasant it seemed to be over in a flash, although in reality it took not quite three hours. Right at the end of this stretch of the Canal, a group of volunteers had reconstructed a Canal boat. They also staffed a gatekeeper's house which was open to the public. The gatekeeper's house was a small, white two-story house, with kitchen and living room downstairs and the beds in one large room upstairs. Inside, the house was spare but looked reasonably comfortable, especially when compared to the cramped quarters on the boat.

The boat was somewhat larger than I had expected and had forward, middle, and aft cabins. The forward cabin on the boat housed the two mules the were used to pull the boat, and the necessary harnesses and fodder. The middle cabin was quite small and was set up with one bunk. It appeared to be a room for a helper or a deck hand. The after cabin was larger and had several bunks as well as a small cooking area in one medium-sized room. A volunteer docent dressed as a barge captain told us that the after cabin was for the captain and his family. Typically the captain of a Canal boat would have a wife and any children with him on the boat. The wife cooked on a very small stove which was carefully situated on a sheet of tin to avoid fires, and the children helped out with various chores on the boat. All in all, it appeared to be a hard-working life for the captain and his family, but probably no worse than for farm families of that time period.

After getting our book stamped at the end of the walk, we drove the four miles back to Cumberland to see what was happening for "Canal Days", the official once a year celebration of the Canal. On the way we stop to Roy Rogers to eat our traditional roast beef and baked potato, but as it turned out we could just as well have waited and had lunch at the festival. At the terminus of the Canal, there was little park area that adjoined the train station and it contained all the activities. The tents for the arts and crafts surrounded an inner square of food vending wagons. Several restaurants had set up tents for selling high-quality food as well as the usual hot dog stands, barbecues, cotton candy and so forth. Over to one side was a much larger open walled tent that was used for the music groups were constantly performing. We weren't hungry anymore, so we spent our time looking carefully in each of the arts and crafts tents to see if we could find something nice. We finally settled on a hand painted tile that had birds on it as a present for Heinke and Gustl. I bought a book about how to play a tin whistle since I had purchased one at a walk at Gunston Hall two weeks back, and Monika bought a book on Social Dances from the American Revolution. When I learn how to play the tin whistle, people may have to hold their ears, but at least it will keep me from singing! We also sat awhile listen to the folk music about the Canal before driving back to our hotel. On the way back we stopped at "Ruthie-babies", which was a doll store operated by woman named Ruth. It was interesting to talk to her since she made all the dolls and their clothing herself, but we couldn't find anything we really liked.

At the hotel, we both changed socks and shoes in order to give our feet a rest, and then started to think about dinner. We decided to try for Italian food, and drove up the street to an Italian restaurant in a strip mall. However, no cars were parked outside and no one was eating inside, which gave us both pause. Monika finally decided that she just didn't want to eat there, and we drove on to a medium-sized mall perched on top of a hill nearby. There we found several fast food outlets and finally settled on Chick Filet, where I had the grilled chicken as usual and Monika had fried chicken strips.

As we were driving back to the hotel, we noticed a pee wee golf course across the street from the hotel. We were both pretty tired, but I thought it would be fun so I suggested it to Monika. We talked it over while we rested in our room and she mentioned that she had found discount tickets for the pee wee golf course at the hotel registration desk! Well that clinched it, since we had 50 cents off on each game we decided to go for it. Clutching our coupons, we walked across the street and got our putters and golf balls. The course was the traditional one, with the usual set of small gates, rotating paddles, or other obstacles that you have to putt through. In some ways, I enjoy that kind of traditional course better than the fancy ones with all the complex layouts and frills. We had a whale of a time whacking the ball through the windmills, over the bumps, and around the various obstacles. One of the most difficult holes for this type of course looks disarmingly simple. It is just a little cone with a hole in the middle at the top. If you don't putt exactly straight, the ball will veer off to one side and roll far away. Even if you putt straight, if you don't putt it exactly hard enough, though ball will either roll back right at you or go flying over the hole! So you have to putt it exactly straight and exactly hard enough, which is quite tricky. Neither of us came even close to par, but it sure was fun. After whacking the balls around the golf course, we returned to our hotel, read little while, and then turned in for the night.

We had set the alarm for Sunday morning because we had to catch the 730 a.m. bus for the final walk on the Canal. We got up on time, and having milk and cereal in our room saved us the time it would have taken to go out and have breakfast. Fortunately, my improvised cooler had worked very well and the milk was cold. After driving to Cumberland on the interstate, we decided to take the second of three exits for the city as we thought it would lead us in the right direction. As we got off, however, Monika couldn't see anything that she recognized and immediately said, "We're lost! Turn right!". At the same time, I recognized the electric company parking lot that was our meeting point, so I said "There it is! We're here!", and kept driving straight ahead. We only had five minutes to spare, so we were really happy that we found the right place. We wanted to hop right on the bus, but first we had to go to get our start cards, which were a little distance away. I had to run and jump a ditch, grab the start cards, sign the liability waiver, forge Monika's name on the liability waiver, and then run and jump back over the ditch to get to the bus on time. Meanwhile, Monika was holding the bus. As it turned out, one person was later than we were so we didn't feel too bad about making people wait.

The final leg of the walk started at lock 75 and wound through some very pretty farmland on the way into Cumberland. At this point the river is about a half-mile off and there is farmland in between the Canal and the river. The scenery was bucolic and the farms looked very productive and prosperous. Again the weather was perfect only slightly warmer than the day before so I was wearing my shorts instead of my "Indiana Jones" pants that convert from long pants to shorts. Tom and Joyce were on the later bus so we didn't see them. Francine had decided to walk this stretch twice, and so we met her walking against us when we were about halfway through. Most of the time we chatted quietly together or just watched the scenery go by. Again the time just seemed to fly by, and before we knew it we were coming up on the railroad yards just outside Cumberland. The railroad folks had filled in the Canal beside the tow path, and that was the only area along the entire 182 miles of the C & O Canal that was really ugly. However, even here when you looked to the other side you had a beautiful view of the river and downtown Cumberland. I understand that they will be transforming this area into a park by 2005 and I surely do hope so.

We walked up to the finish point in Cumberland around 1030 a.m.. It would have been nice to have bands playing to celebrate our finishing this long walk over a period of two and a half years, but all we had was the quiet congratulations of the staff at the finishing point and the satisfaction of knowing that we had done it. Our finishing point was the same park that had the Canal Day festival, so after getting our book stamped we wandered around and looked at the tents for little while before heading over to the train station next door. Our plans were to take a steam excursion train ride to celebrate the completion of our C & O Canal walk.

The train departs Cumberland for Frostberg, Maryland at 1130 a.m. on weekends from May to October. We watched the train as it approached the station shortly before 1130, belching black smoke and white steam. I was standing right next to the engine as they vented steam to release pressure, and it was almighty loud. When we boarded, there was plenty of room for all of us to spread out and get nice window seats. We rode in the car right behind locomotive and on the uphill grades we could feel the pulsing of the engine pulling the cars as each drive piston pushed the wheels -- this pulsing was so strong that it made our feet and heads rock back and forth. The track climbed along the side of the mountains and the view from the right hand side where we were sitting was spectacular. Every once in a while, the wind would shift to blow the smoke from the engine over on our side of the train. The combination of smoke and steam was a unique frame for the vistas of green, wooded valleys.

The ride itself is only about 50 minutes each way, and there is a two-hour lay over in Frostberg. That gave us enough time to eat and see the various shops that cluster around the train depot there. At the Whistle Stop Cafe, I ordered my usual grilled chicken sandwich and Monika had a ham and cheese sandwich. If we had been a lot hungrier, the extensive buffet in the train depot would have been nice but it cost ten dollars each. The cafe also had all outdoor seating with a good view for watching the train while we ate. While waiting for our meal, we watched the steam engine being turned around at a small roundhouse at the end of the line. Then we toured the gift shops nearby, but all we could find that we really wanted was some licorice for dessert! I got licorice chunks while Monika bought licorice whips, and we chewed on this as we walked along.

There was a carriage museum there with free entrance for folks taking the excursion train, and for a while we discussed whether we should see the museum or walk up to the main town center of Frostberg. We met some folks coming down the steps, and they told us there wasn't anything interesting in downtown Frostberg, so we decided to see the carriage museum. That turned out to be a great choice. Although the Museum didn't look like much from the outside because it was in a relatively small building, there were all lot of very nice restored carriages on the inside. In fact, there were two complete floors with at least 20 or 30 carriages in all. With the exception of one milk carriage, they were all perfectly restored and had been the work of one man who assembled this collection and gave it to the state of Maryland. Some carriages were famous, such as the inaugural carriage for president Teddy Roosevelt. Others were fancy carriages for rich folks, and still others were normal, everyday carriages such as horse-drawn sleighs that might have been used by farmers. I remember my mother talking about going to school horse-drawn sleigh in the winter in rural Michigan, and I wondered whether the sleigh her grandfather used had been anything like the one that museum. I wish she had been there so that I could have asked her. I got a hat pin shaped like a buggy from the carriage museum, and then it was time to take the train back to Cumberland.

We again sat on the side toward the valley on the way down to Cumberland, and had the same great views. However, instead of the chugging and pulsing of the engine we usually heard the squealing of the brakes that were holding us back from roaring down the steep downhill slope. We read that they plan to put a hiker-biker trail alongside these tracks up to Frost berg and then for more than a hundred miles into Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and we really look forward to hiking that trail when they finish it. The train ride was a great end to a great weekend, but then it was time to drive home.

Somewhat reluctantly, we climbed into the car and I started the drive back home. I drove about half an hour to a state of Maryland exhibit center at the top of one of the ridges which we had always been curious about. It turned out to be an exhibit center about the geological formations that you could see from the road's cut through the hills and was very interesting. But it did not have any local arts or crafts that we could buy, which might have taken longer. I did, however, pick up maps and a packet of free wildflower seeds courtesy of the state of Maryland, and the bathrooms were nice so we had a brief but pleasant stop. Monica drove the rest of the way home, and fortunately the traffic was only moderate and there were no backups. When we got home, I cooked dinner while Monika quickly threw our dirty laundry into the washing machine and started it up. After dinner, we watched Star Trek Voyager for an hour and then read our book until was time to sleep. We particularly enjoyed this Ausflug because of the variety of activities that we did over the weekend in addition to the walks, and decided to do more things like this on future Ausflugs.