We both needed to get away for the weekend. I had been stretched between the book, classes, and research obligations, and Monika had been ragged on with an impossible deadline at work until she threatened to “fall on her sword” and brought in the sword to do so. Fortunately, it was an old toy sword that our boys had used in a theatrical production, so she probably wouldn’t have hurt herself. Nevertheless, it indicated her state of mind and we both needed a break.

We initially thought about a trip to Raleigh, N.C. which would give us another state capital, but that looked like over 500 miles of driving. Instead, we decided to re-do the year-round Volksmarches on the Delmarva Peninsula. If it went as planned, we would only need about 2 hours of driving to reach our first walk in Cambridge, MD, and then less than an hour to get to the second walk on Saturday and each of two walks on Sunday. That made the ratio of time walking to time driving look a lot more appealing, so we decided to try it if the weather report was favorable.

The weather report was for relatively warm and sunny weather (and we believed it!), so we hustled through breakfast rather early on Saturday morning and drove off about 7:40. This was an act of faith since it was cold, foggy, and occasionally misting/drizzling as we drove off. We believed the weather forecast so much that we only took our light walking jackets with, although we did take the rain shells for the eventuality of rain/whatever. Boy were we gullible!

I kept expecting the sun to burn off the fog and break out of the clouds any moment, and that lasted all day, which was pretty good for me because I’m not usually such an optimist. Monika, being from Hamburg, Germany (on the North Sea coast) had no such delusions about the sun coming out but wasn’t expected the howling cold winds. Ah yes, we drove through the light fog and overcast to Cambridge, which did take us only a little over 2 hours.

Monika drove the first stretch up to the Bay Bridge. There I had to take over because Monika is afraid of the “big, bad, bridge”. She really has a problem driving on the high suspension bridges. It was so foggy this time, that I didn’t even notice when we were driving over the bridge and remember asking her at the end, “Have we gone over the bridge yet?” The fog thinned a bit as we drove South along the shore of Chesapeake Bay to Cambridge, and we began to enjoy the gently rolling green dales of that area.

Having a map of the town, which I had made using my computer, helped us when we arrived at the town and found the bridge we needed to cross was closed! Using the map, we figured out an alternate route and got to our starting point, the local YMCA. Hoping for sun, we put on our thin jackets and started on our walk, which was two very large loops around the center of the old town.

The first loop was to the West along the Choptank River and South for a short distance along the shore of Chesapeake Bay. The wind was picking up and the Choptank river was gray and rough, a rather bleak prospect but still pretty in severe kind of way. We saw something we hadn’t ever seen before, wild swans feeding at a shallow area just off the shore. When I first spied them, it looked like a flock of white pillows floating in the river—all their heads were underneath the water while they were feeding. They came up to breathe rather infrequently, but Monika waited until two had their heads above water to get a picture where you could recognize that they were swans!

We again passed Annie Oakley’s retirement home, which had a very nice view over the Choptank. It was peaceful scene for someone who had lead an adventurous life, which makes you wonder what her last years were like. We also passed the Hambrook mansion at a very large corner section where the Choptank and Chesapeake meet, but it is located so far back among the trees that you really can’t get a good look at it. If the gatehouse and location are any indication, it must be spectacular.

Along the Chesapeake shoreline was a string of very interesting and large houses, each with a pier down at the shoreline. We speculated on which houses were original but restored, and which were newly built. It was hard to tell, and I found that one clue was the foundation and how old it looked. Another clue was the style of windows. The recent popularity of palladian windows made us think that one of the houses was new, whereas another house with very shallow arches made us think it was built in the 1930s.

From there our walk wound its way East through town until we reached the checkpoint of a soda fountain that was established in the 1930s. I had hoped to get an ice cream cone there, but it was really crowded with local folks and we decided to skip it this time. We continued on to the downtown area, which was still alive although about 20% of the stores were boarded up. We thought it was a reviving downtown rather than a dying one, but we weren’t really sure. In particular, Monika noticed that it lacked any places to eat. We saw neither nice restaurants nor fast-food places. Instead, people congregated at the city recreation center, which was a very nicely lighted and open pool hall. But I think the downtown needs at least a couple fast-food joints and maybe one or two nice restaurants. Maybe I’ll retire and open up a Pizza Hut there!

We walked past the library through the center of town to the harbor and a city marina. The library was nice-looking brick building, and quite large for the size of town. I thought about reading to kids at the library on weekends, which is something I think I would enjoy doing in retirement, especially if the grandkids live too far away to be available on weekends. We also passed an Episcopal church, which was built of gray stone but covered in part by patina of moss, making look it quite old.

The harbor looked out across the Choptank, which was still cold and gray. Our checkpoint was a funnel or turret off a ship that had often carried FDR, and this funnel contained the elevator that he had used while on board to move up or down decks with his wheelchair. The memorial to FDR was established at that nice viewpoint by the local citizens. Next to it was a marina with a lot of sleek, beautiful sailboats and a few powerboats, mostly cabin cruisers.

This time we were still fresh and enjoying the walk immensely, but I recalled vividly the last time we walked this route around Halloween, when we had been very tired, thirsty, and footsore. I remembered the picnic bench where I had to make a stop to put bandages on my toes and rest because we were both exhausted. The walk was a lot more fun this time even though it was cold and gray. We completed the second loop to the YMCA, which was the old city high school, and climbed back into the Buick to drive to Ocean City for our next walk.

But our first order of business was lunch. Sometimes I don’t know if we eat to walk or walk to eat! On the way out of town we saw an Arbie’s, which is good for me because they have a “lite” menu with several good items. I had the low-fat turkey sandwich and a large salad, giving Monika the grated cheese bits for her deep-fat fried chicken fingers and curly fries. Can you guess which one of us is on the low-fat diet? We both enjoyed our meals and she drove on to Ocean City.

We played “Ring-Around-The-Rosie” finding a motel room for the night, but it ended well. We started at the Best Western where the Volksmarch box was kept—we filled out our start cards and stamped our books, and then inquired about rooms. They had rooms available at the rate of 56$, but no indoor pool. We decided to try our luck at the Hampton Inn where we had stayed the last time.

The Hampton is located right next to the convention center (where the walk actually began), which had a boat show that weekend. So of course they didn’t have any rooms, and we had to look elsewhere. We tried Econologe, but it was closed for the winter, and then a Comfort Inn on the beach, but they were booked up also. We debated going back to the Best Western, where they at least had vacancies, but were pretty embarrassed, so we looked for other hotels but couldn’t find any. Fortunately, a different person was at the desk of the Best Western when we finally returned, which avoided embarrassment (although I think the manager recognized us). In fact, this guy said he would only charge us $44, which might have been the week-day rate. We were surprised, but didn’t complain and the AARP reduced it another 10%--good deal Lucille!

We moved our things into the room and changed our socks and shoes, and then drove to the start point, which coincidentally enough was the convention center. The boat show was so popular that almost all the parking spaces were filled, but we finally found one in overflow parking which was away from the convention center but close to our walking route, so it worked for us. We had my computer-printed map, the Volksmarch directions and the map on the back of the directions, but the route was really so simple that we didn’t need any of them. We just walked down the northern end of the boardwalk and then walked down the beach to the amusement park at the southern end of Ocean City, and returned on the boardwalk.

We decided to walk right along the water’s edge. A fierce wind was blowing from the North, which luckily was at our back, and the surf was spectacularly heavy. Almost no one was on be beach and no one was in the water except for 2 crazy surfboarders in wetsuits. Boy that wind was cold cutting in through our jackets! I had misgivings about the walk back North where we would be facing into the wind.

Halfway down the beach we had to climb over some rocks, and that seemed to be an ideal place for one of my patented tripod pictures. I arranged Monika on one of the stones of a jetty that went into the ocean, and framed the picture so that I would be standing in front of her. I set the timer and the flash (so that I know when the picture is taken) and pushed the button. Then I ran toward the spot in front of Monika, only to find that a wave had come in and my spot was under (very cold!) water. Not having any time to spare, I quickly climbed onto the rock beside Monika and whipped off my hat and smiled just as the flash went off. It will be an interesting picture, and certainly one that I won’t forget.

I thought I had successfully kept dry, but then totally unexpectedly I stepped into a pothole on the beach filled with icy cold water. Why was there a pothole on the beach? I asked myself the same question with some irritation about my cold left foot. Then I saw a man with a metal detector up ahead of us, diligently sweeping the sand and digging holes wherever he had heard a beep. He hadn’t found anything besides bottle caps, as far as I know, but I got a cold foot as a result.

We also passed a kite store and the guys flying the kites on the beach. I was surprised they could fly them at all because the wind was so strong, about 25 mph steady. I have never had luck flying kites when the wind was that high, but they were flying special models with tail streamers that circled around like whirligigs. They didn’t fly very high, but they were steady.

We continued to the amusement park and turned right to walk up to the boardwalk, filling our shoes with sand in the process. First we wrote down the date that Dolle’s candy store was founded, which was our checkpoint. I noticed Monika kept looking longingly at the stores that were open, and she said she wanted to go into one to get warm. I did not suspect an ulterior motive, but she picked the one that had warm fleece jackets hanging right by the door.

The jackets were on sale for a measly $25, reduced from $40, and she was very happy when she found one that fit. I still didn’t suspect anything, but cheerfully bought it for her. Then she decided to wear it out of the store underneath her jacket, and it zipped up the front and really looked warm. I was envious, so I looked around for one for me. Finally I settled on the same design, which is off-white with a brown design of mountain scenery on it, and found one that fit me. I also decided to wear it out of the store, and these fleece jackets were one of our best purchases. They really helped keep us warm as we walked into the teeth of the wind on our way back. [We used these for years afterwards and called them the “Caribou” jackets because that animal was on the jacket front.] It also helped that the buildings beside the boardwalk sheltered us from the wind somewhat.

With our new jackets as an extra layer, it was a cold but fun walk back. We kept looking for two things: a restaurant for dinner and a grocery for milk and cereal--our room had a refrigerator so we could store milk for breakfast the next morning. By the time we reached the car, we were quite tired and cold but had found neither. We decided to drive North on the coastal highway and keep looking. We drove as far as Deleware, and we finally settled on a Denny’s for dinner and a Food Lion for buying groceries. I had the low-fat grilled salmon and baked potato with A-1 steak sauce on it. While I imagined I was eating a steak, Monika had a sirloin steak and baked potato with butter–do you notice a pattern here? Afterwards we read a little and went to bed early to rest for the two walks we wanted to do on Sunday.

It was a good thing we went to bed early, because about 3:00 a.m. there was some kind of hullabaloo in the hallway and adjoining rooms. They seemed more boisterous than violent, but it sure did keep both us awake for a while. Curiously, this has happened every time we have been in motels along the beach. At Bethany Beach several years ago, we were kept up most of the night by the boisterous carousing of a group of cheerleaders on the same floor. At the Hampton Inn on the Ausflug last October, we were awakened in the middle of the night by slamming of doors and people hollering, “Shssssh, be quiet or they’ll call the police!” Does this always go on at the beach hotels?

But we had a nice breakfast of cereal, coffee and Clementines for the fruit. After packing and checking out, we drove to Lewes, DE along the coastal highway which was pretty deserted. Monika used the Buick’s cruise control to keep from speeding. This was our third try at the Lewes Volksmarch, and they had finally found a home for the start box that was open on a Sunday morning, a nice little family-run restaurant called the Aurora Grill. We signed in, took the directions, and started off.

Lewes is a nicely-kept historic town with a lot of restored Victorian and Revolutionary War area buildings. We enjoyed the walk very much and took so many pictures it slowed us down considerably. We agreed that the town had the highest percentage of restored buildings that we had ever seen. This plus a downtown area with no vacant storefronts made a vibrant impression on us. There was a wide range of shops downtown despite its small size—antique shops, books, gifts, ice cream shop, several nice restaurants, and a small historic hotel (also nicely restored). Lewes was building a large expansion to their public library and had a nice hospital in the middle of town, and we both started to consider it as a possible place to retire because it was so nice.

When returned to the Aurora Grill, as Mom used to say, “Breakfast was but a faint memory”. The smells were enticing and we try to patronize businesses that support Volksmarching, so we settled down for a brunch. I had low-fat pancakes with fruit on top (no butter), while Monika had a 3-egg cheese and bacon omelet, but she did order her toast without butter so I could share it. It was a great meal with good service and a very comfortable and homey ambiance. We even got a 10% discount for being Volksmarchers, so it ended up being relatively cheap, which rates it a 4-star meal in my book!

Re-energized, we drove over to the Lewes-Cape May ferry building to get information about their schedules and fares. We watched the ferry dock and found out that the ferry operates year-around, takes an hour and 10 minutes, and has special package fares for foot passengers that include a trolley ride in Cape May and entrance to the Cape May Zoo, which sounded like fun. But we both agreed that it was too cold that day to enjoy the ferry ride, but we definitely want to do it on some other Ausflug.

Instead, we went to Rehoboth Beach to complete our fourth Volksmarch of the weekend. Our start point, the Sands Hotel, was undergoing a major enlargement, so we had to circle around it to find the entrance. But the Volksmarch box was there, and we signed up and started walking. Our route went West through the middle of town and then curved through Henlopen Acres, which is a very exclusive and small independent town. The homes are all custom-built and interesting, and it was very quiet and peaceful.

We returned to the beach and again decided to walk along the water’s edge rather than on the boardwalk. The wind was much less than on Saturday and the sun was finally out in a blue sky, so it was quite beautiful. The surf was also much gentler, of course, which gave a completely different impression of the beach than the previous day. I noticed very significant beach erosion at the northern end of the boardwalk, but much less to the south—I don’t know why—they were apparently replenishing the sand. We took another patented tripod picture, which we wanted especially since we wanted to have pictures of us in our nice new jackets, which we were enjoying for the second day in a row.

At the end of the boardwalk we walked toward the lake on the other side of the dunes and looked forward to seeing the Monk parrots that we had seen beside the street on our previous walks. However, the nests were empty and looked disturbed. Usually a Monk parrot nest is a big, round nest of twigs that is neat and perfectly shaped. These nests were lopsided and kind of falling apart. We talked to a local person walking her dog, who said they seemed to have disappeared during the last weekend after the last ice storm. We hope they will come back, but didn’t see hide nor hair (feather?) of them, although I might have heard one during the walk back to the center of town.

As we looped back to the Sands, we saw an incomplete water tower with men and a small derrick inside. I didn’t know if they were building it or demolishing it. Talking to a local, we found out it was a new water tower under construction. We watched, fascinated, as they hoisted up a large, curved section of the bell on top, and prepared to weld it into place. They had just 4 men working on this entire project, which was pretty doggone efficient.

After finishing the walk, Monika started driving home while I started writing the story of this Ausflug. We found it was lot of fun to discuss each part of the weekend while writing. Monika said it made the trip home go much faster and relieved the boredom of driving. Then the screen went black and the computer stopped with a single BEEP! So after we had a small dinner at a Subway (5 grams of fat for each half of a 12” roast beef sub sandwich), I took over driving the rest of the way home. It was nice to get home while it was still light, and we saw a beautiful sunset on the way back.