Friday December 8th
We wanted to go on our annual pilgrimage to Williamsburg for their Christmas walks, and tried to leave as early on Friday as we could. Monika had meetings at U.S. Customs that morning and I had to grade end-of-semester exams. She managed to clear for calendar after 12:00, but I was still struggling to revise a discussion section for an article so I didn't get away until about 1145, which meant that I picked her up at work about a quarter after 12 after which we headed straight for Williamsburg. We decided to take the Buick as this was a relatively short drive and we thought we might as well put the miles on the oldest car.

The drive down Interstate 95 to Richmond was uneventful except for the usual mix of crazy drivers trying to weave and cut their way ahead of everybody else. Since I was driving the Buick rather than the Monster, I kept to the right hand lanes, using the cruise control and watching everybody else go by, which was really pretty relaxing. We stopped in Fredericksburg to fill up and had lunch while we were at it to -- Arby's was selling nice Christmas glasses for a dollar, so we bought two of those. We took the bypass around Richmond and then onto Interstate 64 to continue southeast to Williamsburg, arriving shortly after three p.m.

We weren't sure when the evening Volksmarch would be starting, but since the start time turned out to be three p.m. we decided to do the Volksmarch the very first thing. The sky was bright and clear and the sun was low in the western sky as we started out, but it was quite warm and I just wore a thin jacket (which I later took off) and a T-shirt. The Volksmarch route led us into the historic district of Williamsburg, which is always interesting. This part of the walk went straight down the main street, which is the Duke of Gloucester Street. For the Christmas season, the houses were decorated with colonial-style Christmas decorations. Each one was different and we enjoyed looking at them as we walked by. I took a picture of a couple of decorations that had won blue ribbons for creativity and the one in front of the music store which featured musical instruments.

Our first checkpoint was staffed by the Boy Scouts, and a whole group of them were camped out beside a recreational vehicle selling hot cocoa, apple cider, fudge and other snacks. Unfortunately, they had not yet cooked the hot dogs so I had to be satisfied with hot cocoa with a generous helping of marshmallows on top and two kinds of fudge -- which wasn't all that bad! In fact, the fudge was homemade and featured different combinations like raspberry-chocolate, vanilla-cherry, peanut butter fudge, cinnamon-fudge, and even Coconut fudge! I had the raspberry chocolate and cinnamon types of fudge while Monika bought the vanilla cherry.

We both munched happily along as we crossed back past the college of William and Mary and through part of the town back to the historic district. Having done this walk at least five times before, we knew quite well where we were going and could enjoy looking around as we walked without the fear of getting lost. Our second checkpoint was at a Baskin-Robbins ice cream store, but since it was a little cold for ice cream and we were rather hungry, we stopped at a gourmet hot dog store across the street for dinner. I had a low-fat "Spa" hot dog (I have no idea why it had that name) with all the fixings and it was quite good. Monika had a barbecue sandwich and was quite happy with that.

After getting our cards stamped at the checkpoint, I had to put some bandages on my toes. While I was sitting down to do this, I noticed that the next store was on "Virginia Ham and Peanuts" specialty store, and I felt a mighty hankering for some peanuts. So we naturally visited that store and emerged with a half pound of peanuts and some peanut brittle. The peanuts we munched on as we walked back through a different section of the historic district. Sometimes I don't know if we eat to walk or walk to eat. We were eating too much to really call this walking and walking too much to really call this eating, so we searched for a new name for what we were going. Although many neologisms occurred to us, the best we came up with was "Volksmunching".

It was getting dusk as we walked past the Governor's Mansion and across a little stream with a small bookbindery nestled beside it. Since we were one street north of the main drag, it was essentially deserted and relatively dark, which added to the atmosphere. Without tourists and in the dusk it is possible to imagine what it might have looked like in the colonial times. We curled back around the reconstructed House of Burgesses and walked back across the railroad tracks to the Ramada Inn where we were staying. Along the way we passed the only McDonald's I've ever seen that has a 1957 Chevy as the centerpiece of the decor for the eating area. I'll have to eat there someday just to see if that car is for real.

Since we were not too tired, we decided to take our new snorkeling gear and try it out in the hotel pool. This hotel has the pool right next to the main banquet room, so it is always a bit odd to be walking along in your swimsuit and be passing people in formal gowns and tuxedos who are headed for a banquet. They do their best to ignore us, but I do feel a little bit out of place at times like these, especially if we have just come out of the pool and are dripping water -- I really wouldn't want to water spot a fancy gown. However, the pool was deserted so we could don all our gear and try it out without worrying about anyone else. Everything worked great. The masks sealed well, the fins stayed on our feet, and our snorkels didn't leak. My old SCUBA buoyancy vest still was airtight, but we have to buy another one for Monika.

All the swimming stretched a different set of muscles that we use for walking, and I ended up with a leg cramp. We relaxed a bit in the hot tub beside the pool and talked with some other Volksmarchers while we worked the kinks out. I tried to dry off thoroughly before we walked back past the tuxedo and gown people to our room. After all this activity, we were really tired and just turned in early to get a good night's sleep.

Saturday December 9th
After a full 2-plate breakfast at the Plantation Restaurant just across the parking lot that featured a complete breakfast bar, we took the Williamsburg day Volksmarch, which started about three doors down from our hotel room. That's the closest I have ever stayed to a starting point! The route for this walk was somewhat similar to the evening walk in that it still went down the main Duke of Gloucester Street and stopped by the Boy Scouts for the checkpoint. Although it was slightly colder than the previous evening, the sky was still beautifully clear and blue and the morning sun was at a very different angle than the evening sun, giving us different sunlit views of the historic houses with their decorations. We paused at the outdoor tent-shops on the Armory field, where Monika bought 2 colonial-style hand-made cloth dolls named "Betsy". These she put in her coat pockets so that their heads were sticking out and their arms were waving at passersby. It was curious that some people noticed the two dolls in her pockets and reacted to them while others totally overlooked it.

Our route went back past the Boy Scouts where we had our books stamped and bought more fudge! The little girl who was helping out stamping the books was very interested in Monika's dolls, so Monika told her that the dolls were in her pocket like that so that they could look out and enjoy the walk. Although up to this point our path was similar to parts of the night walk, we now changed direction and walked straight out of town. We continued over a mile down a road through a golf course to a second checkpoint at the course clubhouse. The route back from that checkpoint was really different as it was a woodland path that ended up back at Bassett Hall at the edge of the historic district. From there we exited the historic district and re-crossed the railroad tracks to go back to our hotel.

We had about an hour before I had to attend a Virginia Volksmarching Association meeting at noon, so we drove around trying to find a Subway for lunch. We didn't have any luck, so we settled on a Wendy's instead, and worked out the dates for our club's walks for 2001 so that I could make a report to the meeting. My little Palm Pilot's calendar feature came in very handy for doing that and by the time we finished lunch I had a full set of dates for my report.

We got back to the meeting just in time and spent the next two and a half hours discussing Volksmarching topics with representatives from the other clubs in Virginia. I was a bit hesitant as this was my first meeting, but I knew the chairman, Fred, quite well and that helped. I was glad that we had worked out the dates for our club's walks so that I could tell the other clubs about our plans. This avoids the potential problem of having to clubs schedule Volksmarches nearby on the same weekend, which cuts down the attendance at both events. We also discussed the rather serious issue about declining participation and the related issue of seeking new participants for this type of sport. Volksmarching is so low-key that it does not have a natural cachet that sports like skiing do, although once you start to do it, it is very relaxing exercise. As it turned out, my only problem was that the batteries were running low as I was taking notes on the Palm Pilot. By the end of the meeting, however, I was champing at the bit to get off to Yorktown to do another walk. We didn't want to start the Yorktown year-round event too late, as we would then be finishing in the dark, which can get dangerous when walking on country roads.

We jumped back in the Buick and drove down the Colonial Parkway from Williamsburg to Yorktown. This road isn't very fast, having a 45-mile per hour limit, but is always a relaxed and enjoyable scenic drive. I think it would be a very nice topic for a driving videotape using the Monster like we did on the Skyline Drive. We arrived shortly after three o'clock, got the Volksmarch box from the gift shop, and completed our start cards. Taking the map, we started off on the route for this event. Due to some road closures in the park, the route was quite different than in previous years and first went out past the redoubts taken by U.S. and French forces at the battle of Yorktown, which ultimately gave our country the victory over the British forces under Cornwallis. We then walked out to the Moore House where the terms of surrender had been negotiated.

Along the way, we past some old sea front bungalows and then some very modern mansions, which was a study in contrasts. When I read the sign in front of the Moore House, I was surprised to learn that the terms of surrender were under "less than honorable" conditions. I think that was very unusual for warfare during that period, and I wondered what actions by the British had persuaded the Americans to insist on these somewhat shameful surrender conditions. Cornwallis, however, also reacted badly to the surrender, feigning illness and sending out his second in command to deliver up his sword. There must be more to this story than I know.

Returning along a side road past a pond, we arrived back in the area of the Visitor Center before continuing into the town of Yorktown. As we came back to the visitor center, the setting sun brilliantly illuminated a column and statue which celebrated the victory of the Americans. The contrast was particularly stark and noticeable as the sky was crowding over with dark gray clouds at that time and the column and statue are beautiful white limestone. I hope one of our pictures of this turns out.

We descended to the waterfront part of Yorktown proper and turned left to walk out to the Yorktown Victory Center, a Bicentennial building discussing the American and French victory that lies on the extreme farther end of the town. By the time we turned around, sun was down and it was starting to get dark. This made it harder to find our footing in the places where we were walking on the shoulder of the road. We checked out the restaurants in Yorktown, but one was closed, one looked far too fancy, one had only people drinking and no one eating (a bad sign). The best of the lot was one pub that had at least a few people eating besides everyone drinking. But we decided to go back to the Malibu Grill near our hotel in Williamsburg, thinking that we might get some low-fat grilled food there.

As we returned to the Visitor Center, we disturbed a heard of deer that come out for an evening graze. They weren't really frightened of us at all, so I was able to get in close for couple of pictures. The problem was that it was so dark by now that I could not see a blooming thing through the camera's viewfinder. So I pointed it in the general direction of the nearest deer and when I heard Monica mutter, "Pick up your head -- that's a good deer!", I went ahead and snapped the picture. I think I got it because the only thing I saw was the flash brilliantly reflected in the deer's two eyes. It was starting to get cold as well as very dark when we got back to the Buick, which was standing alone in the parking lot of the Visitor Center, so we were very glad to climb inside, start up the engine, and drive slowly back to Williamsburg.

After freshening up in our room, we had a very nice dinner at the Malibu Grill. I had grilled salmon with a kind of raspberry sauce and Monika had a large steak. We both commented on how tasty the salad was although it was a simple greens and vinaigrette salad, and how the vegetables were not over cooked -- the carrots were firm and tasty. The potatoes were "home style mashed potatoes" that had lumps and pieces of skin in the mashed potato which also was very tasty although it sounds somewhat gross. Monika couldn't finish her steak, so I did and that way we both had plenty to eat! It was a very nice meal to balance the dinner of hot dogs we had had the night before. We were too tired to go swimming, so we turned in early once again, and it was a good thing that we did because we couldn't sleep for a good part of the night.

The folks across the hall decided to have a loud party starting around 10 p.m.; it sounded like they packed 20 or more people in that room. When their door was closed, it sounded like a steady dull roar and we could almost get to sleep. But whenever the door opened, a blast of voices so loud that they could have been standing right next to us would startle us. And then there were several memorable occasions when arguments or discussions would spill out into the corridor, always conducted at a screaming top volume. I distinctly remember the one man exclaiming in a loud voice, "Well then, you might as well just kill me!" -- I had a fleeting and uncharitable wish that someone would do exactly that. They quieted down (or passed out) somewhere about one in the morning after which we could finally get some more sleep.

The next morning, I must admit I had a childish impulse to belt out a few lively show tunes at full volume just outside their door at 6 a.m.(I spent part of the night selecting which tunes to sing like "Good Morning", "Die Gedanken Sind Frei", etc.), but my mature, reasonable self prevented it. I wonder if other people also have these problems in hotels or if we have somehow been the victim of unfortunate coincidences where we always book rooms on the same floor as illegal drug dealers (Champaign), fraternity parties (Ocean City), cheerleader conventions (Rehoboth Beach), religious revivals and prostitutes (several places). I would really appreciate the hotel management taking pains to separate quiet folks (Volksmarchers, librarians, chess players, Mary Kay cosmetics saleswomen, and zombies) from the noisy, raucous crowd on separate floors or wings of the hotel.

Sunday December 10th
The forecast for the day was for rain, but we decided to try to complete the Williamsburg and Jamestown year-round Volksmarches so that we could get a spiffy-looking triangular patch with three flags on it. I felt that the patch would go perfectly on the back of my EAA jacket. The weather look threatening when we arose, but it wasn't raining (yet). We had another great breakfast buffet at the Plantation restaurant and quickly packed up to check out of the hotel. We drove over to the Colonial Williamsburg Visitor Center, where we expected to park to take our walk. But we found out when we got there that they had just instituted parking gates and fees for parking. The fee structure was curious. If you park for less than two hours, parking is free, but if you park for a minute over two hours it costs 20 dollars! Since we were not sure we could finish our walk in under two hours, we decided to drive into town and park on a city street, which we did.

The loop for the Williamsburg year-round Volksmarch includes, of course, the historic district. I was glad that I had taken pictures during the previous two sunny days, because it was so dark and cloudy that there were really no good pictures to take. The year-round walk partly overlapped our previous night walk and day walk, but it also included a loop that went out around the college of William and Mary and traversed a hiking-exercise trail along a lake for much of the distance. I was hoping that our route would bring us close enough to where the Boy Scouts were staffing the checkpoint so that I could buy some more fudge, but such was not to be the case. It started to rain during the last hour of our walk, lightly at first but then turning into a steady heavy rain. We coped with this by donning our rain gear and were able to keep dry on top but were steadily getting wetter and colder from the waist down. At the end of the walk we were really grateful to climb back into a nice warm car and turn up the heater to try to dry out our clothes as we drove down the Colonial Parkway to Jamestown.

Jamestown was only about a 20-minute drive, so we did not thoroughly dry out but rather changed from cold and damp to warm and damp. Still, it was better than nothing and the rain even let up as we drove into the parking lot at the Jamestown Visitor Center, causing our hopes to rise. We retrieved the Volksmarch box from the gift shop, filled out our cards, took a set of directions, and started off toward the bronze statue of Pocahontas out back. The rain held off as we made the short circuit of the ruins of old Jamestown, which I always find to be a spooky place since no one lives there now (unlike Williamsburg and Yorktown). It was cool, gray, and gloomy, which I suppose helped set the spooky mood.

After we completed the short loop around the ruins, we walked back to the parking lot to start the loop back along the peninsula road to the site of the old glass works. The route used to include a loop up around the rest of the island, but it had to be changed this year because they are reconstructing all the bridges on that route and the road is closed, even to pedestrians. So instead we walked a very long out-and-back along the peninsula road. Belying the earlier promise of better weather, the rain began again in earnest and we started to get very cold and wet from the waist down. This brought back some not-so-fond memories of an earlier Volksmarch on the Jamestown peninsula where we faced sleet, freezing rain, and a 25 mile per hour headwind -- we really froze on that one and it was known by us colloquially as the "Volksmarch from Hell". This walk wasn't really that bad partly because there was very little wind -- even Monika qualified it as being "bearable" although not exactly "enjoyable". I was not that uncomfortable but found the out-and-back to be rather boring.

However, we stopped at the glass house on our way back (it was checkpoint) and bought several nice handmade glass works including a cream pitcher, sugar bowl, and a special fancy German drinking glass of the Colonial period called a "Rummer". I think we might have been buying so many things for excuse to stay in the nice warm glass house (the glass oven is several thousand degrees hot and so it is always quite warm in the building), or as a reward for enduring the cold rain. It's also fun watching them work the molten glass and making things from it. One of the cultural universals I have found on my travels is that humans enjoy watching other humans work! I carried the bag with our trophies as we trudged back through the steady rain to the parking lot at the Visitor Center and our car. Although it was still raining, somehow the walk back seat easier as we knew the end was in sight.

It was a relief to chuck our wet coats into the trunk and other wet clothes into the backseat and then turn the heater up on high as we began our drive home. We stopped for lunch at a Hardees in the nearby town of Lightfoot, Virginia, and then drove back up the peninsula past Richmond and back to Washington. The rain gradually eased up as we went around Richmond and had basically stopped by the time we were driving north on I-95, which was a good thing since people drive so crazy on that stretch of road. There were no accidents in our direction (although we heard of some southbound), so we made good time and arrived home just in time to see the Redskins lose yet another football game! Nevertheless, we walked 50 kilometers over the three-day weekend and really had a wonderful time. I was so happy that using the orthotic inserts in my shoes prevented any foot pain and neither of us had any problems with our knees or hips. We're almost back in shape for walking 20 to 30 kilometers a day like we used to C & O Canal walks, which is a good feeling. Now if we could only get in bicycling shape for the mountain bike escapade we have coming up in Jamaica, we'd be all s