Conversation with My Wife (171)
Wandering the trails in retirement
So for several years now, Deb has talked about exploring some of the many trails around the York and Lancaster County park systems. Some of them are hilly, or even downright mountainous, but others follow previous railroad or canal rights of way, and so are very nicely flat and often smoothly paved. Parking is usually free.
The problem is that the best times to go are when EVERYBODY wants to go. Especially with the Trump Pandemic still in progress, as folks are looking for places and opportunities to get outside where they don’t have to mask up. So it would be nice to explore when everybody and their kids aren’t wandering around, avoiding all the weekend people.
Hey! Did you know we’re retired now? And we can go out any time? Like in the middle of the week?
DEB: See, when you put it that way, people will just think I’m stupid.
ME: You know you probably have more fans among my Medium peeps than I do, right?
Deb is the planner in the family. Yes, I can plan, but Deb takes delight in planning trips. Local or distant, a couple hours or a couple weeks, she’s got the maps and the links and the background.
DEB: So there’s parking in Columbia, on either side of the tracks. Alex [friend of ours] says the visitor center is closed¹, but I’m thinking this would just be a short walk to scope things out. Sound good?
So we parked, walked 4.36 miles round trip in 1 hour and 17 minutes (why yes, I do have a smart watch that tracks my exercise—how did you know?) with pauses to check out historical markers (the remains of the old canal, two 19th Century iron furnace ruins, and an old industrial revolution mill dam that was destroyed only about five years ago). Weather was excellent, with low temperature and humidity (for Pennsylvania in September, anyway) and some high-altitude smoke/haze from the fires in the west (yep, we’re seeing the effects out here, thanks to the jet stream). Fellow walkers were pleasant and maintained good distance; bikers (most older than us!) usually warned us when they were coming up from behind. Lots of signage, with warnings not to wander off the trail, and reminders not to discharge firearms from the path—I mentioned this is rural Pennsylvania, right?
ME: Hold on a second, I want to get a photo of the tunnel.
DEB: Okay. (keeps stepping in place so that HER fitness tracker wouldn’t yell at her) Is this for—
ME: Let’s just see Dennett² get a shot like that, eh! Solid rock walls, borings from where they hand-blasted, the spalling along the sides of the path — they won’t have anything like that in Florida!
DEB: They don’t even have hills in Florida. I don’t think that’s very fair.
ME: They have better birds. And more flowers. And prettier sunsets. I have to go a different direction.
DEB: And if she starts taking photos of hurricanes…?
ME: Caves! We have caves!
Deb is going to take us cave touristing again, soon.
¹Fortunately the restrooms were open. Important for one of us. Even though she limited her fluid intake beforehand.
²Notice I did not mention Tracy Aston. Not going to try to compete with her photos. “Oh, Jack, lovely tunnel, hmm. Yes, here’s my pic of one just next town over, built by the Celts, I think, but the druids took it over after the Romans left, then it kind of went to pot for a few centuries, until Winston Churchill took an interest in it…” Nope, not gonna try.
Copyright ©2020 by Jack Herlocker. All rights reserved, and we’ll be happy to take you along any time we’re wandering along an old trail.
