Yesterday, my friend Gayle and I embarked on an adventure. I wanted to motivate myself toward more movement and healthier living and Gayle enjoys visiting new towns via self-guided walks designed by local clubs of the American Volkssporting Association. Gayle has wanted to hit the Ephrata, Pa., walk (which is about 90 minutes away from our homes) and I love a day trip. The walk is maintained by the Susquehanna Rovers.

Gayle packed lunch. I packed sunscreen. I even tossed some electrolyte powders packets in my bag, knowing it would be a sunny summer day. I took my muscle relaxers.

Off we went.

The background

Now, as someone with a mobility disability (cerebral palsy, spastic diplegia), I suspected– or perhaps even knew– that this would end with some sort of injury or discomfort. I had hoped that having this walk, a 5K by design, would motivate me to get away from my desk and wander around the neighborhood.

That didn’t happen. I could blame the heat wave, but in reality, I doubt I would have changed my behavior even if the weather were nice.

In the end, I said to myself, “Anyone can walk a 5K.”

And in one respect, I was correct. I did it. On the other hand, it was stupid. And I’m suffering because of it. But that’s getting ahead of myself.

I wanted to use this walk to see how my movement was in a more long-term commitment. I wanted to test my breathing and my heart rate. I suspect a lot of my health issues will not resolve until I lose at least 20, if not 30, or even 35 pounds (at which point I ask myself– how did I gain this much weight so quickly?)

So this walk would help me evaluate my true status and make health-related goals.

That was my logic. Was it a tad reckless? Maybe, maybe not.

The Walk

Ephrata has a lovely main street, historic buildings and apparently monuments– none of which we saw because the 5K was mostly through residential neighborhoods. And we missed a turn somewhere and ended up shaving off about a half mile. Our time for our 2.8 mile 5K was about 31 minutes a mile, and we periodically stopped to enjoy the shade, look at weird buildings, and sometimes cuss about hills.

AVA walks are rated, and this was a 1B which means it was supposed to be easy, with sidewalks and the occasional hill. But if you looked at the “fine print,” the walk was rated “medium” for strollers and “hard” for wheelchairs. I think for the foreseeable future Gayle and I need 1A walks that are easy for wheelchairs.

So here’s my analysis of what we saw in Ephrata on the 5K:

• A gnome garden. I like this tiered design of outdoor knick knacks. I’m not sure what sense it makes, but it seems like a concept the no-longer-a-Teenager would embrace.

• A neighborhood egg stand, that was closed.

• Your going to have to google this for yourself. “Best Kept Secrets Tour.” “Shopping, Food & Fun adventures.”

• The strangest “double” homes I’ve ever seen. The walk took us through an entire neighborhood of attached, split-level homes. I own “half a double,” and some neighborhoods in my area are row homes that expand an entire block. But I have never seen neighborhoods like these. I fail to understand the logic. There are two reasons to “attach” homes– one is to lower the cost by sharing a wall, and the second is to squeeze more people into a smaller space.

These homes have the space to be detached. They are on suburban lots. So, if you are going to invest in a suburban home, why would you want (or even accept?) being attached to your neighbor. There were also attached ranch homes, with the same concept, but just without the extra stories. And some had a strange shared doorway in the middle, like a breezeway, so they were both attached and detached.

• We did see a lot of great distant views. Mountains in the distance. Clear skies.

• One of the first things we encountered was the Anne Brossman Sweigert Charitable Foundation, with a family sculpture out front and a sign engraved on a grave marker. (They also have not updated their website in almost 10 years according to the “grant history” tab.) Why did they place their sign on a grave marker? So it didn’t blow away? Fade?

Around the two-mile mark, we realized we had missed the turn and reached our threshold for the residential tour, and ironically, we ended up taking a street parallel to the main drag back to the hotel where the walk-box is stored.

Interlude: Early in the walk, I noticed my right leg was pulling in toward my left leg. So, minding my fitness and strength coach’s advice, I led with my knees to make sure I wouldn’t end up tripping over my own legs due to my knees facing inward. I tried stretching, to see if I could get my hips and thighs to move more outwardly, but I couldn’t come up with the right movement.

Nothing hurt, but damn everything was tight, and my legs fought me with every step. By the time we climbed the hill and stairs by the hotel, my back was starting to feel the stress. My legs didn’t want to lift. So I made it to the car and popped another muscle relaxer.

Step count: about 8,500

The Ephrata Cloister

We went to Ephrata Cloister, driving down the main drag and wondering why the walk couldn’t have shown us all these lovely local businesses and perhaps led us to a cafe where we could have rested. We had a savory-and-sweet vegan chickpea and carrot salad with a side of grapes for lunch. From there we headed into the gift shop.

At the gift shop, I found an impressive collection of wood crafts, paper folding kits for Moravian Stars, quilted cards, replacement ink for quills, Amish novels and a nice selection of Pennsylvania Dutch nonfiction books.

The no-longer-a-Teenager is mostly Pennsylvania Dutch on her father’s side. One paternal great-grandfather was Welsh, but all of her other paternal great-grandparents were Pennsylvania Dutch. Her paternal grandmother’s father spoke Pennsylvania Dutch (Leroy Buss) as his first language, learning English at the one-room schoolhouse he entered at age five. I would have loved to buy her a Pennsylvania Dutch to English dictionary or Superstitions and Folklore of the Pennsylvania Dutch, but the budget did not allow.

We visited the museum where we learned that the Cloister was a spiritual community with roots in Germany that came to Pennsylvania, just like the Quakers and the Moravians, in the early 18th century for religious freedom.** They had strict beliefs and practices, one of which was celibacy so it became impossible to keep the community alive. (The “householders” later became the German Seventh Day Baptist Church. Householders were the families on neighboring farms who supported the community and their religious beliefs without going all in on the celibacy, vegetarianism, and sleeping on a wooden block disciplines.)

We also saw a really long glass horn.

** 1720. That’s more than FIFTY YEARS before the Revolutionary War.

The tour

Gayle and I like to support local history and nonprofits, and who doesn’t love the story of a good old colonial cult. So, we embarked on the tour.

First, we watched a really information-packed but poorly acted and filmed movie. You can watch it online here. (This was where Gayle thought she lost her phone and I got a text from a client who needed me to do something later that day.) We were told the tour was 45 minutes to an hour long, depending how many questions people had, and that we should be on our way at 3 p.m., 3:15 p.m. at the latest.

Gayle was hoping the tour would send us all over the grounds walking from building to building. I was suddenly starting to hurt and could barely stand. Neither of us voiced what we were thinking to the other.

“You’ll love the tour guide,” the volunteer at the desk said. “He’s really knowledgeable and passionate.”

Our tour guide took ten minutes to get us out the door because already other members of the tour were asking stupid questions covered by the movie we had just watched. We walked out to the middle of the yard, not even a half acre away where the tour guide announced we had reached the village.

We stood outside for a long time, at first talking about architecture, then the idiots with us had to debate how old the trees might be, and whether they were “original.” I was mesmerized the whole time by a man who looked very Mennonite/new order Amish/”Dutchy.” You don’t think the Pennsylvania Dutch have certain genetic “looks,” but they do.

Now, somewhere around this time, it became difficult to know when the tour guide was telling us historical fact, and when he was expounding on his own “theories” (his word). He talked a lot about significance of numbers, how the triangle formed by the Village served as a reminder of our path to God, and the powers of the mystics. This is where I, as a journalist and a historian, started to get annoyed. He provided no proof of the sources of his ideas. (Here are some of the official lectures on the topics.)

We stood in the main living area of what became the Sister’s House. Eventually we ended up in the Meeting Room. We were *locked in* the building, so strangers who had not purchased the tour could not wander in. I know this because the Dutchy man needed to leave and he could not without interrupting the tour.

I faded in and out of the door mentally because my legs were hurting at about an eight. When we left the meeting room and entered the add-on kitchen, I was ready to fight the sweet little old ladies for a space on the small bench. My heartrate had been soaring since we started the tour (130s when standing and 110 when seated) probably in response to the pain. There was room for all of us.

At this point, my plan was to sneak out of the tour when he let us out of the building and to tell Gayle to take her time as I would sit outside and read my book. But it turned out the tour was only to this building.

Our tour guide unlocked the door at 3:40 p.m.

The repercussions

By the time I went to bed, my pain levels had reached a nine. They are between a six and seven today and I’m taking it easy. I think my body has forgotten how to walk. As a person who deals with spasticity, which means my muscles in my legs never relax, I have a theory. This is the first long walk I’ve taken probably in years, certainly since I started taking muscle relaxers. It’s the first long walk I’ve taken since I started fitness training with Andrew, and even more certainly, the first I’ve taken since he had to pause our sessions several months ago. And I sit at a desk now, 8-10 hours a day, seven days a week, and walk 3,500 to 5,000 steps a day.

So, sure I overdid it.

But I still maintain that I have never moved the way I moved yesterday. I fried my adductors.

Hard to believe for several months from 2020-2021 I was a picker in the Stitch Fix warehouse where I walked miles and miles and miles every night, five days a week.

For more about this trip and some discussion of books, printing and those arts at the Cloisters, see ParisianPhoenix.com.