Barbara and Tom: Pennsylvania to Bath

This is more like it, I thought, as we started out on our nine-mile walk to the ancient city of Bath. Unlike the disappointing scenery of the day before, and despite having to start our walk through the dreaded wheat fields again, there were beguiling panoramas, historical sites, and the odd cow or two.

But first, here's a little bit about last night. Thank goodness our host drove us to the place where we were to have dinner. I couldn't face walking through the wheat fields again. Joining us for dinner were our friends from Canada and Oxford. Marilyn sent her husband and children home and decided to try her first walk alone. The Oxford couple are experienced walkers. They make walking look effortless. I, in contrast, put a lot of facial and ambulatory effort into it.

I was in a much better mood after we and our genial companions had raised a glass of beer or wine and saluted the day. The woman who owned the restaurant/tea shop/farm store and who served us our dinners was also very interesting. She has six children, five grandchildren, the shop to run, and new puppies and a pig (that will never be the headliner at dinner) to raise. Everyone joined in the conversation and a lot of hooting and hollering went on. Then Sarah, the shop owner, drove us back to our B&B.

Here's a footnote about the pig. When we were tramping over to the shop in the afternoon to have some tea, I accidentally almost opened the pig's gate. It is a huge pig and it would have won a mud wrestling contest with me hands down. Turns out the pig started out as a small pet pig, like a pot-bellied pig (only not). The owner didn't want it, so Sara said she'd take it. A lot of good food later, the pig is huge. It's now a living garbage disposal.

Anyway, back to the walk. It started through the dreaded wheat fields and was followed by a mad dash across a highway of death. But after that, a lot of the paths were either paved or well-maintained. We had the usually rocky paths, overgrown paths, tipsy paths, and another encounter or two with a highway of death, but they were usually short.

This is what everyone at the B&B told us: You'll have an easy day; it's nine miles, all downhill.

Hah! But I'm jumping ahead of the story.

The first easy path was a narrow, paved country road. Whenever a car came by, Tom and I flattened ourselves against the hedges. Whenever a car met another car coming in the opposite direction, one of them would have to back up until the other could get by. There weren't a whole lot of opportunities for passing. The lane was also a bridle path, heavily attested to by the horse manure in the middle of the road.

Here's today's puzzler. A car passed us. Minutes later two horses and their riders came toward us. As we walked along, we realized there was no way they could have passed each other. None. Someone would have had to back up quite a way, and it wasn't the car.

Much later we found out why there were so many cars going in the same direction we were. There was a "Special Plants" garden sale going on. That was the name of the place: Special Plants. We had to go in. I took some pictures of the odder plants before I felt self-conscious and stopped. I wanted to take a picture of everything!

We came to a path with a panoramic view and a bench (hallelujah). But there were two women already on the bench. Oh, please, they said, take the bench, we were leaving anyway. But, of course, we started to talk. One of the women was a retired schoolteacher. She said the first day of the next school year after she retired, she walked up to the bench, looked at her watch, and said, now the children are doing their maths, and I'm not. She grinned. Her friend grinned. They both looked as if they were relishing their walk, even though at least one of them had done it many times. That's the way to live life.

Although the sun was hot and there was no mitigating cool breeze, it was a pleasant walk. Then we hit what we thought was the last rocky downhill path into Bath. Hooray, we said. Tom and I took pictures of each other with a suburb of Bath in the background.

When we got down into the suburb, we were giddy. Not much longer now and we'll be having a cream tea, 7-Up, water, champagne, whatever. Tom estimated a half a mile at the most, according to the book. Uh, hmm, that's funny, he said.

Funny?

The guide says to watch out for all the uphill paths. Oh, Tom said, the guide must mean if you're coming out of Bath to go to Chipping Camden. I know, you're thinking, that doesn't make any sense. But it made sense to Tom and me at the time. Because we wanted it to.

What a cruel joke! What an unnecessary twist to the ending! We could have just walked on the sidewalk next to the main street into Bath. But no. The guide had us going up steep paths (including one through a field!) to pop out next to a faux Royal Crescent with a pitch-and-putt in front of it. What should have been an easy 15-minute walk into Bath turned into a torturous 45-minute agony of "de feet."

Okay, so after we popped back out into civilization again, the path did take us past all the wonderful architectural sights of Bath, including the real Royal Crescent. We later figured the total mileage to the end of the walk was between 10-1/2 and 11 miles.

Our B&B was right on The Way, a half a mile from the finish line. I was too tired and thirsty and footsore and spouting gibberish at that point. Maybe tomorrow morning we could finish the walk.

After a great dinner at the restaurant next door, we wandered around the town. We wound up at Bath Abbey. Tom said it was the end point of the walk, so we started looking for a marker. We had almost completed a circuit around the huge structure when we saw ... our walking companion, the woman from Oxford. And seconds later, up popped her husband.

They had completed the walk that afternoon and looked around and around the Abbey for the marker, too. They had decided to come back after dinner to continue their search. Where is it? I asked. They smiled little cat smiles. You're standing on it. Below our feet was a fancy circular plaque with a picture of a golden acorn.

If our Oxford friends hadn't told us about the plaque, we would have gone home a little disappointed. How fortuitous was that meeting? We talked for quite a while and finally parted ways. Despite the joy we took in each other's acquaintance, we'll never see each other again, but our meeting this evening was meant to be, don't you think?

Walking out of Pennsylvania, we found unintentional art and a garden with hundreds of roses.

The first door is from Cold Ashton (near Pennsylvania), and the rest are from Bath.

From Special Plants. The second picture is of a geranium. Really!

One last monument to Lord Somebody from his grandson. It is placed near the battlefield of the English civil war. There was a poignant story on the plaque of two friends who fought on opposite sides. When will we ever learn, eh?

Tom is busy examining the last topograph, looking for Bath. Psst, it's to your left.

The Way went through yet another golf course. This one bisected the course. Our timing had to be good! Yes, that's the wheat field. Yes, that's a picture of me celebrating the "last" downhill road into Bath. Hah!