Just a Little Weekend Wandering

So this weekend we had an authentic German adventure... The Stocks (Rachael and Mitch) invited us on a "Volkswanderung".

What is a Volkswanderung, you ask?  Well, it's basically an organized walk through some beautiful part of your local countryside.  And the add that Lilo gave me from her newspaper literally says (or, according to google translate/Jessica) that it's a "people walk" and you should "bring your migratory friends"!  So that's what the Stocks did!

We found this tiny little village only a little ways from ours.  It was actually just up past where we hiked for Frulingfest!  So we learned once we got up there that these things are super popular all over the world.  We happened upon an AF retiree who is obsessed with volk's marches and he kind of acted as our free tour guide for the first part of our walk.  

The blue tape marks the 5k trail, the yellow for 10k, and the red for 20k, if you're crazy like that.

Apparently the die-hard volks-walkers like to get these official stamps in their official books after each march.  It's a pretty legit organized thing.  We just walked and had fun!

We walked through some seriously beautiful woods.  Whenever there's a fork in the path, you look to find a tree or branch that has your trail marker on it.  You wouldn't think it'd be that hard, but there was at least one time I would have gone the wrong way on accident.  Let's just blame that on the fact I was talking to Rachael and hoping someone else was watching the trail... which the boys were.  

We were also puppy-sitting Mr. Marley Meese that day so Randy and Shawna and Natalie could hop on down to Switzerland.  I was worried at a few points that I might be pushing him too hard... but he didn't seem to mind one bit!  Sam got a kick out of "helping" me walk Marley...

...which actually worked in my favor... it was the fastest she walked all day!  Thankfully we had a double jogging stroller and an ergo to distribute the three tiny humans when they got tuckered out.

They actually handled it surprisingly well considering that it took us about two hours... and they had nothing really to do but look at trees.  Mini-volkswanderers in the making!

At about the halfway point we came across this little rest stop... complete with free iced tea, food for sale, and tiny beers, which of course I had to have!  When else in our lives are we going to be sold mini beers in the middle of the woods?  This moment of awesomeness is brought to you by Germany!  This country cracks me up.  I LOVE IT!

My favorite part was that we drove less than five minutes down the road and got to explore a completely new area of Germany.  We've never really done much walking/hiking in the woods, even though it's something that's always on my "to do list that never gets done"... so this was great because we got to walk and walk and explore and not (really) be afraid of getting lost!

Big thanks to Rachael and Mitch for a) hearing about it on the radio and b) telling us about it when they were over for dinner on Friday.  We would have totally missed out otherwise!

So there's a fun little "When in Rome" German tradition for ya.  Though apparently it's not just in Germany... check this out and see if you can join a march in your neck of the woods!

Happy walking!