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Tuesday, April 1

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It was a beautiful day for a one-and-a-half-mile, round trip, walk in the Blue Ridge Mountains behind The Cove.

To enter the path, we went down the steps behind The Training Center.

There is a nicely paved walkway near the buildings.

The path into the mountain is well marked. Our end goal was the chapel.

My walking partner was Geraldine Zimmerman. She and her husband Paul are part of our tour and live in Berks County. We had a great time getting acquainted and hearing each other’s story.

Cerwin has never enjoyed walks, and especially not now that he is dealing with arthritis. When she learned that I was venturing out on the pathway to The Chapel, during our free time, she asked if she could go with me. Paul does not enjoy walking either. I warned her that I may stop to take pictures. 🙂 She liked that idea.

This part of the walk was mostly downhill and quite easy. Coming back was all up hill and not quite as easy.

We occasionally stopped to read the Bible verses posted along the trail.

Pilgrims’ Inn is a motel for The Cove when there are large groups. A staff person thought this has 80 rooms and Shepherd’s Inn has 70.

As we approached the lower part of the trail, we followed a stream that got larger as we approached the valley.

My first Periwinkle sighting of the year.

I was fascinated by this bud growing out of a tree trunk.

A pretty rock pattern

We found this beautiful Japanese quince at the end of our trail in Ruth’s garden which surrounds The Chapel.

We only viewed The Chapel from a distance as we would be seeing it in detail the next day.

Our walk back covered the same scenery, only uphill. We were exhausted by the time we entered Shepherd’s Inn and stopped to sit on comfortable chairs for a few minutes before walking to The Training Center. I had 12,000 steps in by bedtime that day.