The Pelican Rapids event (2006 Oktoberfest Volksmarch) was the most beautiful walk I've ever been on.  I was so glad that I went!  (Someone local who did it in 2005 told us that this was a better route than that year because we were on less road and more of the golf course.)

We went in and out of patches of woods surrounding the country club and found the variety of terrains interesting and inviting.  The views from the top of the hills made the climbs worthwhile in all cases as we were able to pause and enjoy the Lida Lake vistas as well as the scenic beauty of all the little ponds tucked into the layout of the golf course.  A new calendar-perfect scene pleased us at every turn with the variety of colors. The most spectacular, perhaps, was the intensity of the crimson of the sumacs reflected on the surface of one particularly mirror-still pond. I even kept peeking over my shoulder as we ascended the next incline to be sure to see all that I could of that picture and embed it in memory for recall on the too-soon-to-be-arriving all-white days of winter.

The weather was wonderful, of course, so that helped and the trails were never crowded in spite of a run also going on.  In fact, we would have liked to have seen more walkers.  We think that there were only 17 by noon and few of the regulars that we expected seemed to have shown up by the time we needed to leave (but Chuck was the one looking at the log and he doesn't always recognize names as I would). The trail was well marked with BIG (12 x 12 or so) blue flags on 3 foot sticks so we could always see where we were to go next -- even where there was another loop coming close to the one that we were on.

We had to leave just as the music was starting because we had ended up with an evening commitment we had to get back for.  I would have loved to have stayed for that.  Next year, I go again and plan to stay for the music too,  no matter what!  (Although I took some song sheets, I only gave out 2 to 2 musicians before we had to leave.) Next year, plan to go too.  You won't be sorry!  We now have baseball caps and mugs to add to our walk award collections, too!

Lois Head, St Cloud, MN
October 10, 2006