The Hagerstown Run

The plan for today was to tour Hagerstown.  Before we could do that I needed to stop at the Boonsboro Post Officer to pick up a general delivery package.  The Good Sams Mail Forwarding Service is working as well as advertised.  The next adventure will be seeing if the post office at our next location also accepts general delivery.

Once we had mail in hand it was off to the local Dunkin Donuts to use their WiFi so we could back up phones.  Lori’s laptop also has a virus that causes it to beep repeatedly and her key board is locked out so I was hoping I could get the Microsoft Security Essentials to update its definitions and then scan.  This is something I’ll have to try again because I kept getting booted off the connection.

Our next stop was Hagerstown.  As always the first place we look for is the visitor’s center.  Hagerstown’s visitor center is in the heart of the downtown area and unlike Frederick this one has metered parking ($1 gets 2 hrs).  We grabbed postcards and some walking tour pamphlets and headed to the hood of the Ram to strategize or plan.  Hagerstown has five mapped walking routes that all start from the Public Square.  Lori and I decided on the City Park Walk which is a 2.28 mile loop through the South Prospect St. and City Park historic districts.  As usual it didn’t take us long to deviate from the mapped route once we found the Hagerstown Cultural Trail.  There are so many ways to look at all of these tourist things.  My last hometown could never seem to get off of top dead center and improve itself.  So when I take these walks I look at things other cities have done and say, “Why didn’t we do that?” while Lori takes these walks and enjoys the art work and how it is placed in the city.  Along the Hagerstown Cultural Trail is several sculptures

and buildings with full murals.  This building was a former grain mill 

 and is now a giant billboard for the cultural trail that is visible for blocks.  My favorite piece of art was the pinwheels that actually moved with the breeze.

  You also see how a city can incorporate existing structures, such as these utility poles into the canvas.

  While I’m not a fan of corrugated pipe over the utility poles it certainly serves the purpose and provides additional placement.

What makes a walking trail successful?  In my mind it has to have varied and interesting sights.  It must also pass by area business especially restaurants and coffee shops so people can stop for lunch and refreshments.  It most also be clearly marked.

  It should be family oriented and have an educational perspective.  This picture entitled “The Fishing Lesson” shows a bear teaching its cub how to fend for itself. 

 What makes this sculpture interesting is that those brown things in the water are live trout!

While not every town can incorporate its own phone app Hagerstown does have a free mobile app titled “Visit Hagerstown”.  You keep the app running in the background and allow push notifications so you are informed when you are near a part of the city’s culture or heritage.