You can go home again. PA, VT, ME June 25 - July 23

Guy and Jenny enjoying a fine afternoon

Traffic around DC is a huge barrier to getting anywhere.  We therefore waited until Saturday morning to make the run to Doylestown, PA where Jenny’s sister Wendy and her husband Guy live.  We’ve always admired them for their priorities.  They’re that rarest of subspecies of Americans – ones who live within their means!  They have stayed in and steadily improved a small house while being able to travel and play.  We’ve always had a great time with them, wherever we meet up. 

Wendy had a coffee house concert Saturday night that we made sure not to miss.  She’s been pursuing her dream of being a professional musician full time for the last year and is having good success.  Her band is very tight.  Guy was sound man and stage decorator.  The show was a good display of Wendy’s considerable chops as a musician and lyricist.  An added plus was getting to spend some time with our niece Amy, who just got a new position working with at-risk kids in Reading, PA.

 

Sunday we caromed an hour southwest to Doug’s sister Carol’s house in West Chester, PA.  As always, we had a wonderful time talking, walking and devouring Carol’s husband Bob’s fabulous cooking.  They have made a beautiful home of a house Carol and Doug’s grandfather built in the late 60’s.  We had two nice walks with Carol along the Brandywine River on a new section of a rails-to-trails project on an old trolley line that ran from West Chester to Downingtown.

One of the highlights of our visit was seeing Doug’s cousins Sally and George Mohr who live near Carol in Coatesville.  Sally’s just shy of 90 and George is 91.  All Doug’s life and our married time together, Sally and George have been benign and wonderful mentors.  It was great to see them still having fun together.  We had lunch at a little restaurant that has made a name for itself at a local airport.  One of Sally and George’s daughters, Cindy Wolcott, was able to join us along with her daughter Sarah, who’s going to Trinity College in Hartford in the fall.  They were just back from a cruise in Alaska.  Sally and George have always been travelers, so they were excited for our journey. 

The Hudson River at Nyack

 

Our next major journey was to  Vermont, where Jenny’s family was gathering for a reunion.  On the way we stayed at Wendy and Guy’s again and did some shopping for the trip.  Thursday we drove to Guy’s sister Pam’s in Nyack, NY to visit and to shorten up the drive on Friday.  That evening we went out to a good Italian place and drove around town a bit.  Nyack is an old Hudson River town that was nearly wrecked by the building of the Tappan Zee Bridge and the Interstate highway approaches to it.  What has survived is a bedroom community for NYC and a sweet collection of beautiful buildings stretched along the river.  

July 1 saw us up early for the drive to Vermont.  We left at 6:00am in the hope of avoiding traffic and reaching the town of Greensboro in the far northeast of the state by noon.  We were struck by how long the drive in Vermont was.  The Green Mountains that give the state its name were beautiful and welcoming. 

Our moss-covered digs at Brown's Circus, Greensboro, VT

View from the picnic spot on Barr Hill, VT

Kate with a rooster sculpture that appears mysteriously all over Greensboro

For the next week we swam, walked, sailed, picnicked and gabbed with Jenny’s  wonderful extended family.  It was the first time since Jenny’s dad passed away in 2003 that the four Bell sisters, Carey, Wendy, Polly and Jenny were all in the same place.  All their kids were there also, with the exception of Ian Lawson who was away at camp.  The weather was superb.  We kept up our record of no rain so far on the trip, the exception being some thunderstorms late at night.  

By the time July 7 came around, we were looking forward to getting to Maine to see friends and family there.  The drive over from Vermont to Maine is slow.  There is no real direct route.  It felt great to make the drive once more and to see that nothing had really changed along the way. 

Silliness on the Lake

The next 2 weeks we stayed with our friend Phil Brown at his house in West Rockport, very close to Camden.  We spent the first several days with Phil and his girlfriend Mary Ellen before Phil headed out on his own trip to Alaska via motorbike.  We house-sat for him for a week after he left. 

Kate was thirsty for more kid time.  She did a three-night camp out on a friend’s island on Lake Megunticook with Elyssa and Rachel Bower, Alissa Eddy and Vivian Priestley.  They kayaked out with all their gear and spent the next two days having a blast swimming, paddling about and just hanging out on their “Haven” island.  They had done something similar the summer before and showed much more ability this time around in taking care of themselves.  They’re growing up very fast, but all are having a lot of fun in the process.
 

On Dick and Ula's trimaran "Flying Circus"

Doug, Bruce, Cathy and Jenny aboard "Heron"

We knew we wouldn’t be able to visit everyone we wanted to see, but had committed to having as relaxing a time as we could.  We managed to get out on a sail with Dick and Ula Cadwallader and their daughter aboard their trimaran as well as a sail on the schooner Heron with our friends Bruce and Cathy Cole from Hawaii.  Cathy lives in Camden while Bruce lives in Waimea.  They get together every several months.  Their family is stretched out even further by their daughter Kate, who lives with her husband and new daughter in Spain.

Another highlight was visiting with Scott Dickerson and Janet Redfield, two friends who bought and protected Doug’s stepfather Clarence’s farm after Clarence passed away in 2004.  Scott and Janet have built a house on the property and have created a garden that is truly awesome.  The vegetables seem like mutant versions of their normal counterparts.  We had a very fine evening touring and then eating the fruits of their considerable labors. 

Visiting Maine after traveling from the eternal summer of Hawaii makes for a very different experience.  When you live in Maine, the summers are painfully short.  Instead of being a time of repose with much time spent on the porch with a glass of iced tea as it was growing up in Pennsylvania, summer in Maine can be a stressful time of getting the garden to bear, getting maintenance done on the house and readying for the long cold time.  We loved our time in Maine this summer and laughed that, if we hadn’t lived there already, we would be saying “Let’s live here!”  It surely is a beautiful place.  If we go back there we will have to do better at embracing every season.