Downtime 2

Monday, July 10 - Sunday, July 23

We're at my sister's again. I'll post bits and pieces, but I'm not anticipating any big events or spectacular photo ops. 

WED, 7/12... TWO big events today. An awesome thunderstorm (one of the 2 things I really miss in Seattle), and an equally awesome Scrabble game. The final score was 342-335, and neither of us really cared who won. (We know the pros wouldn't consider this a terribly high score, but we don't care about that either.)  Behold:

(Greg spent the day doing intense industrial design for new 2-part sliding doors for some of the dog runs. Now he needs to source the materials and find a fabricator. He loves challenges.)


Weekend, 7/14-16...

Brown Bear Book Barn
(I bought my first Michener, and
I'll be you've never heard of it.)

Tortillas were huge. Greg cut his
down and apparently felt he
had to re-purpose what was left.

Baby birds in the horse barn.
(Two of Lynn's granddaughters ride.)

One tiny bit of  Quabbin Reservoir, 39 sq miles of valley that was flooded in
1940 to provide drinking water for the area. 

Thursday, 7/20. Caught the tail end of sunset when
I stepped out for a post-Scrabble walk.

SAT, 7/22...  Lynn's daughter Tracy and her husband live on 5 acres surrounded by another 25 owned by her in-laws. They have 6 kids, ages 3-15. Every summer they throw a huge lawn party for friends, neighbors, co-workers, etc. Potluck. Home brew. Bounce house. Bonfire and s'mores at dusk. It's great. 

(I wonder how many shoes never made it home.)

Lynn, in front of just one of the many serving tables.

BlogThoughts... These 2 weeks were great. I was pretty lazy (or busy playing Scrabble, depending on your point of view). Greg, on the other hand, was always busy with some sort of improvement project. To ensure that no one blocked the dirt driveway leading up to the construction site, he posted appropriate signage and then striped the parking lot (including DO NOT BLOCK in large yellow letters directly in front of the off-limits area). He also spent time with the contractor, discussing this or that option - and ultimately, with Lynn's approval, upgraded her heating system from indv elec units to central gas including AC. He also spent a lot of time working on our AC unit. (Kicking myself for not snapping a pic of him sweating in blue coveralls and grimacing as he tried to loosen/tighten critical bolts.)

Moving on, Catching Up

Sunday, July 9

Travel day, leaving about 11am. Before that, I drove north about 10 minutes to attend Sacrament Mtg. As I exited my car in the parking lot, I was quite surprised to immediately see license plates from Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, and Missouri. The Missouri couple live up here half the year; I didn’t have a chance to talk to any of the other out-of-towners. The main speaker gave a very moving talk about how to best relate to and/or support friends and loved ones with clinical depression or similar struggles.

Uneventful drive back to my sisters (south central Mass), where we’ll stay until we fly to Seattle for the annual Miller Family Picnic (and a round of doc & dental appts).

Backing up to yesterday, I’d like to share pics from a neighborhood walk I took in the morning and a short walk Greg & I took after dinner. (Good day for FitBit - I actually logged over 10,000 steps.) 

Neighborhood Spillway

 4700sf of Greek Revival
(built in 1851, currently empty)

Maybe with some TLC.... 

....old can be new again.
(Both houses in the same neighborhood.)

Evening Sky (humbling)

BlogPic...  Some would say this front-yard sign epitomizes the Vermont spirit.

Out & About in Bennington

Saturday, July 8

Add caption

Woke up to more rain. Rolled over. Woke up later and took this pic out the window by the bed. We’re parked 3’ from the Elks Annex, one of 2 original bldgs on their property. (The other was razed so they could build their lodge; now they’re restoring this one.) Something about the play of sun/shadow/white/red/gray appealed to me. As I shot the picture, a nearby bell started chiming. I checked the clock – 8am. Cool. But then I realized I was hearing the 9th or 10th bell, and then several more rang twice as fast. I figured it was time to get up. (And the same thing happened at 6pm and again at 8 the next morning.)

Elks Annex

Breakfast here. Cheerful folks, good food. 

After breakfast (and another rain shower), we visited the Bennington Arts Center, which includes a covered bridge museum. I hung out in the art galleries – birds (lots of em!), other wildlife, sculpture and fabric art as well as framed works of many media. Wonderful. I finished by joining Greg and watching a video about both the nostalgia and the design/construction of covered bridges. (There are still 100; I believe there once were 600.)

No photos were allowed inside, but the moose outside were just begging to be immortalized in my blog.

This Tiffany Moose was stunning. The photo does not do it justice.

Bloo Moose, on skis.

From the Arts Center we stopped at “First Church” (Officially First Congregational Church). The nickname is best explained online: “The Old First Church was ‘gathered’ on December 3, 1762, the first Protestant congregation in the New Hampshire Grants… The present sanctuary, completed in 1805, is the first church built in Vermont that reflects the separation of church and state.” (oldfirstchurchbenn.org) Over the next 100+ years, significant changes in interior architecture were made for stylistic or utilitarian reasons. In the 1930s, however, the sanctuary was restored to its original design (almost – the lower pulpit was retained). There’s lots of history behind the cemetery too (but this is just a blog, which I often forget). Robert Frost and many of his descendants are buried here. 

These are "box pews," originally purchased
by families to raise money for construction.
It's a beautiful building.

First Congregational Church (1805)

"In a Disused Graveyard"

Headstone for Frost, his wife, 
and 5 children.

Greg napped when we got home. I took a walk downtown. Last night at the play I sat next to a lovely woman who worked part-time at "the bookstore." I found the right bookstore and made a purchase, and the cashier told me she'd let "Chris" know I'd come in. Coming back on the opposite side of Main Street, I made a new friend at the flower box and visited Fiddlehead at Four Corners, a wonderful store full of many artistic surprises, including a large display of glass pieces crafted by a Seattle woman. And, in the last block, I discovered a chair that might support several Papa Bears.

Beautiful flowers & a beautiful lady.

Jolly Green Giant Chair (VT)
(The seat is a good foot above my head)

Papa Bear chair at NH campground

BelatedBlogThoughts... When we were up on Mt Washington the other day, several Hasidic Jewish families were also visiting. Then yesterday or the day before as we passed through Bethlehem, NH, I learned that this town used to be a popular vacation spot for NYC Jews suffering from hay fever. Last night, the play - even though it was clearly a farce - included many references to the difficulties of being Jews (Selznick and Hecht, the new writer) in America. My high school had 2600 kids, with a significant Jewish population. (I think I was the only Hoffman in class on Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah.) I've never worried much about what religion (or none) people subscribe to, but I do find Judaism somewhat fascinating. (Perhaps that's partly due to loving both The Chosen and The Promise, both of which I plan to re-read.) I did a little research on Hasidic Judaism today, but "a little" just isn't enough to gain any real understanding. 
Bethlehem Trivia: In 1987, the town council declared its city the "poetry capital of New Hampshire."  And just outside town we passed a Christmas tree farm called Finnegan's Fine Firs. 😃

Long Day... Happy Ending

Haddock SeaDog

Friday, July 7

Long day on the road, in part because both NH and Vermont are “you-can’t-get-there-from-here” states. What the crow can do in 15 minutes takes us 30. Ultimately we’ll land in Bennington, in the SW corner of Vermont. Along the way we stop in Lebanon (NH) to meet a notary, sign some legal papers and trek to UPS to ship them back to Seattle. Then we unhitch the M3 and detour about 20 miles north to visit Joseph Smith’s birthplace. (Lunch along the way.) I expected just to take a picture of the monument and leave, but there was quite a bit more to see, and even Greg found much of it interesting. Extensive, beautifully maintained grounds, with an adjacent primitive campground for youth conferences and such.

Footings of the elder Smith home.

(stone "bridge" to the right )

Old Turnpike Road

Birthplace Memorial

Back in Lebanon, we reattach our “toad” and head north ever so briefly to access I-91 South. We reach the Elks Lodge in Bennington at 5pm. Greg drops in to the bar for the obligatory beer, and I wander into town. (Main Street is a block from the Elks.) Visited with the couple who run The Owl’s Nest (upholstery & antiques). She gave me vintage (1970s) stickers for NH & VT, which Greg promptly affixed to the MH. We have tickets for Moonlight & Magnolias (community theater) at 7:30. Lunch was late (and filling!), but we each ingest some protein (a brat for Greg; Famous Amos cookies w/ MILK for me) before walking to the venue.

(Cuban flag at the bottom 😃)

Great show! It's a farce based on the true dilemma faced by producer David Selznick when the original screenplay for Gone with the Wind had to be rewritten in 5 days by a new writer who'd never read the book. Selznick and the director synopsized (??) the story by acting out key scenes...  and the rest is history. Cast of just 4 - the 3 gentlemen and Selznick's secretary, who is a master of rapid-fire dialogue.

BlogThoughts…  As I’ve mentioned before, I know next to nothing about my own family history, but genealogy certainly can be fascinating. If you go back far enough, it’s amazing what you find. At the Joseph Smith Birthplace visitor center, there was a condensed genealogy starting with John Howland, one of  JS’s two 5th-great grandfathers who came over on the Mayflower. Through various lines over 400 years, such notables as Winston Churchill, the presidential Bushes, and Lucille Ball are part of the extended Smith family. 
I'll close with pics of two buildings I saw today. Both old. Both intriguing.

We've seen lots of old bldgs, but these parallelogram windows were a real surprise.
(Fortunately, we passed it 3 times so I finally got a decent shot.)

At the other extreme...
Sacred Heart St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church (1892)
(Passed it walking - beautiful!)

Frost in Franconia

Thursday, July 6

Revered New England poet Robert Frost was born in California. Who knew. His father died when Frost was 11, and his mother took their 2 children back to New England where her family was. Today we drove to Franconia to visit The Frost Place, a small farmhouse on 50 acres where Frost and his wife & kids lived during WWI. Over the years, he lived several places in NE, but this farm was apparently his favorite.

“The Frost Place is a nonprofit educational center for poetry and the arts based at Robert Frost’s old homestead, which is owned by the town of Franconia, New Hampshire… Since 1977, The Frost Place has awarded a fellowship each summer to an emerging American poet, including a cash stipend and the opportunity to live and write in the house for several months.” (frostplace.org) We watched a video on Frost’s life and walked the poetry trail, knowing that we were likely literally walking in his footsteps. 

Frost lived here 5 years, and returned
every summer for 19 more.

Tranquil Poetry Trail

(pea & crumbs are the incompletes)

Greg getting literary.

Back at the campground, we also spent some time walking a local river trail. Aside from a multitude of mosquitoes (not as dangerous as ticks, but way more annoying), it was a pleasant stroll. 

Androscoggin River

"Two roads diverged in a (green) wood..."

Both oil & gas flow under here.

Lone berry? No, just a tangled fishing float.

BlogThoughts... When I was reading the poem above, I thought about the really serious gardeners among my friends. I enjoy gardening, too, but it's definitely a casual, hit-or-miss hobby. Hats off to the Lorrie Melsons, Andy Heads, and Uwe Arendts of the world. 😃)

Mt. Washington

Wednesday, July 5

There's a working phone inside!

Off to New Hampshire. On the road early, and I spent most of the trip at the dinette, pushing to catch up this blog. Missed all the scenery (lovely, but – honestly – just lots more trees and streams), and when I finish this entry, the only day not written up is tomorrow. Yea!! 

We’re camped in the tiny town of Shelburne, not far from Mt. Washington, the highest peak in the northeast. Not terribly high at 6288’, but famous for all sorts of reasons. The most interesting to me is that the strongest wind ever recorded anywhere in the world – 231mph – was at this peak back in 1934. A record still not broken after 83 years. The road opened in 1861, the first auto drove to the summit in 1899 (Greg says the speed may have been about equal to my walking pace, but it made it to the top – 7.6 miles), and the fastest climb (by a race car on a closed course) is just over 6 minutes. We all know it’s impossible to capture the grandeur of expansive views in a photo, but here are a few attempts.

Innocent beginning...

First view...

First edge...

Cog Railway
(3 of these came up to the summit)

(Perfect weather,
which is rare.)

The hills are alive (but there was no music).

(Ski runs to the left.)

We skipped the line for a photo at the summit sign, so I'm
including this one - oldest hiking trail in the country!