In Georgia, and Safe

It was a wonderful summer in New England, with so many visits with friends and family, as planned. But now we are back in the south, our new home. We hurried back to Georgia in September with the promise that the closing on our home would be Oct. 1. Surprise! Or I guess I should say, no surprise, the builder revised the predicted completion date and the closing won't be until mid-November.  We have been hanging out at Coastal Georgia RV Resort, just 15 minutes from Jekyll Island, and 20 minutes from The Cottages at Jekyll Island where we hope to be living very soon. 

Right now however we are about 160 miles inland, in Ashburn Georgia, at Carroll's Sausage and Country Store (and Georgia Peanut RV park), sitting out Hurricane Matthew in safety.  There was a voluntary evacuation of Jekyll Island and the surrounding area, but we had already decided to leave for a few days just to be safe. (Living in an RV makes it incredibly easy to get out of the way of hurricanes, which is an argument for holding on to the RV after we move into our seaside sticks and bricks home.) The storm is expected to hit Jekyll today, with the worst winds and water levels being at high tide, around 1:30 pm. The predictions I just read are not too dire, with swells at around 15' max and winds at about 30 mph max.  It doesn't look like that will cause too much damage, but we are vigilantly keeping the best outcomes for everyone in our hearts and minds.

While we're sitting out the storm, I'm in my pajamas and in blogging mode, which never seems to happen anymore, so I'd better share a few photos of some of the high points of our summer.  Let me say though, that the greatest moments of our summer, with dear friends and family, will remain undocumented here. It is by no means a statement of their relative importance. 

MASSACHUSETTS

Our first stop was in Massachusetts where we stayed at the Country Aire Campground in Charlemont, near Shelburne Falls and the scenic Bridge of Flowers.

Bridge of Flowers, Shelburne Falls, MA

MAINE

Next we spent about a month in Maine. One of our first stops was on the coast, where our friend Mike showed us around the quaint historical town of Castine. We enjoyed a sailboat cruise around the islands off of Castine, where Rick was in his blue mood. 

Aboard the 56' vintage yacht Guildive, out of Castine, ME

Then we met our friends Steve & Wendy at Acadia National Park for a week of sightseeing, hiking and lobster.

Bass Harbor, ME

Bernard, ME

Northeast Harbor. ME

Bernard, ME

View from Park Loop Rd., Acadia NP, ME

While in Maine we also had lovely visits with the Foggs at Mousam Lake, and the Thomas's at Cold Stream Pond, and got rides on both of their pontoon boats! Lucky us. 

NEW HAMPSHIRE

We stopped briefly in New Hampshire, on the north side of the White Mountains, where Honey and I visited this beautiful mountain stream and swimming hole every day to beat the heat.

VERMONT

Now for a great find in Vermont!  While staying at the Moose River Campground in St. Johnsbury, VT, I discovered Dog Mountain, the quintessential dog-devoted experience created by artist Steve Huneck and his wife Gwen Huneck. 

Roadside sign marking Dog Mountain and Chapel

The Dog Chapel was built by Steve Huneck and is designed to give people and dogs a place to remember and honor dogs they have loved. The walls are covered with notes and photographs that people have left about their dogs.

Inside Dog Chapel

Dog Mountain is an immense piece of property with fields, ponds and woods, interlaced with walking (and running!) paths for people and happy dogs. Always open, always free, and always well cared for.

Honey at Dog Mountain

At the Steve Huneck Gallery (also dog friendly) you can purchase the artist's well known work. All proceeds go to the Friends of Dog Mountain Foundation and the upkeep of the property and chapel. Please visit their website.

Inside the Steve Huneck Gallery at Dog Mountain

 While in Vermont we continued our new found enjoyment of visiting state capitols. I believe this one at Montpelier is one of the smallest and is just as special as all the others we've visited. Each one is so unique, yet formed around the same functional government theme. Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys have a strong presence here.

VT state capitol at Montepelier, VT

While staying in Brattleboro VT we got to a few great contradances in Greenfield MA, and heard some new "high energy dance music with horns" from a band called Elixir.  It feels so good to see the contradance music and dance community that we love, vibrant with young dancers and musicians keeping the tradition alive and making it their own.

THE ROAD SOUTH

After a fast and furious (for us) two week drive back to Georgia through upstate New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, here we are still waiting out the completion of our condo and waiting out the storm, watching the weather channel, me still in my pajamas.

I sure hope to create another post as we continue our transition from full-time RVing to life off the road, and I hope it doesn't take another hurricane to make me do it.

On The Move Again

During our last few days on Cape Cod the sun shown for a few hours, and I got out to the beach and to the salt marshes to do a little photography. Rick got another visit in to Gull Pond. We spent more time with friends, as seems to be what this summer was all about. It was hard to say goodbye, but that's also what this life is about.  We hope we'll be back and that our friendships will stand the test of time and distance.

Salt Pond, Eastham, Cape Cod, Massachusetts

We have now embarked on our drafted trajectory toward the south/southwest for the winter.  There will be a couple of short stops to see some things of interest, the first being the Delaware Water Gap. After that we'll stay a few days just west of Philadelphia to see the Winterthur, Longwood and maybe Chanticleer estates and gardens. Then straight west across Pennsylvania to check out Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water. We've loosely sketched a southern route from there that includes Nashville, Graceland and the Natchez Trace, and we hope to be in Louisiana for Christmas. That's about as firm as we've gotten for now, but I think Utah, Montana and the eastern Sierra's are on the wish list for summer 2014. We'll see how that all unfolds and we hope to see you on the road.

Seal Watching out of Chatham, MA

Yesterday we had a window of good enough weather (no sun mind you) to get out on the water for an adventure with Beachcomber seal tours. The company is located in Chatham, at the elbow of Cape Cod.

As you can see, Cape Cod is shaped like a flexing arm, with Provincetown at the fist. We spend most of our time on the forearm between Eastham and Wellfleet, so it was a nice change to venture south to the more populated elbow. It was kind of a last minute decision and we felt fortunate to get a reservation on the 2 pm boat tour that leaves from an inland location at Chatham Boats.  

A trolley took us and about 12 other passengers to Ryder Cove where we boarded the boat.

After cruising slowly out of Ryder Cove, past Strong Island and many large, classic Cape waterfront homes...

we approached a sand bar where hundreds of grey seals rested.

We putted slowly up and down the sand bar several times, close enough to get some interesting shots.

Our captain/guide told us these were a mix of males and females...

the males being larger and solid dark brown and the females being smaller and speckled.

They made sounds that in chorus were kind of eerie, like a cross between singing and the wind blowing. Occasionally you'd hear a roaring single voice raised above the rest at a moment of some altercation.

There was lots of jockeying going on for space, our guide explained, because the males don't like to be touching one another. If they get too cozy they have to negotiate with their neighbors for territory on the small sandbar.

After viewing the seals for awhile, our captain showed us a few of the other local sights around the bay. On one of the larger sand bars there was some kind of an event (funeral, wedding, concert, party?) going on with boats parked nearby, lots of people gathered. You can just see one of two speakers they had mounted near the center of this picture among the standing people.

We motored by the Chatham Light as well, and popular Chatham Light Beach.

The day was overcast but not cold, thank goodness, because it was pretty windy out there. The rain held off until late at night, when we got some pretty heavy thunderstorms.  We joined our friends Beryl and Ray for BBQ at Marconi Beach Restaurant on Rt. 6 in Wellfleet. I think there are more restaurants, bakeries and delis here than anything else. You gotta eat, even when it rains, right?

Today it is cloudy again, with rain threatening - a perfect opportunity to work on the blog. We'll have our friends over for dinner tonight, for some more good times. Maybe a salad would be nice to balance out all this heavy restaurant food.

Cape Cod: The "Perfect" Vacation with Friends and Family

WARNING! Snide post ahead. Cape Cod lovers may want to turn back now.

For many people, Rick included, "The Cape" is practically holy. (In fact writing this will probably put me at risk with my loved ones.) Their families came here when they were kids, and it's just in their blood. It doesn't matter that the weather on The Cape seems to be bleak, cloudy, foggy, cold, windy, you name it, none of what you'd call beach weather. But folks still come here waiting for those few glorious days of sunshine, pleasant ocean breezes and warm temperatures. They have faith. They have memories. Give me the Bahamas.

And let me tell you about the beaches. There are three kinds of beaches on The Cape: the ocean, the bay and the ponds. You have choices!

Above is Marconi Beach, with the ubiquitous enormous dunes to scale, red tides, seaweed, jelly fish, and oh yeah, warnings:

But no biggie, just pop on over to the bay side where you'll find oyster shells and horseshoe crabs under foot, generations of sea grass tangling the murky salt water, occasional closures for polluted waters, but no sharks. Give me Hawaii.

But, if you have the right town beach pass, or it's dawn or twilight, you can head for one of the ponds. Rick loves Gull Pond, because that's where his family went.

Ah, fond memories of romping in the refreshing cool water after a long hot day in the salt water and sun. I don't know, it looks kind of cloudy in these pictures too. Heck, I'd even take Fort Lauderdale!

OK, so the weather may be dreary here on "The Cape," but the company sure isn't. We're parked in Eastham at Atlantic Oaks, a campground very close to where my two best friends from childhood, Linda and Beryl, and their husbands Thom and Ray, are staying in Welfleet. They come to the Cape every summer (they've got the history to buoy them up) and we were finally able to join them here this year.

Being with these guys is pure love. I just get really gushy about it. These are the kinds of friendships that last for decades, forgiving mistakes and surviving long distances of time and space. I don't care if the sun never shines, as long as I can sit down to dinner with my friends at the end of the day and laugh about it all. No perfect beach could beat this.

Thanks, my loved ones, for a perfect Cape Cod experience.

Bye-Bye Vermont : (

Our last (foggy) morning at the Brattleboro North KOA.

Every time I leave the twin states of Vermont and New Hampshire, and neighboring Massachusetts, I get all teary. They were my home for the longest continuous period of my life, where many good friends still live, and I did truly love it here. Oh dear. Well, I also really love our life on the road and am not ready to settle down anywhere just yet. So off we go.

We've had a very full social calendar, visiting with friends almost every day, at their homes, our RV or interesting places new and old. Highlights of our July and August include (but are not limited to):

Hiking and sharing a condo with Laura and Ian in Lincoln, NH.

Meeting many new colleagues, students and friends while teaching for Pratt in Lincoln, NH.

Blueberry picking at Dutton's Farm, as well as sharing several warm and cozy visits with Don and Robin in Mt. Holly, VT.

Visiting Hildene in Manchester, VT with Thomas and Audrey.

Sitting on the back porch next to heaven in Monterey, MA with Wendy and Steve M.

A way-too-quick catch-up dinner with Steve W.

A grand jovial dinner at Alec and Joan's beautiful Vermont home.

Another grand dinner, complete with buttons and bratwurst at Phyllis and Peter's home in Conway, MA.

A restful afternoon visit on Susan and Peter's back deck, overlooking Forest Lake in Winchester, VT.

42nd St. at the Weston Playhouse, featuring Dottie Stanley, in the company of Don, Robin, Chuck and Bonnie.

Three wonderful love-filled days with son Mark and his girlfriend Ahna in their new home, Portland, ME, including a ferry ride to Peaks Island.

Indian cuisine with Mike at Tandoor, also in Portland.

Biking around the campground with our lovely little neighbor Charlotte.

A surprise reunion and subsequent fun with Sandy at the Brattleboro contra dance.

Contra dancing with hundreds of new and old friends in Greenfield, MA.


PHEW! What did I forget?

Agri-Bliss in the Berkshires

So here we are in the beautiful Berkshires of Massachusetts, house sitting for our friends Wendy and Steve, in temperatures hitting the humid mid nineties with no AC! Holy Cow. In the past two years we haven't had to deal with heat like this, and the few days we did, we had air conditioning to get us through the night. So now, after rain for three weeks in NH, we are having a heat wave, which does happen now and again in New England. The good news is, our friends have a lovely screen porch with a bed on it, so we can sleep virtually outside in the cooler night air. Boy are we spoiled. 

The RV has been parked in the yard here for over three weeks. Seems to be happy just sitting there, and not bothered by the heat.

 

I'm having a great time garden sitting as well. I'm assigned to pick whatever is ready while we're here, plus I'm on Japanese beetle patrol. Every morning and evening I capture the rascals and send them on to bug heaven. They seem to like the raspberry bushes the best, then the willow bushes. Our friend Wendy is a basket weaver and she grows her own varieties of willow for the baskets. 

Here's what the willow looks like after its harvested and bundled.

The J beetles really go for one particular kind of willow, but I'm going my level best to keep them off. They're persistent little "bug"gers, and in just 12 hours from morning to evening, there's another batch after those tender willow leaves. It's a humbling enterprise.

Despite the hard work ; ) we are also managing to get out and do a few things for fun. We hit the Berkshire Botanical Gardens in Stockbridge one day. They have a lovely children's garden and a farm camp! Boy I would have loved to go to a farm camp when I was a kid. (Wait a minute, I am at a farm camp!)

Although this is an incredibly busy picture, perhaps you can make out the beautiful raised beds with specimen veggie plants in them. Everything looked lushly vibrant.

There were sculptures placed around the gardens, but I wasn't crazy about them in general. They do provide nice focal points for some pictures though.

And here's one of nature's own little focal points on a black-eyed susan.

There is also a collection of structures that all seem to be variations on the garden shed theme. Martha Stewart sponsored one, and it looks perfectly simple, just like you'd imagine. This one looks like it belongs in Cades Cove, TN.

Another morning I set out early to take some pictures and ended up at Gould Farm, where the gardens are tended by some very vigilant gardeners. 

I see them out there every time we pass by!  : )

Meanwhile, back at the house, I've taken some photos of the tools of the trade wielded on a daily basis by Wendy and Steve. Here are some intimate shots of those to finish up this post. 

Perhaps you have some of these in your home too?

When next I write, it will probably be from Brattleboro, VT. We'll see you there.