All it takes is a couple quick trips from Connecticut to New Hampshire and a 10-day jaunt to Wisconsin and bingo, another 5,000 miles on the car. 

Time for another oil change, tire rotation and alignment check, the latter especially important after all those potholes on Chicago streets.

New Hampshire Part 1: July 4

My July 4 tradition continued with a visit to Contoocook, home of sister-in-law Ginni Haines, for the small-town holiday festivities.  The kids’ parade kicked off as usual, but neither my granddaughters nor any offspring of brother Rick’s family were involved, so I did not take any photos.  Go here to see the collection from other years.

Instead of the longish but pleasant trek to downtown for the kids’ event, we only needed to make it to the end of Ginni’s driveway and set up some chairs to watch the adult parade roll by.  I confess I took the car; that’s a lot of chairs to carry. Here we all are, mostly the Houston clan, waiting for the parade:

Lead by a policeman on an ATV and the band-on-a-trailer, without the usual tarp shading them on this coolish day, it trooped on by and the tossed candy rained down on the spectators.  There were the usual old cars and fire engines, but missing this year were representatives of a few civic associations. 

A notable entry were the tractors from Pine Lane Farm, which is celebrating its 94^th year.  That’s the dairy farm operated by the Houstons, Ginni’s family.

New Hampshire Part 2: Ogontz Resort near Lyman

A couple weeks later I was back in New Hampshire at the Ogontz White Mountain Suzuki Institute music camp.  Daughter Jennifer and company do a week up there and recently I have been dropping by the last day or so and combining that with a visit with my paddling friend Leslie, who lives in nearby Bethlehem. And of course I always go along with the Fords for the stop at Chutters on the way home Saturday afternoon.

This year I got to meet just about everyone in Leslie’s family he’s talked about since we’ve known each other.  It was nice to put faces, and start friendships, with folks I’d only heard about. 

The music photos, including Ryan (bass), Margeaux (violin) and Simone (cello) are below. Go here to see the photos of the Ogontz Resort from 2023.

Leslie and I went canoeing with a friend, Debbie, on a quiet stretch of the Connecticut River.  I can say canoeing instead of the generic “paddling,” because both Leslie and Debbie, instead of their kayaks of the past, now own brand new Hornbeck canoes, the same model as mine only shorter.  And, as you can see from the photos below, they are much shinier than mine, which is now ten years old and looking its age.

On to Wisconsin

This was a trek to look at some sites related to the Amberg family, ie, wife Sue and brother-in-law Michael.  Michael’s wife, Kim, also came along.  They flew up from Florida and Sue and I drove over from Connecticut and picked them up at Midway in Chicago. We proceeded to leisurely explore three Wisconsin towns: Amberg (founded by great grandfather William A. Amberg), Baraboo (where young Sue and Michael vacationed with family) and Mineral Point (to poke around a house that’s been in a wing of the family for years).

I made no attempt to document this family history and ended up with only these photos from the trip, of this nicely kept former gas station in Spring Green that is now an opal gallery.    You can go here to see my entire collection of recycled gas stations.