As I said, they’ve been going there for several years. But it was just this summer that it finally dawned on me that the camp is only about a half-hour from Bethlehem, where my Florida paddling buddy Leslie lives in the summertime.
So, bingo, a road trip evolved, including some paddling, overnights at Leslie’s, and a day or so of concerts and meals at Ogontz. It was all great fun. And, in the Ford family tradition, there was a stop at the famed Chutters Candy Store in nearby Littleton on the way back to Connecticut, where I bought a bag of my childhood favorites.
Below are some photos of the musical goings on. You can click on any one to start a slide show of the full images.
Below are some shots of the camp/resort itself.
And the obligatory paddling shots. Loons are always a welcome addition to a paddle.
And finally, for a change of pace, here’s a tired motorcyclist I found in rural Woodsville.
Twenty years ago today I slid my 30-year-old Grumman canoe into a small creek called the Mississippi River in northern Minnesota, plopped my 59-year-old body into it and began my paddling trip to New Orleans. I slowed the pace of my life to three mph for the next three and a half extraordinary months and have never enjoyed myself more.
And that exquisite feeling behind the grin I had on my face when I pulled ashore in New Orleans has never left my soul.
For someone like me, as a child and through my teens being uncomfortable turning a corner without knowing what’s there, it was an uncharacteristic leap into the unknown armed only with a belief that things will work out. They not only did, but they did so incredibly well. At the end, I had the same feeling I’d had after three years in Ethiopia with the Peace Corps: There’s nothing I can’t handle now!
That attitude served me well after Ethiopia when I embarked on a year-long trip from Nepal to Norway by land. I picked up enough of languages along the way to make do and felt comfortable wherever I happened to be.
It also helped immensely back in the workplace after the river trip. The tedious morning meetings were in a room formerly occupied by the travel department. A huge map of the U.S. covered one entire wall.
And there, every day, in the form of a blue squiggly line stretching from ceiling to floor, was my trip.
Bring it on!
If you want to read about the river trip and see the photos, start here.
I was back up in tiny Contoocook again this year to carry on our traditional July 4 parade pattern.
Kids’ Parade at 11:30 and Regular Parade at Noon, rain or shine, and smack on July 4, whenever the day falls.
We had lots of rain and no shine this year, but thankfully it didn’t really pour down until AFTER the parades were over. We even thought we were going to miss the rain entirely. Even a half hour beforehand there were no umbrellas being used as kids gathered to register for the parade.
All the photos from this year are below. And if you want to browse through former Fourths, start here.
Sister-in-law Ginni Houston, a mover and shaker in her community, represented well this year with a recycling tent on the town square.
The kids’ parade included the newest addition to the Rick and Ginni Haines family, grandson Everett, seen in the stroller below with his mom. Offspring of Jon and Georgia Haines, he has a big name to fill as it has history on both the Haines and Houston sides of the family.
Representing the Ford limb of the family tree were Margeaux and Simone (in red shirt) and the newest addition to their clan, a black lab named Nina.
All of the other kids’ parade photos are here:
The adult parade included the regulars of course–the color guard, town band on a trailer, an eclectic assortment of old vehicles and a loud bevy of fire engines. But special for us this year was a celebration of the Houston family’s nearly 100 years of farming (Pine Lane Farm) and one of its restored tractors and a modern one.
The Swift River in Belchertown, MA, is one of my go-to places, as much for the variety of yard art along its shores as anything else.
For me it’s best paddled on a hot day, because the Swift comes out the bottom of the very deep Quabbin Reservoir. The water is so cold that it cools the air above it and the other day it even caused droplets of condensation to form on the inside of the hull of my canoe.
The photos from the day are below. Just click on any one of them to be able to scroll through the larger versions. For photos of some of the same art from several years ago and information about the building of the Quabbin Reservoir, go here.
And finally there are these contrasting photos. The sign was purloined years ago from Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, and transplanted to the Swift. Here it is today, weather-worn, on the left, and as it appeared back in 2013, when I first spotted it.
I had a great “as the crow flies” drive through Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut the other day and I thought I’d share some of the photos here.
No, there are no scenic pictures. If I had stopped to snap a photo of all the scenic views I’d still be there. Scenic is a given in the northeast when you live in Florida. That’s what makes an “as the crow flies” trip such a delight.
There’s not really an “as the crow flies” setting on my GPS. It’s called “Shortest Distance.” The other setting is “Fastest Time.”
My trip last weekend is a good example of both. I was headed, with granddaughter Margeaux, to remote Chittenden Brook Campsite in the Green Mountains of central Vermont near Rochester. Whatever bug she had that kept her from traveling up with her family the day before was clearing up and I was delivering her there for the remainder of a family camping weekend. I hung around for lunch and dinner and stayed overnight—in a hotel!
The trip up from Hartford was a rocket run. With the GPS on “Fastest Time” we followed I-91 and I-89 and made it in three hours flat. The ride back to Connecticut the following day was on the “Shortest Distance” setting and took me seven hours, including a leisurely lunch stop, lots of dirt roads, and NO four-lane highways.
Even on the “Shortest Distance” setting my GPS tries to keep me on wide, paved roads with lines down the middle, but I often ignore the directions and turn onto upaved or narrower byways. It soon catches on and will adjust the route accordingly. I always know I am headed in sort of the right direction and the ETA light always lets me know when I can expect to get there. It’s all part of the fun.
That and the stuff you see along the way:
This guy’s been on the road for a long time. He reminded me of that farmer I spotted five years ago in Rhode Island, so I’ve tossed in a photo of him too.
This Memorial Day Parade in Dover, Vermont, slowed me down a bit. Fortunately there was a parking spot right up close so I didn’t have to walk far to get to it. There was a color guard and marching band up front, followed by a pickup truck with a bubble machine, a jeep with some local dignitaries and a line of fire engines.
Offbeat road signs always attract me. Don’t know what a popple is, but I want to avoid any and all dungeons. I think I traveled all of Wade Inn Road and saw neither a swimming hole nor a hotel. Popple, by the way, is an old Northeastern and Midwestern term for poplar trees and also trees and bushes in general. Dungeon of course, refers to dank and dark. And out of it we get a name for a road heavily covered in trees and bushes, sort of a tunnel, as this passage probably was at one time long ago.
When you have a house overlooking a nice valley you want to take advantage of the view, as this one certainly does, with its weird assortment of decks and balconies:
And finally, a couple of my favorites: old gas stations. One of them is now a pot shop in Rutland, Vermont, and what’s left of the other is along Windham Road outside Wilmington, Vermont. I’ve added these to my collection of course.
I revisited a favorite paddling spot today with some friends from the Paddle Killingly Meetup Group. It’s the Salmon River, down in Moodus, CT.
Access is from Sunrise State Park. Big name, but a neglected place. It’s the site of a former resort. The property has been owned by the state for a decade and open to the public for only a few years. There still isn’t even a sign out on the road, so not many folks know about the place. That’s what makes it a nice quiet place to meet with friends and go paddling.
There are three prongs to my paddles here. One is upstream to the falls and fish ladder up at Route 151 at Leesburg. The second is downstream and up Pine Brook as far as I can get and the third is a bit further downstream and up the Moodus River as far as I can get.
The last time I saw an elephant at all was in Uganda in the 1970s. That one was standing in the middle of the dirt road between me and my bunk in the drivers’ quarters late one dark night. On foot and not willing to walk around him through the tall grass, I elected to retreat back to the tourist hotel and call for the driver to come pick me up.
This one, spotted securely fastened to a big bushy plant overhanging the waters of the Upper Highland Reservoir in Goshen, Massachusetts, was much smaller. I figure he’s part of someone’s geo cache game or something of that sort. I did not disturb him.
This was the first paddle outing of my Northeast season, with friends from the Western Mass Kayak Meetup Group. With temps near 70 and bright sunshine for the first time since I arrived up here a week ago I was more than ready to get out on the water.
All of the pix are below, just click on one to open up a slide show of larger images. For other elephant sagas, start HERE.
Even a mom has to take a moment to scratch that itch, as this Sandhill Crane on a nest clearly shows us. She’s at Okeeheelee Park South in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Here are some more photos from the day:
To see the rest of the Itches, start here and just keep working backwards.
Yes, the headline’s misleading. I didn’t actually get to sample any of the Sticky Licky Ice Cream Store’s wares. It wasn’t open when I stumbled on it last week, ever on the lookout for recycled gas stations.
This place is across the state from me, over in Fort Myers Beach.
Yes, the same Fort Myers Beach that was ground zero for Hurricane Ian on September 28, 2022. There’ve been no posts on the Sticky Licky Facebook page since then and its website is inactive.
Gone for good? I don’t know. There is a sign for a remodeling company posted on the property. So either a new business is going to relocate there or the place will be repaired and reopened for ice cream licking. I generally don’t care what uses are made of these former gas stations, but my vote is for the sweets.
This place is on the mainland portion of town, and not out on the barrier island. Some damage yes, but not demolition. I drove along the coastal island road a bit and it looks like New Jersey did after Hurricane Sandy, just flattened.
Even so, just a block away from here I saw a huge sailboat that had been blown out of a canal into someone’s backyard.
My main concern to be honest is what happened to the pink elephant. I know what happened to at least one of the large rocking chairs. I spotted it in a parking lot across the street.
Below are a couple shots from last week and a few photos of the place in its heyday, courtesy of the Facebook page and Google Earth.
And below that are some shots from my paddle on Telegraph Creek with some friends from Connecticut, the event that got me over to the Fort Myers area to begin with.
The Urge to be Someplace Else 