Reflections on our trip

  14,000 miles in the Prius.  (Which now has 115,000 miles on it)
  28 states. (Massachusetts, Connecticut, NY, NJ, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, NC, SC, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, NM, Arizona, California, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, South Dakota, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania) We were so close to Nebraska that we could see it, but didn't actually get there. We also went to the District of Columbia.
  38 different beds.
  Besides sightseeing, it was a people-rich trip.
  Barbara got to see all three of her best high school friends, one of whom she had not seen in over 30 years. (Diane, Cindy, Kathy)
  Barbara also got to see her college roommate who lives in New Mexico. (Jan)
  Mark got to see one of his high school friends in Atlanta. (Dennis)
  We reconnected with a wonderful woman with whom we taught in Egypt. Anne, a Belgian, is working at an international school in Washington D.C.
  We also reconnected with a friend who we had not seen since 1984 and had a great day with him in N.Y.C. (Weldon)
  We got to see lots of family: All 3 of our children, all 4 of our grandchildren. Both of Mark's brothers, 2 of Mark's sisters. Mark's wonderful parents. One of Barbara's English cousins. (Clare is a 2nd cousin once removed actually!) We got to meet Maura's Dad in Big Fork.
    We had a reunion with our CPS 7th grade team. (Denise, Dick, Barbara, Mark, plus Jack and Maureen) A great meal in Fort Lauderdale.
    We got to visit with good friends who left Nantucket last year after that horrible winter and who moved to San Diego. We miss them so it was great to see them in their new life. (Frank, Linda)
    We got to see good friends who moved recently to the Berkshires and see them in their new home. (Nan, Jim)
    We met with lots and lots of former students which was wonderful. Some were total surprises, others we had planned in advance (Alex K , Martha C, Michael M, Amber G, Sarah P, Scott A, Elaine M, Chris K, Keri F, Ian D, Sam H)
      We drove familiar roads and new roads, always a great combination.
     We visited White Sands National Park, Joshua Tree National Park, Cabrillo Point National Park and the Tijuana Estuary National Wildlife Refuge. We walked in many state and city parks such as Balboa Park in San Diego and Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. We visited museums such as the Timkin and Mingei in San Diego, the Getty Villa in L.A., the Mexican-American Museum in L.A., the Clark Museum in Williamstown,  and the Rockwell in Stockbridge. We saw seven or eight plays and performances.
    We had pretty much every kind of weather including getting snowed in when we were in Washington, D.C. Overall, however, we were lucky with the weather, especially when making the long drives cross country.

   
    

Concord, May 6, 7

  We drove from Pittsfield to Concord on new roads, something we always love to do. We wound our way through the countryside in northwestern Massachusetts, ending up on the Mohawk Trail and eventually on Route 2. We stopped in West Acton for a fish lunch and ate outside, optimistic for our first glimpse of the sun in over a week. We even braved the upper 50 degree temperature to eat outside.
    Before the gang came home from school, Mark and I visited the North Bridge in Concord to see the statue of the Minute Man, the first-ever sculpture of Daniel Chester French, done in his early 20s. We were quite ready for a walk and it was interesting to see the sculpture after readying about French while we were in Pittsfield.

Minute Man

    It is always delightful to be with Jecca, Willy, Otis and Hank and to see their loving family and their busy lives.
    Willy made burgers on the grill and we had bought the fixings, per Jecca's request, for banana splits. Jecca had duty till 11:30.
     The next day, Saturday, Jecca and Willy, of course had classes. Mark went to visit his sister, Carol in Bridgewater and Barbara stayed home with Otis and Hank. The boys bicycled into Concord (4 miles each way) and she met them. They picked out a Mother's Day present for Jecca and then went to the Concord Cheese Shop for lunch.

Hank, Concord Cheese Shop

Otis, Concord Cheese Shop

 The boys had rehearsal at the Concord Youth Theater for their upcoming show, Robin Hood for the entire afternoon. Willy had a crew race.
   We all went to Ginger in Bedford for dinner. It was very busy and Mark didn't get his meal until after the rest of us were done. They did the right thing and did not charge him for it, but...poor Mark.
    The next morning, Mother's Day, Barbara got some lovely presents - 3 pairs of character socks, new slippers and a gorgeous overshirt. (Don't know what it's called, but a gauzy, filmy beautiful green "shirt" to wear over another shirt.) The boys gave Jecca a book of short stories.
    Then, we left Concord and headed for the boat. We shopped, as usual, before embarking. We ate at Common Ground on Main Street and had a very nice lunch. The boat ride was uneventful and we arrived to a sunny day -yay, it's been so long since we really saw the sun.
    And, what a great homecoming. Nick and Liz were waiting on the front porch to help us unpack. They had flowers on the table and had made a wonderful meal. We had a nice tour of all the work they have done on the cottage - a new upstairs bathroom, newly painted downstairs hall and bathroom, a fixed bookcase etc. Liz took down all the curtains and washed them. Nick painted the front door and all the old baseboard heaters. And, at our house he put in a gutter and downspout on the front porch so that we aren't always dripped on. Wow...very impressive.
    Home.

Visits with two sets of good friends, May 2 - 5

   We drove the fairly short drive (250) from Erie to Binghamton, still in grey weather. We arrived at Kathy and Jay's in time for a nice lunch, which is a given when you stay with Kathy. Kathy and Barbara went to Barnes and Noble where she bought a much-needed U.S. road Atlas. (Ours is 2005 and missing about 20 pages, including half of Montana and all of Massachusetts.) We had a lovely dinner of speidis, salad and pilaf.
   The next day, Kathy, Mark and Barbara went to Raymour and Flanigan's, a furniture store, and....we bought a new mattress! We had no intention of buying one in Binghamton. We have been talking about the need for a new mattress for our house for over a year. It is hard to find the time to test mattresses when we are in Hyannis as we are always going or coming in a bit of a rush. Kathy and Jay have just bought a new mattress from Raymour and Flanigan and we had a great night's sleep on it, so we thought we'd just go and write down model numbers. But, the store said that they would deliver, free, to the island. We were incredulous and made them check with their headquarters as we did not think that the salespeople really understood that we live 28 miles out to sea. At any rate, we ended up buying a new mattress, much to our own surprise.
     Later we all went to Nick's Italian restaurant in Endicott for dinner and chatted the night away. (Watched Ted Cruz drop out of the primaries after losing badly in Indiana.)
     While in Binghamton we had very good news from Montana that Maura got the job at the middle school as a liaison between the school and the Missoula Mental Health authority. Yay!

Kathy, Jay, Mark at Nick's

     The next morning, we got up and drove, in the rain - again!, to Pittsfield, Massachusetts to visit Nan and Jim at their new house.
      We brought speidis and we had a nice dinner, although did overcook them a tad. Nan is working at a middle school in Lenox and Jim is working at Chesterwood, the summer estate of Daniel Chester French who designed and built the Lincoln Memorial among many, many other things, including the Minuteman statue at Old North Bridge in Concord.
     The next day, May 5, Nan and Jim went to work and Mark and I went to Williamstown to the Clark Museum. The drive was beautiful, about 20 miles, but....still grey weather. We have not seen the sun since we left Montana! We had never been to Williamstown which is a beautiful village with bucolic Williams College in its midst. The Clark Museum is great - just the right size for a few hours. We loved the collection of impressionists; the Clarks collected the largest American grouping of Renoirs. And, we saw some Monets and Lautrecs which we have never even seen copies of. So, it was a lovely morning.

An early Monet that we really liked, Clark Museum

Degas Dancers, Clark Museum

We forgot the artist! Clark Museum

Monet

Rodin's The Thinker

     We ate at the Water Street Pub in Williamstown and then headed to Lenox to meet Nan when she got out of school.
       The three of us then went to Stockbridge to the Norman Rockwell Museum of which Nan is a member. It was equally impressive and so different. We watched the film first and then toured the museum. We always knew that we liked and were familiar with Rockwell's work, but were quite amazed at the size of the paintings that produced the covers of the magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post and Life. He was a hard-working and very prolific artist, producing over 4,000 works of art. The museum has all his covers for Saturday Evening Post in chronological order and it was a real walk-through of decades of American history.

Norman Rockwell's Stockbridge

    The special exhibit was illustrations by Mac Conner who illustrated books, ads and movies. He lived into his 100s and had never had an exhibition till this one at the Rockwell.

Illustration by Mac Conner, Rockwell Museum

      Afterwards we visited his studio which was moved to the site. That was also very interesting as you can see his props etc. and how his work evolved.  The studio is set up as it would have been in 1960. For example, he was working on a commemorative for the United Nations. It started with the U.N. flag in the center with three diplomats and lots of faces of people from many nations. But, he scrapped that in favor of a beautiful painting of faces and the major religions of the world. Instead of famous people, he put in faces of people he knew. His bushy-bearded postman became a Jewish rabbi. His wife, who had recently died, is in the top right corner holding one of their grandchildren. It is a lovely, poignant painting. He was basically a story teller.

Rockwell's Studio

Inside Rockwell's Studio. Note his wife in upper right corner behind Rockwell. Also note his model for his iconic painting of a little girl integrating a school in the south. His postman is the bearded rabbi. This is the painting he did in lieu of the U.N. and famous ambassadors.

Nan and Barbara, Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge

     Jim met us afterwards and we took a tour of the area including seeing where we stayed several years ago on our one visit to the area when we visited Tanglewood with Chris and Ken. We also went by Rockwell's house, quite a few "cottages" of the wealthy, the Kripalu Yoga Center and Shakespeare and Company. Then we went to the historic, beautiful old Red Lion Inn for a lovely dinner.

Red Lion Inn

Iowa to Indiana to Pennsylvania, April 30, May 1 - No Photos!

  We have no photos for the long drive (425) on Saturday, April 30 from mid-Iowa to mid-Indiana. (We stayed in Elkhart at the Garden Inn, a nice private hotel with a big pool and hot tub.)The reason for no photos is that it rained the entire journey and visibility was pretty rotten.
   We took the car to a Jiffy Lube for its third oil change of the trip. And, we went to a very nice grocery store, Martin's, for our dinner. We went to the hot tub at the hotel with about 100 kids having 3 different birthday parties! The decibel level was pretty high, but we like kids and stayed for a good soak.
 The next day, May 1, Sunday was no better weather. It was foggy and drizzly throughout the day and the fog got even more dense about 5 miles from our destination, North East, Pennsylvania, which is to the east of Erie. You could barely see the car in front of you and it was like driving through dense, light grey, cotton.
      We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express which was the opposite of the Garden Inn last night - it was pretty empty. We took a nice good soak in the hot tub and dried off in the sauna. We ate left-overs from the previous day.
  

South Dakota to Des Moines, Iowa, April 29

  Whew - a long day for us today. We drove 510 miles from the Best Western in Murdo, South Dakota to Ankeny, Iowa, just outside Des Moines.
   It was grey all day and mostly in the 40s. We made good time because the highway was empty until we got close to Sioux Falls and we were able to go 80 mph. We stopped for gas in Mitchell, but did not see the Corn Palace this time. (Boo hoo! But, a driving day)
   We did see an evil driver get his just desserts today in South Dakota. The man was going about 90 and weaving on I-29. And a short time later, we saw him pulled over by the police. Yay!
    We saw so many red-winged blackbirds today; it must be their perfect habitat. We also saw quite a few ring-necked pheasants.
     We have never seen this part of the country so wet. I guess it is because we have rarely traveled here in the spring.
     We are staying in a Quality Inn and went to the Ankeny Diner for an early dinner.

South Dakota, near Murdo

More of South Dakota

Wyoming to mid-South Dakota, April 28

  We got up to cold temperatures - about 32 degrees. The Mill Inn, while a good hotel, did not have a decent breakfast, so we hit the road pretty early.

Photo of cowboys on the range, hanging in Mill Inn, Sheridan, Wyoming

We only drove about 350 miles today. Unfortunately the weather was grey with leaden clouds. We hit snow flurries in the upper elevations and never got about 43 degrees and that was only for a little while.  We passed by the famous Wall Drug in Wall, but did not stop as we are in driving mode. But, we did think about our trips with the kids in the past. We saw amusing signs for Wall Drug for miles and miles and Jecca was so excited, but....slept right through it. Needless to say, we had to stop the next time we went by!
     We did not make good time today so it was good that we booked a room in Murdo, S.D. We stopped quite a few times - toilet breaks, to fill the window washer fluid, gasoline.

Driving today in Wyoming and South Dakota

   The scenery was pretty varied, but we did not get photos as the weather was pretty dismal. But, we went through the mountains around Rapid City, went through the beautiful Badlands and drove along the dry prairies, although they are wet now with the spring rains. We saw several herds of antelope, an owl, osprey, red tails, red-winged blackbirds.

Anonymous Bird in South Dakota

   The grocery store in Murdo is really small-more like a convenience store, so dinner tonight was pretty slim. Barbara got a pre-packaged salad and Mark ate cheese and ham from last night's dinner.

Last Day in Missoula and leaving Missoula for Sheridan, Wyoming, April 26, 27

  We did errands and chores with David in the morning: grocery shopping, Costco shopping, Staples to buy Maura and David a new printer, Lowes and....doing some clean up at Maura's old apartment.
We did a laundry and packed to leave....feeling sad about it.
   After Maura got home from work (T.A. for 7 year olds with special needs), we went to the Fin and Porter Inn on the Clark Fork River. We had a nice time and then went home and chatted till bedtime.

   In the morning of the 27th, we left with sunny weather from Missoula and drove all on I-90 to Sheridan, Wyoming. (480 miles) After about an hour or so, we got into misty, rainy weather and then as we went through the mountain passes, we even hit some snow flurries! Ugh! We are not used to weather in the 30s after months in the warmth! We are at the Mill Inn, a nice hotel. We went to the Albertson's and got chicken and salad fixings for dinner which we ate in our room.

Snow in Wyoming!

Big Fork overnight, hike back in Missoula, Nick's birthday - April 24-25

   On Sunday, the 24th, we took off after breakfast for Big Fork to visit with Dennis Jones, Maura's Dad, who we had never met.
    Unfortunately, the weather was spitting rain en route as we had hoped for wonderful views of Flathead Lake. But, we could see that it is very beautiful.

Nine Pipes Nature Reserve

Flat Head Lake

Houseboat that Dennis Jones used to live on

  We stopped at Pocketstone Cafe in the little touristy and quaint town of Big Fork. Mark had BLT and a small bowl of chili and Barbara had country tomato soup and a salad.

Main Street in Big Fork

     We met Dennis out of town at Echo Lake Road. It's a good thing he met us as we would have had a tough time finding the house, a log cabin that he built.
     The three of us talked into the early evening. We had a wide range of subjects. Dennis knows a lot about the history of the area which is also entwined with the history of his family. He is amassing information to write a biography of Lyman Beecher Sperry as well as compiling material about his family history.
    He took us into the Big Fork Inn for dinner.
    Then we talked until quite late.
    In the morning, Monday, we all had a delicious breakfast at the Echo Lake Cafe. Homemade breads, home fries, eggs...yum.

Mountains near Dennis's house, Echo Lake area

Dennis and Barbara at the Big Fork Inn

Dennis's back yard

    We drove home via Route 83 between the Mission and Bob Marshall Ranges and along a string of gorgeous lakes including the Swan, the Seeley, the Alva. The sun did pop out occasionally.

Bob Marshal Range...which David has hiked for weeks at a time

It took us about 2 1/2 hours to get back to David and Maura's.

Whew- Barbara made it to the top of Waterworks Hill...out of breath

View from Waterworks Hill

View of Waterworks Hill with Maebe and Missoula in the background

    David and Barbara hiked the Waterworks just over an mile up and just under 800 feet of elevation from the bottom. It was strenuous for Barbara as it was quite steep, although David had no problem at all as it's a hike he often does with Maebe and he does hikes like that.  The view over Missoula was incredible. Coming down was a piece of cake! Then we took a short hike to a part of the Rattlesnake Creek which was full and rushing.
      After Maura got home from a session of emptying her previous apartment, we ordered pizza and made salad and had a lovely evening with some backgammon thrown in.
     We also wished Nick a happy 43rd birthday back on the island.

Saturday in Missoula, April 24

  We had a nice day hanging out with David and Maura today.
  In the afternoon, Maura and I went to a yoga class at the fitness club where she has a part-time job. Afterwards she and I went to Bed, Bath and Beyond and we bought them some new silverware.
  Maura made a wonderful kale, beans and chicken soup for dinner and we played 4-way cribbage in the evening.

Black Foot River, Montana - April 22

  We had a mostly rainy day today and....it feels chilly to us with our last 2+ months of warm weather.
    We went with David to a reclaimed hardware/furniture/windows etc store and got two shelves for $2 each and then Mark and David hung them in the kitchen to make more storage space.
     We did a laundry and puttered around.
      In the afternoon, David took us to the Black Foot River. It is such beautiful country.

Montana Maebe on the run

      After Maura got home from work, two of their friends, Shannon and Josh stopped in with their six-month old baby, Juliette. We all sat on the front porch and chatted and had appetizers.

Maura, Juliette

Idaho to Missoula, Montana.....David and Maura, April 22

  Today we drove about 315 miles from Idaho Falls to Missoula, up Interstate 15 to 90. It was a beautiful drive.
   We stopped, per David's recommendation, in Dillon, Montana to visit a food truck and a Patagonia Outlet store. We did not purchase anything at Patagonia, but did look around. Then, we split some chile verde enchiladas at the food truck.

Food truck, Dillon, Montana

Outside of Dillon, Montana

Outside of Dillon, Montana

    We saw antelope along the way and looked for elk, but didn't see any of those.
    We are staying at David and Maura's new address on East Alder Street. It is kind of a derelict house, but they have done a good job at making it comfortable for them and it is nice and spacious. They live in a great neighborhood, very close to town. It does have a train track close by, but it doesn't seem to be a problem.
     We went to a wonderful natural foods store and got food for a nice chicken, quinoa and salad dinner. Afterwards, Maura, David and I took a nice walk with Maebe, their corgi/heeler mix.

David and Maura along the Clark Fork River, Missoula, Montana

Clark Fork River, Missoula, Montana