July 18-23, 2021.  A week at Laurel Lake.

     Barbara drove from Pittsfield to Schenectady to visit Diane. What a surprise to find most of the Robusto-Smith families there, including Jerry from France. It was a wonderful, heart-warming family day.

Bob, Linda, Jerry

Diane, Mark, Maureen, Jerry

    The next day, Barbara and Diane drove to Binghamton, stopping at the food store first. Both bought an ample supply of Speidi marinade! Then - off to Laurel Lake.

    The weather this year was not as warm as other years and there has been a lot of rain, so the lawn was spongy.

     The Gerchman cottage undergoes improvements every year; this year it had a new roof and went from barn red to a more reserved grey. Inside, there was more sheetrocking upstairs.

      One day, Jerry kayaked over with Tina Smith which was very nice. Another day Cindy and Barbara circumnavigated the lake.

      On a day that was supposed to rain, we picked up Gail, Cindy's sister and we spent the day in museums. We started with Roberson which had some wonderful exhibits about Binghamton's history as well as art exhibits. We also toured the Roberson Mansion. 

     After that, we toured the Bundy Museum on Main Street. Bundy was an engineer who patented time machines for workers to punch in on; he later sold to Watson of IBM. The house is very interesting with amazing architecture. In the old carriage house is a coffee house, a blackbox theater, old barber shop chairs, a room of time clocks and also a room dedicated to Rod Serling who grew up in Binghamton and was encouraged by English and drama teacher, Helen Foley when she was young. (And, we had her many years later in high school!) After that, we went to the Garage, a hip bar and at nachos outside.

     One night Gail and Lynne came over for dinner which was also fun.

Lynne, Gail, Cindy, Diane

     On the day that we left, we met Jerry at the Park Diner in Binghamton.