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Stillwater/OK Botanical Gardens & Arboretum

Monday, June 9—Tulsa to Stillwater — Sarah due to arrive at Tulsa Airport on Southwest Airlines at 2:50pm. I drove over to meet the flight as Jeff is teaching summer classes from 10 to 5, M-Th. The plane was delayed 2 hours, but Sarah arrived in good spirits and her luggage arrived with her. We drove from the airport to Whole Foods, where we shopped for our trip and ate dinner.

Tuesday,  June 10 — Stillwater, OK Botanical Gardens & Arboretum 

Sarah and I ran errands and then ate lunch at The Sushi House with my good friend, Valerie Bloodgood. For dessert we went to Orange leaf, a serve-yourself yogurt place and had delicious bowls of frozen yogurt—my favorites being peanut butter and coffee.

At Valerie’s recommendation, we toured the Oklahoma Botanical Gardens and Arboretum on the west side of Stillwater. It was not too unbearably hot, and the Gardens had added new trails and plots so it was a fun walk.

Jeff prepared shrimp scampi on lemon-pepper pasta for dinner. After dinner we watched a couple of episodes of last season’s Downton Abbey because Sarah cannot get TV in her mountain aerie


Wednesday,  June 11—Stillwater — Sarah and I ran more errands, shopped at the Hospice Resale store and Tuesday Morning went to the grocery for the final stocking up. We bought a selection of salads, and  before coming home, stopped at Red Rock Deli and bought Jeff some of their delectable chicken salad. We’d planned a salad dinner as Jeff taught late. Did several washes and packed in late afternoon. After dinner we watched another couple of episodes of Downtown before early bed.

Stillwater,OK to Jackson, TN

Thurs, June 12—Stillwater to Jackson, TN—559 miles;  Parkers Crossroads RV Park & CG

We packed the car and were off at 8 am. We spent the majority of our day on the Cherokee TPK (75 mph) and Interstate 40 (70 mph)—not the best routes for a road trip, but the purpose of our trip was both vacation and to visit our older brothers, plus we were limited for time, Sarah wanting to travel home before the 4th of July.

We were twice stuck for long periods (over 3 hours total) in non- or slow-moving traffic. The second time, Sarah needed to go to the bathroom, but even going between the car doors was out as there was a semi high above our rear bumper. Couldn’t get out and head for the trees as we were in the midst of construction in the middle of the four-lane highway and on a bridge for a part of that. We entertained ourselves by thinking up ingenious inventions for women stuck in such a situation. We could never determine why the traffic jam as there appeared to be no accident, merging bottleneck, construction, or other reason for the standstills.

We had few other than fast food choices of places to eat off the Interstate, so we ate at Cracker

Barrel—hot turkey and “dead” green beans. A first time for Sarah and a last time for both of us. Cracker Barrel seemed almost like Stuckey’s whose signs one saw every mile or two on the way south in the east when I lived there.

We’d planned to get out of the car and take walks often, but the rest areas were few and far between and not good areas for walking, thus we were stuck in the car for far too long.

After a long frustrating day, we arrived at our cabin after 7 pm. Mike, one of the brothers who ran the RV Park and cabins checked us in though it was after hours. He explained that he had made up the cabin to the best of his ability as his chamberperson had been hit by a semi and killed that morning. Mike also told us about the cabin’s TV, air-conditioning, fridge, and microwave. We were thrilled that our cabin would have such amenities for such a bargain price. The only downside, we thought, was that the campground bathroom and showers were at some distance from the cabin. 

Sarah at our rest stop snack break

After getting us registered, Mike hopped into a golf cart and led us past all the RV’s and to our cabin, one of two that sat in the middle of the RV’s and close to each other. What a disappointment. The cabin was tiny and crammed with a log-railed double bed and a set of log bunks, all of which equipped with thin, dirty mattresses and odd stained bedding. The small refrigerator sat on the floor under a small table. Piled on it were the microwave and TV. A moldy AC unit rattled low on the wall near this “appliance tower.” There were no screens on the windows and when we parted the curtains we found ourselves hemmed in by large, RVs.

But, it was late by this time and we were exhausted, so we made the best of it. We were in bed nearly after we arrived, as soon as we’d brushed our teeth and visited the distant bathrooms. We both slept in the double bed, first putting the bunk mattresses under the double bed mattress. However Sarah’s side of the bed was like sleeping in a hole, and we both had a poor night, our sleep interrupted each time one of us had to get up to go to the bathroom. Since the campground bathrooms were a golf-cart’s ride away, we climbed over each other and out of the bed to use a small plastic wastebasket lined with a plastic bag.

Jackson, TN to Rural Retreat, VA to New Paltz, NY

Friday, June 13—Jackson TN to Rural Retreat, VA — 478 miles  Cousin John & Pat’s Farm

We left the campground in the early morning after a great shower in the Crossroads’ new, spacious, tiled shower, which we drove to after packing up. We ate breakfast at the Dixie Diner, a small café just before I-40, and gassed up before heading to John & Pat’s. Once again I called Jeff and asked him to email a phone number and directions to J & P’s—something else I had neglected to think of taking. John’s son, Rob, was at the house but the two of them were in NH at Ellen’s son Mike’s wedding.

On the way to Rural Retreat we ran into torrential rain and more construction. On one section with uneven lanes (one grooved and one newly paved), a truck in the lower grooved lane sped past. That lane was filled with water which sheeted onto the Prius. I could see nothing for a few moments.

Much of I-40 through Tennessee is beautifully forested rolling hills. Nothing to see and not even many signs or billboards from which to play the Alphabet Game. So we devised a new alphabet game—Naked Alphabet—the rules being that we could take the first letter of anything we could see, i.e., “A” for Automobile, “B” for Barn, “C” for Cloud, “L” for leaf etc. Much trickier and more difficult than it would seem.

We had called Rob and left a message re our arrival, and with Jeff’s directions we navigated the winding back roads and dirt lanes to John and Pat’s in Rural Retreat, arriving about 7pm, after another way too long day in the car. Rob and dogs Lily and Nellie, as well as Siamese Samantha cat and Rob’s two cats met us. Rob carried our luggage to the 2nd floor bedroom and we unloaded our cooler into the refrigerator. Then we three took a walk to stretch our travel-weary legs and to see where Rob was going to locate his Amish cabin in the piney woods down by the pond.

Then it was bed for the two of us in the big king-sized bed in the guest bedroom. Just as we were drifting off, the door opened a bit and Nellie came bounding in and threw herself on the bed—and then threw herself off just as quickly. She had not expected two warm bodies in her bed. After this I could not get back to sleep. The upstairs toilet was temporarily out of order, so I trudged down the stairs to the downstairs bathroom four (count ‘em) times. Each time Rob was in the kitchen baking herb bread.

SATurday, June 14—Rural Retreat, VA to New Paltz, NY — 594 + 50 miles — Super 8

The 600+-mile drive to New Paltz, NY, was way too long. Before drive’s end, we both went a little bonkers in the car, screaming, yodeling, grimacing, and laughing hysterically. We drove northeast through Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York to avoid driving into or close to NYC. When Sarah, with the atlas in hand, announced that we were going to enter NJ, I yelled, “Oh no! We’re on the wrong route!” and went into irritable meltdown before Sarah could calm me down and show me that our route just kissed NJ and didn’t actually enter it.

The day had been overcast but turned sunny when we entered NY so lifted our spirits a bit. So did the prospect of the following day with no driving! Today we missed the New Paltz exit on the NY Thruway and drove 50 miles out of our way! This was the last straw!

Soon after we got in we dropped our things in the room and went back out to dinner at Gadaleto’s, a very good seafood restaurant recommended by the hotel clerk. Our Super 8 motel room was so-so. It had a King-sized bed, weird bathroom with absolutely no towel racks or place to hang things—the towels were rolled under the sink—and sparse towels, but it looked like heaven after our daylong drive.

New Paltz/ Visit to Mohonk

Father’s day, Sunday, June 15—New Paltz—Visit Mohonk

Walking toward the main entrance 

Mohonk Mountain House from the lake

After breakfast at the motel, we drove up to Mohonk about 8 o’clock. Quite a long wait at the entry gate as they cleared my credit card. Their computers were down. We drove slowly up the mountain, parked in the lower day -visitor’s lot, and climbed steps up past the men’s dorms to the “house.” We entered the house at the main door/valet’s station/portico and then explored this enormous hotel that I had worked in and loved in the early 1960s, wandered through the gift shop, and then walked past the day spa (voted the best in the nation by Conde Nast Traveler), mountain bike rental, and tennis courts to the trail to Cope’s Landing. Mohonk has over 85 miles of hiking trails and this plus its pristine location in the Shawangunk mountains caused the Nature Conservancy to name it one of Earth’s “Last Great Places.” There was a golf frisbee course in the woods on either side of the Cope’s Lookout trail, the disc baskets artfully hidden. Must have been a tough course.

After enjoying the view of the Catskills and the valley from Cope’s Lookout—my favorite place when I worked here—we hiked around the deep glacial lake taking many pix on this cool, sunny morning. Our trail ended at the gardens so we explored them, taking pix of flowers and bowers and fences. Then we relaxed on the front porch before the boat dock watching fathers and their families feed the rainbow trout, renting rowboats and paddleboats, fishing, and getting photos taken with dad. Sarah went down to the car to change into dressier dinner attire. While she was gone I became absorbed in the conversation of the two men sitting to my right. They were talking loudly and excitedly in New Yawk accents about sports, first covering football and discussing the players scornfully or lovingly depending on their ideas of the players’ skill; then moving to basketball, and finally moving to baseball. One would have thought each team member an intimate relative. The two with their deep accents and excitement sounded like a sketch out of a comic movie, and I could not help but smile.

  

When Sarah returned, it was nearly 11:30am so the two of us went up to the second floor dining room where I was seated on my old station near the window. A pine that had been opposite the window was gone, and a servers’ station had been added, but otherwise all was as I remembered it. Big buffet tables were spread with everything imaginable: roast beef, lamb, stuffed pork loin, clams, mussels, scallops, and an atrocious number of fantastic desserts. We both said, “To hell with our diets,” filled our plates, and after the main course circled the dessert buffet filling our plates with a bit of nearly every dessert. These sumptuous delectables we ate with coffee and enjoyed being part of this huge dining hall that once welcomed the likes of Strawbridges and Duponts.

I noticed that several of the wait staff were African Americans. One maitre de stopped at our table, and when I explained that I had worked at Mohonk in the early 60s and was sitting on my old station, he stopped to talk for a bit, explaining that Gerow Smiley, a member of the founding Quaker family, had been there just the week before. I was sorry to have missed Gerow, who was only about 15 years older than I and directed operations when I was there. I remembered him fondly and wondered if he would have remembered me among the hundreds of college and young people who worked at Mohonk in the dining room, gardens, and on the grounds crew over the years.

After lunch we had a heartwrenching experience in the ladies room. There were three stalls, the third occupied by a mother and her small daughter—whom we never saw. The daughter was terrified of the loud flushing of the pressure-assisted toilets and sobbingly pleaded with her mother: “ No! No! I don’t have to go! Please! Please! No! Don’t take my diaper off! Don’t take my diaper off!”
    Her mother told her: “It’s all right. It won’t happen again,” so Sarah and I were in a quandary. Should we flush, scare the child, and prove the mother a liar? Eventually, while the mother was still trying to coax her daughter to go, we flushed and left the women’s room, the child’s sobbing words echoing in our ears.

We stopped in the Mohonk gift shop after lunch and bought a few small things, and then headed back to New Paltz. In New Paltz, we walked the main street and browsed in its shops, including a secondhand shop. This walk and our Mohonk hikes saw us finally getting in some pretty good exercise.

Back at the motel we decided not to spend our time doing laundry, so lazed and relaxed in the room. After our big lunch we were content to snack from our cooler and food bag. We were in our jammies watching HGTV when Sarah discovered that she’d left her charge card up at Mohonk. We called and they were holding the card in Security, so we dressed and drove up. Because it was dark, we saw many deer right beside the road, and on the single lane up to Mohonk, a red fox (Internet image, right) crossed the road and shortly after, a small

porcupine (Internet photo left). No parking down the hill in the day-guest lots this time. We drove directly to the portico, and Sarah jumped out and got her card. We were lucky to have discovered it missing before our drive to Vermont the next day and before the road to Mohonk was closed for the night.

New Paltz, NY to Jericho, VT

Monday, June 16   New Paltz, NY to Jericho, VT — 228 miles 

Got up early, ate a hasty breakfast at the motel, and then booked it to make it to Peter and Sonja’s in

Peter, Sarah, and Sonja on the new entryway wall

Jericho, VT, by noon. Peter had told us that there was going to be a picnic with the Bhutanese students they are tutoring in English lessons, and asked if we could make it in time. We got to Jericho before noon only to learn that the “picnic” was a 7pm potluck . . . so we hadn’t needed to rush after all.

We admired the new front entryway wall and gardens which were finished just before we arrived. Then we unloaded and got ourselves situated downstairs, I in Yana’s old room and Sarah in the sewing room.

I walked up and looked at the upper garden with Peter and admired the huge rocks he’s had moved to the banks of the stream beside the bridge. Then I helped plant the last of the veggies in the big lower garden. We chatted in the kitchen as Sonja calmly made a strawberry-rhubarb and a rhubarb pie. 

Peter looking up something in one of their
many field guides, terminally ill Raja
perched on his knee; sadly, Raja was
  euthanized the week after we left

A sick, lethargic and stuffed-up Raja, who has kidney failure, lazed in the window sill and on our laps. Yana and Maya came for a visit; Maya shy at first but then warmed up. Her mother speaks to her in both Russian and English. At 6:30pm we all piled into Sonja’s little blue Honda Fit and drove to Burlington to Peter & Sonja’s church for the potluck.

Seems that the Bhutanese did not really get the message. The food was sparse and odd — little bags of popcorn, corn chips, small, sugary Bhutanese deserts, potato pancakes and applesauce, fruit salad, and Sonja’s pies. After eating, we played several rounds of Bingo, which the Bhutanese seemed to love. Peter’s student proudly won two rounds. The game taught them to quickly recognize numbers and letters.

Jericho/Downtown Burlington

Tuesday, June 17—Jericho, VT  

Today we all went to downtown Burlington which is artfully set up as a pedestrian mall. We ate at El Cortijo Taqueria, a Mexican restaurant operating out of an old 50’s style diner (right). I took pix of their restroom toilets, which had been artfully painted by Andrew’s Sarah Ryan. We shopped in several stores where I bought odds and ends for Christmas stockings, and then drove down to the waterfront, but no sooner had we paid $5 to park the car than we decided that it was too hot for us, so we piled back into the car and drove to Andrew and Sarah’s house in Colchester, VT, to pay a visit to Sarah and Sophie. Andrew was in Dallas, TX, on business.

I returned the 1960 Linton High School yearbook Sarah’s father had loaned me a couple of years ago. 1960 was my graduating class. Sarah’s father was a year or two behind me I think. I did not remember him, but there were pix of both of us in the yearbook. It was good to see as I had lost my yearbooks years ago when I lived in Rochester, NY.

Sarah and Andrew live in a neat little house that they have decorated artfully—no small  thing as both of them, and Sophie, are gifted artists. Sarah is a painter and Sophie is following in her footsteps. Andrew designs chandeliers.

We had a cool lemonade, and Sonja worked with Sophie on a knitting project. Their silky soft cat reminded me of Paddy, our cat. She’d be loving one minute and then hissy and unpredictable the next.

I think that this was the evening that we stopped at a serve-yourself yogurt place before driving home. Sarah and I sought them out on our trip. Most delectable!