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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!

Jericho/Saranac Lake

Wednesday, June 18—Jericho VT

Today we four took a day trip to Saranac Lake in NY where Peter is supervising the removal of asbestos from the historic Saranac Lake Hotel. First he had some business at the Mormon church in Lake Placid, so he dropped us off downtown so that we could shop while he conducted business. First thing on the agenda was to get Sonja some coffee. She was beyond ready, but Sarah and I kept stopping to look at this thing or that. We ended up in a small coffee shop at the end of an arcade of shops. It had a balcony nearly over the lake, but it was raining lightly and too windy on the balcony, so we drank our coffee at a community table just inside.

Sarah and Sonja before a stuffed toy bear who is begging for donations to the Tri-Lakes Humane Society. Sonja is trying to be patient but her coffee is calling!

After coffee—and Sonja’s revival—we shopped in the little arcade and came across a very interesting store where Sonja bought a darling pair of felted “cat” slippers for Maya for Christmas (see left). We next explored a little shop that was being renovated and required us to enter and exit via some steep steps. It had a combination of antiques and artful things in it but we did not buy anything. However, Sarah and I have been craving kettle corn on this trip, and the next shop we entered caught our fancy. We finally found a place that sold kettle corn—fresh. The proprietor boxed and bagged a good portion of it for us and we carefully stashed it for the next leg of our drive which will be to Phil & Lois’s in Tiverton, RI. 

In about an hour and or so, Peter finished his business and picked us up. Then it was on to Saranac Lake. We stopped at a beautiful section of lake along the way and I snapped a couple of shots of Sonja and Sarah (below). 

When we got to Saranac Lake we toured beautiful, big Hotel Saranac that Peter is working on. The new owners of it are restoring this 87-year-old iconic downtown hotel to its former glory.

After viewing the hotel, we walked across the street to the Saranac Library where we picked up a couple of free books and toured the Charles Dickert Wildlife Collection located downstairs on the first floor.

Then we enjoyed lunch at an Italian restaurant next door to converted power plant buildings and the spillway. Sarah and I moved two tables together which momentarily freaked out the waitress. She told us that the proprietor was “very picky” about the seating arrangement. There were few patrons and we were only trying to get all four of us seated in a little alcove where we could see the spillway and little park and trails before the restored buildings. Sonja had an eggplant sandwich, Sarah had pizza, Peter had an antipasta, I had . . . what? I cannot now remember.

After lunch we drove north and took the Plattsburgh ferry back to Vermont. On the way home Sonja spotted a wooden drying rack displayed outside a shop. Peter made a U-turn and we all l hopped out to inspect the rack. Actually the shop owner had several sizes, all new and sturdily made of wood. The one P & S have been limping along with is wobbly plastic and wood. They had been looking for an “old fashioned” wooden rack for awhile. Well, they found it at this establishment.

Jericho/ Vietnamese Restaurant

Thursday, June 19—Jericho, VT

This, our last day in Vermont at Peter & Sonja’s, we drove into Burlington, looked around in a couple of antiques & collectibles shops, ate lunch at Panera Bread Company, and then drove out to Colchester to visit with Andrew who had gotten home in time to be with Sophie while Sarah traveled to her mother’s to help her mother through double hip replacement surgery. (Having just come through hip replacement ourselves, Sonja and I were worried about the logistics of getting both done at once.) We invited Andrew and Sophie to have dinner with us that evening at a Vietnamese restaurant. Sonja could not be with us as she had an evening meeting.

Andrew, Sophie, and Peter at the Vietnamese restaurant

On the way home Peter drove us to a park. We had a stunning view of Lake Champlain, and across it the Adirondack Mountains. We also stopped at a nursery and Peter and Sonja bought a couple of big potted plants for their new entryway wall.

Once back at the house, Sarah and I did a couple of loads of wash and began organizing for

our departure the next day. She and I and Sonja took a walk down the dirt road before the house, picking wildflowers, and enjoying a walk. Three woodcocks arose from a field on our right and flew directly over our heads, their long bills prominent. This was the first time I had seen a woodcock in the wild.

Jericho, VT to Tiverton, RI

Friday, June 20—Jericho VT to Tiverton, RI — 273 miles 

Took off early this morning on I-89. It runs through beautiful mountains and trees with nothing much else, so we again played Naked Alphabet. Or started to but then got to talking and kept forgetting where we were in the alphabet. Our first stop was in Lebanon, NH, at the LL Bean Outlet. Sarah bought four cute sale tops; I am still trying to pare off the pounds and feel to buy few clothes before I reach my desired weight. Speaking of which, after shopping at LL Bean, we went to a Dunkin Donuts near the shopping area and had coffee and an old fashioned doughnut to dunk in it. Then we got back on the highway (after a couple of U-turns) and backtracked to I-91 south.

We next stopped in Northampton, Mass. I had bicycled through Northampton in 2012 on my charity bike ride from Stillwater, OK, to Bristol, RI, and had liked this large, hip, college town. There are five well-known colleges/universities within 10 miles of Northampton: Smith College, Northampton College, Amherst College, University of Mass, and Mount Holyoke College, plus a couple of other lesser known colleges/schools. The town is both hip and historic. It was settled in 1654 and contains the site of a church where Cotton Mather preached.

We walked the downtown area and stopped at Ten Thousand Villages, a “Fair Trade Retailer since 1946.” Here I bought a clay owl whistle to go with my collection and a hand stamped Indian tablecloth and four napkins for Phil & Lois. The saleswoman had only two of the matching napkins, so I took

her phone number and hiked back to the car where I had left my cell phone so that I could give her P&L's address and zip code for mailing the additional two. It was very hot, and there was no easy outdoor place to get a refreshing drink, so we ended up buying cold drinks and drinking them on a shaded wall near the car.

We got to Tiverton about 5:30pm to find Lois making a big chicken salad and garlic bread for dinner. After dinner we went to Bristol and had delicious ice cream at the Daily Scoop across from Independence Park. There were many people listening to a band in the park in early celebration of July 4th. Bristol always celebrates the occasion with much fanfare, holding a huge parade and even striping their parade route red, white, and blue (left).

Tiverton/Blithewold

Saturday, June 21—Tiverton, RI

Saturday morning, Phil and Sarah and I walked a couple of beaches while Lois had a tennis lesson.

We ate make-your -own Dagwood sandwiches for lunch; then Phil and I ran to Clements Grocery store and Cimarron arrived, prepared to spend the night.

After lunch we five went to Blithewold Mansion, Gardens, and Arboretum. My little guide book tells me that Blithewold was originally purchased by Augustus Van Wickle and his wife Bessie in the mid-1890s. The original shingle-style house burned in 1906 and was replaced with the present mansion. After Augustus’s death in 1898, the mansion was brilliantly appointed and the grounds creatively landscaped by Bessie and her second husband, William McKee. Bessie’s oldest daughter bequeathed Blithewold and its amazing 33 acres to the public in 1976.

The grounds are amazing, containing numerous gardens and some spectacular trees: Giant Sequoia, Japanese Cedar (a tree related to the Sequoias and the primary lumber tree of Japan), Dawn Redwood, and both a Weeping Beech (planted in 1900) and a huge Weeping Hemlock among many others. 

Each Christmas there is a two-story Christmas tree in the mansion’s main foyer. I remember visiting Margie one year when she, nearly blind with macular degeneration, volunteered at Blithewold. Her job was to show visitors the tree, which she described in detail as though she could see it perfectly!

That evening we enjoyed wine and Murgh Kari (curried chicken) on the new Indian tablecloth. For dessert: ice cream and raspberries. Then the cloth was whisked off to be washed (we’d spilled a bit of wine on it) and we played several rounds of Quiddler, a game Phil and Lois introduced Jeff to in 2008, and that Jeff and I introduced the rest of the clan to at the Hungry Mother family reunion in 2010. Since then all of us word lovers have played the letters off our cards.

After dinner, Cimarron went to a friend’s house and we four watched The Intouchables, a touching, comic movie.