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.