Fall is coming (is here, I guess!)

Greetings,

I couldn't resist putting a fall picture up at the top of this week's post. We passed into fall a couple of days ago, and each day are seeing more and more color here in New England. This glimpse of fall is reflected in the pond at Old Sturbridge Village, Mass. I'm sure we'll be seeing much more color in the next few weeks and will love to share some of it with you. Of course, there will be great color at home in Minnesota, too, I'm sure.

MILEAGE:

Buster: Cape Cod to Mystic, Connecticut, back to Sturbridge, Mass to Rhinebeck, New York:

397 miles

Bella: 120 miles

Total this week: 517 miles

Total mileage so far on League's Excellent Adventure: 8,852 miles

STATE COUNT: 14 (up two); add Rhode Island and Connecticut to last week's count

Greetings from Gary: (he's been wanting to get a few words in!!!)

I really love this motor home, partially because it allows me to fulfill a life dream of being a gypsy and seeing the whole country, and partially because this particular motor home fulfills our needs so well. It's like having a big, self-indulgent, complex, six figure toy that I get to play with and operate each day.

When Julie and I first began to talk with our friends and relatives about our plans to take this trip, some people chimed right in and felt it would be a fabulous experience. Other people, however, had misgivings for unexpressed reasons. It's our impression that some people thought we were going to be camping for a year. Other people's lack of enthusiasm, we think, resulted from their concern that this living in such close proximity would become intolerable after a while.

First of all, we are not camping. Last night was a rainy night. When we got up this morning, we saw a family camping in a tent across from us. They were sitting around outside on pads at a wet picnic table eating breakfast. They had long-sleeved slickers on, were wearing long pants and damp shoes .... and they didn't seem to be having that much fun. At least they didn't seem to be slapping mosquitoes. Adjacent to them was another family who had a pop-up trailer for their camping home. They had a substantial awning and were able to sit under the awning as the rain dripped off the trees ...., but they were dressed the same as their neighbors. Later in the morning when doing laundry, Julie saw the first family drying their sleeping bags in the dryer. Apparently their tent wasn't water proof.

We, in contrast, had a dry night in our motorhome, able to be heated or air-conditioned at our choice. There are no leaks, so we have no water problems, and our floor is about 36 inches off the ground. We feel insulated and protected from nature to a degree nearly equal to that in a home. Our motorhome is not a camper ..... it's most analagous to a small one-bedroom apartment completely outfitted with HVAC, running water, water heater, sewer, cable TV (where available), antennae, satellite (if desired). It's well designed to maximize storage and comfort. And best of all, it completely moveable to wherever we want to go (except narrow alleys and dead-end streets).

We have all the amenities that we are used to. It is true, they aren't all quite as convenient as at home. Each time we move, I have to disconnect and stow the equipment for electrical power, water, sewer and cable TV. I empty the grey water tanks about every 4 days ... we take lots of showers! I empty the sewage once a week, which some people would find odious, but I haven't splashed on myself yet! And then each time we arrive at a new location, I reattach those items; it takes about five minutes.

I would agree that motorhome living is best enjoyed when the outside temperatures are between 50 and 90 degrees. The motorhome is insulated but we would have difficulty and expense at keeping indoor temperatures at 70 degree when outside temperatures are below 50 or above 90 degrees. All in all, I think our opinions are that I love it, and Julie and Elizabeth like it.

Now regarding the close proximity issue: I would say it has not caused me any problem, but I can't speak for Julie. Lizzie, of course, suffers somewhat from lack of friends her age. She forms quick attachments when there is a reasonable child near-by in the motorhome parks we visit, and is sad to leave them. She also misses her friends at home in Rochester. In spite of this hopefully small sacrifice on her part to be on the trip, I believe this experience will provide her with lifelong benefits. First of all, she is getting parenting about 18 out of 24 hours each day. This is much more than she is used to, with all of the hours usually spent at school, with friends and in sports. Any lessons we want to teach her or behavior we want to modify is evident, and we have unlimited opportunities for parenting! I also feel that this is leading to an even closer parent bond relationship which can only be helpful and she passes into pre-teen and teen years.

JULIE'S JOURNAL:

Well, I certainly enjoyed hearing how much Gary is enjoying the trip. He certainly does a marvelous job keeping this rig running smoothly. It is kind of interesting .... on the proximity issue! It has only been the last week or so that I have started to think about it. When you think that we have been gone 9 weeks now, and that it was only after about two months that I started to notice how limited my social contacts are! Understanding that I am probably the more socially needy of the two of us, I think overall it is going amazingly well. I would tell you that our "ace in the hole" is that while we may wish we had longer fuses, we have equally short recovery times .... this is invaluable!

SO .... back to the itinerary:

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22 and WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23

Having visited Plimouth Plantation and Mayflower, we headed across Massachusetts on State Highway 44. It's always fun when our route avoids an interstate. While it takes a bit longer, we see much more local color: small towns, challenging routing through them, opportunities for a Dairy Queen stop, etc. Highway 44 took us to Providence (we added Rhode Island to our state count), but elected not to explore more in Rhode Island though Newport WAS on my initial list.

We found our campground in Old Mystic, CT, and made our plans to visit Mystic Seaport and the Aquarium the next day after my morning newsletter consultations. A staff member at Old Sturbridge Village (OSV) in Massachusetts had said Mystic Seaport was a must see, and as developed as OSV; it wasn't, but it was still very worthwhile. Unfortunately (or fortunately) we are experiencing the benefits and liabilities of off-season travel: many places are very uncrowded, but many exhibitors close down activities and sections of their attraction in the "off-season." Often these deleted activities are targeted for children, so Liz gets disappointed when the advertised "special craft event" isn't happening. But we saw chronometer and compass vendors, boat repairers, iron works, apothecaries where they would create "Medicine Chests" for captains to carry on board sailing vessels. Anchored in the Mystic harbor was Amistad. This is a replica of a slave ship that was commandeered by the slaves it carried, running aground in New England. A legal battle ensued regarding the responsibility of the US government to return the slaves (property) to their American owners or free them. The ship has been reconstructed and sails telling its human rights story, but happened to be anchored in Mystic last week:

Also on display, in the small boat museum was a sampling of different small pleasure boats. Included was FDR's sail boat, that he used to teach his children how to sail at Campobello, in Maine. It was on this boat he sailed the day before he awakened with the symptoms of polio. Coincidentally, when we visited FDR's home yesterday, we were told it is theorized that he had contracted polio while visiting a Boy Scout camp about two weeks previously. He had mingled closely with the children there, and it is thought that is where he was exposed. Here is FDR's sail boat:

We had a delicious lunch there, and then Liz and I spent the rest of the afternoon at the Mystic Aquarium. We were anxious to visit there, as we had heard about it when we heard the story of Andre, the harbor seal, from Rockport, Maine. Many of you may be familiar with this true story of a harbor seal, taken as a pet by the harbormaster some years ago (when it was legal), and raised as a pup. However, the winters were harsh and ultimately it was worked out that Andre would winter either at the New England Aquarium in Boston, or the Mystic Aquarium. He lived 25 YEARS doing this, being returned by the aquarium staff by truck, often to Marblehead, MA, to swim the rest of the way home to summer in Rockport. We enjoyed the book, and, of course, now have a darling stuffed harbor seal as an additional companion with us in Buster.

At Mystic Aquarium we were taught some important differences between harbor seals and sea lions, which are on display and shown at Mystic. Sea lions have very well developed front flippers. They are long, and very complex with a bony structure nearly as complex as a human's hand. These are strong appendages and a sea lion is actually able to support all his/her weight with extended appendages, not having to use his tummy for gliding. Seals slide. Also, the sea lion can catch fish anywhere around him: he can touch the back of his neck with his nose!!! My neck hurts just thinking about that!

We saw a couple of beautiful beluga whales, Liz petted a ray, and I was enchanted by these variant clown fish, i.e. the black and white ones. It seems to very explicitly represent: do your own thing!

We learned something fascinating about clown fish: they live in schools, but there is only one mated pair. If something happens to the female and she dies, the male transforms and becomes a female, and another fish becomes the mating male. Unfortunately, I didn't learn if the converse is true, i.e. that the female could transform into the male. I think I'll restrain myself from editorializing about this!

We rehooked up with Gary after our Aquarium adventure (I also got some very pretty cloisonne jelly fish ear rings there!), and had dinner at Mystic Pizza. Gary and I both liked this Julia Roberts early movie, but we didn't recall it was rated "R!" Liz, of course, wanted to see it (it was on sale in the lobby of the restaurant), but we had to explain it had "mature" content. The pizza was REALLY GOOD, which surprised us. We planned to go just to see it, but were very happy we did! It was a slice of heaven!

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 24

While we were certain we hadn't explored all the wonders of Connecticut, we did want to return to OSV/Sturbridge, as our visit their last week had been so brief. We actually had a nicer day today .... sunnier, warmer. We had hoped to arrive in time for the broom making craft that was offered on the web site, but plans were changed at the last minute, and they didn't offer that. We had to settle for a broom making demonstration later in the day. Instead, Liz and Gary made tin candle holders, pounding and crimping the tin in place.

We were able to spend much more time watching the carding mill and grist mills, and Gary had time to give Liz a lesson on stilts! Gary was pretty good at it himself!

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25th, was another travel day as we made our way into the Berkshires and the Hudson River Valley. It turned much colder today, too, and again we were thankful for Buster and his amenities. On Saturday, September 26th, we made our way south just a few miles down Route 9 from Rhinebeck, NY, to Hyde Park. We had heard that they were having a small community fair in Hyde Park, as part of the Quadricentennial .... 400 year celebration of Henry Hudson finding this beautiful river valley. Apparently the voyage in 1609 was his 3rd voyage (we learned the 4th voyage was up in Hudson's Bay, and ended in a mutiny and Hudson's loss). They had the most engaging woman explaning his voyage on a painted wood map with a ship that moved along in a little slit. She had Liz "sail" the ship. We learned of his run in with an iceberg as he sailed along Norway (trying to get to China), so he turned his ship around and kept coming west. He was Dutch, and John Smith, in Jamestown, VA, was English, so Henry decided to stay north of there, and ended up first in the Chesapeake, and then at the mouth of the Delaware River, and up the "Hudson" to Albany, where it became to shallow too go further. It was interesting and fun.

Then we spent the rest of the afternoon at the Roosevelt's home at Hyde Park, and visited the FDR presidential library and museum. This library was built while FDR was still in office, and dedicated, by him, in June, 1941. He worked in the museum, and his office is just as it was. The memoribilia is impressive, and, of course, one always comes away with unique impressions. He was the only child of his father's second marriage, and his mother, Sara Delano, was nearby (including living in the bedroom next door to Franklin and Eleanor) as long as she survived. He and Eleanor seemed to have a very productive partnership, and there is a great Eleanor wing in the museum, as well as an opportunity to visit her own retreat ... a home at Val Kill. I want to tell you a humerous thing I saw in the library. Eleanor wrote her assistant that she was enclosing the bill from the doctor to treat Franklin, Jr's, "piles"/hemorrhoids. She alludes to the fact that the fee must be related to the number of visits (12) and not a simple fee for a cure. She suggests that Franklin, her husband, "will have a fit." On the bottom of the memo is written:

"Pay it. Have had the fit. F.D.R."

The museum has a lot of FDR's first 100 days, which, of course, are quite controversial ... his decisions and programs gave people hope, but of course spent more than any government had ever imagined. The footage of him, though, IS infectious ... his "can do" attitude, his "nothing to fear but fear" speech, all had to go a tremendous way in helping the nation crawl back from the Depression. It was suggested that this "can do" attitude was fueled by his attempts to recover from polio. When he returned to Hyde Park after his initial illness, he tried, every day, to walk down this lane with his crutches. He would lock his braces on his knees, and pull his lower extremities down the lane, believing that if he could make it all the way, he might walk again one day. He never made it the entire way ..... but he learned A LOT about perserverance. Here's a picture of that soul-wrenching lane.

Eleanor and Franklin are buried at Hyde Park in the Rose Garden. Some of the roses were in perfect late summer/early fall bloom yesterday.

Liz, of course, was enchanted by the stories of Fala, the Roosevelt's scottie ... another opportunity for a little stuffed friend. Here she is with the topiary Fala at the Visitor Center entrance.

Finally, we have the 4th grader seated with her new friends, Eleanor and Franklin. She thought they sounded pretty special.

Then, while driving home we stopped to ask directions and happened to encounter a very nice woman who appeared to be a fire fighter (she was walking from the fire station), and Liz commented how nice she was. Then she said, "Dad, you should have been a fire fighter: brave, strong, and nice." And there you have .... it doesn't get much more special than that.

Stay tuned .... we're thinking of going to NEW YORK CITY!

Julie, Gary and Liz