June 1st

I started this trip in early March and here it is June as I make my way through northern New England.

In Burlington, I visited the grave sites of Revolutionary War hero Ethan Allen and his brother Ira, who founded the University of Vermont, whose campus I explored. Then I went to the lively waterfront and looked across Lake Champlain back to New York where I had been.

Then I saw my first familiar faces in quite some time. Christine Pepe sang with Rachel in the quartet With Spirit Sing in New York. She and her husband Chuck built log cabins and started a lodging business called The Muddy Moose in Morrisville (just north of Stowe) 7 years ago. Rachel, Daniel and I stayed there for a weekend that first year and we’re overdue for another visit.

My very first stop back on March 11th was at Calvin Coolidge’s library in Northampton Mass. But Plymouth Notch Vermont was the tiny village that raised a future president. All next to each other and restored are his mother’s house, the one room schoolhouse whose teacher later became Coolidge’s stepmother after his mother died young, the general store his father ran, the tiny house Coolidge was born in and the larger house across the street where the family lived and where his father swore him in as president after Warren Harding died. Calvin got his laconic wit from his father – when he was asked how he knew that he, a notary public, could administer the oath of office, John Coolidge replied “I didnt know that I couldn’t”.

I went through the White Mountains National Forest along the Kancamagus Highway for the first time in many years. Its rushing rivers, waterfalls, and views of forests and mountains compared favorably with many of the sights I have seen along the way. And I ended up the day in Augusta Maine, poised to visit Acadia National Park.

My feelings for my voyage are summed up well in a favorite poem, “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost and a favorite song, “We May Never Pass This Way Again” by Seals and Crofts.

I planned this trip meticulously and stayed every night where I had originally intended. Still, I switched some stops from one day to the next and discovered some additional places that turned out to be among my favorites.

“Yet knowing how way leads on to way – I doubted if I should ever come back. – Two roads diverged in a wood, and I- I took the one less traveled by – And that has made all the difference.”

The song tells us to be daring and try new things and also to savor each moment as if it’s the last. Along the way, I often thought but never had the heart to say to locals I encountered “This is the one and only day of my life I will be in Oklahoma”. But I truly enjoyed seeing all that I saw and doing all that I did.

“Like Columbus in the olden days – We must gather all our courage – Sail our ships out on the open seas – Cast away our fears and all the years will come and go – and take us up, always up – We may never pass this way again.”

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