I would be lying if I said I was sorry that summer is over but I am! Now it would be a bigger lie if I said I was looking forward to what is coming, winter! I have never enjoyed winter. I tolerated it better when I was younger but couldn’t say I really enjoyed it. Do find that with winter, if you can get out and do something like ski, sledding, cross-country skiing or snowshoeing, you are less apt to hate the season. Should have included snow-shoveling (one of Gary’s favorite sports!) I have done all these in years past but no more. My focus is now on trying to stay upright and not going down on the ice!

Summer- this was supposed to be the summer of sitting at camp, swimming and growing heirloom tomatoes! I stayed one night at camp, went swimming twice and those tomatoes – nota!

We started in May preparing for a yard sale, helped plan the VAE Bennington tour, had the yard sale, greeted our grandchildren and son from Montana, took our son to airport for trip back to Montana, grandkids stayed, took in our Vermont grandchildren (now we have two granddaughters 5 and 7, two grandsons 8 and 9). We hosted the group for a couple of weeks. It was fun but so much harder than I remember. On July 20, we head west with the Montana grandkids in the big red truck with the ‘old’ basic pickup camper. First highlight was Niagara Falls with a ride on ‘Maid of the Mist’, then onto Ontario to a Butterfly Sanctuary, so far so good. Back to the USA and headed toward Mt. Rushmore, stopping at the largest truck stop on I-80 in Iowa. Can’t think of anything you can’t get or do there! (legal or illegal), about half way to Montana, Grace and Quinn decided that going by airplane was the way to go! There was quite a discussion on the fact they would be home and with family and friends and this way they would probably never get there! Thankfully, these thoughts were short lived as Grandpa found something fun and interesting to stop and see. We stopped and explored places, went through the Badlands and many, many more. We camped all the way out and back (about 6000 miles). Have to say that the ride back was extremely quiet. Some thought we were crazy and I guess we were a little. But, looking back, we are so glad we went this way. There were some tense times, some tears (mostly mine), a lot of laughs and a lot of talking (on their part and ours), we traded a lot of stories and tried to solve many world problems. Our wish is that a cross country trip with Grandma and Grandpa will be remembered and passed on to their children (with or without embellish-ments!) Should be good for a few laughs in years to come.
Now you would think that after a trip like that you could kick back and relax- not if you are ‘car people’! Just back and we headed to New York State for the ‘Slowspokes’ tour planned by Bill and Jan Sander. Great tour including train ride, boat ride on the Erie Canal and many wonderful sites. A great time was had by all. Is it over? No way. After a short time to clean your clothes, get a new toothbrush and pack, we were off for a 4 cylinder Plymouth tour, planned by Gary and Wendell. Beautiful tour of Ludlow, Grafton, Bellows Falls area (my home area). I think there were 31 people (from VT, NH, NY, Ohio, Texas and Ontario), there were 9 Plymouths and again, a great time was had by all. As I write this, Gary is on his yearly pilgrimage to Hershey with 2 batches of brownies and 5 dozen chocolate chip cookies. I’ve gone back to work.

We will still have to put the cars to bed for winter and there are leaves to rake, camp to close and then all that will be left is to find the perfect piece of cardboard and just wait for that first snowfall!