The Road Taken

Gang prepping for lobster dinner

Like all things in life, this party has come to an end. It has been a magical time of suspended animation where we as friends gathered. For almost a fortnight it has been about discovery, about nature, about beauty. It has also been about friendships and sharing and helping one another. My hosts Louise and Gordon could not have been more wonderful in opening their home to me and others and sharing their wonderful camp and their great pooches.

Our hostess Louise

As I said before this camp has a long tradition that is now in its third generation. Many a meal has been cooked to entertain friends and family over seventy years. The accommodations were sumptuous and anything other than what you think of as roughing it. Below is the little "performance cabin"

This sweet little one room cottage is the last remaining unimproved part of the camp has a famous history. It is here that the renowned Bach Aria Group often would assemble to play during weekends or summer holidays at the camp and create quite a classical hoedown. The cabin has two screen walls with awnings for privacy is a real gem of a place facing the forest. I hope one day to stay here.

A misfortune left me alone in the camp for four days taking care of the dogs and having sometime to think about next steps. When I was accompanied and busily having fun with others I did little thinking about what was to come after this holiday. I took advantage of the solitude for some thinking not that I have come up with anything revolutionary. I took a drive and revisited Breadloaf writers camp which had so struck me when Gordon and Louise took me there before. I had a moment to sit and contemplate some of the beautiful vistas.

Not far from Breadloaf I took a road less traveled to see the Noble Lesser farmstead near Ripton Vermont. It is here that Robert Frost called his summer home from 1939-1963. It is a simple and forgotten place.

I don't know how I managed to be the only person to make the journey up the mountain road and had it to myself for my entire visit.

Further along route 100 nearing Waitsfield I came to another solemn place. A memorial of little white flags: 1205 for Afghanistan and 4413 for Iraq representing all those dear young men and women who have given their all.

The following bend had a sweeping field of Joe-Pye Weed (Eupatorium purpureum) not a quite a memorial but almost a grand celebration of nature.

The sights of Vermont are truly stalwart. They are upright and towering and say take a look at me for what I am. I know I romanticize life a bit, but why the hell not!

Whether farm,

mountain or

glacial valley, I shall always remember this wonderful summer.

This road was near our cabin. It was a road that led to another camp where few summered and even fewer entered. I often looked wanting to enter, but never going further than to our fork. The vista and the tracks seem pure and should remain inviolate. I leave you with Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Keywadin, Songadeewin and me

My travels around Vermont have opened a new appreciation for this area. I have been soaking it in and seeing things, some which are simply eye dazzling to every degree in between. I feel like a kid at summer camp. One of my walks took me around some pretty wonderful gardens in the area of Lake Dunmore. The above pictured globe thistle or (echinops banaticus) is a plant that I have tried to grow at home and it has never fared well. Here at the house of a local potter it is the major plant in the front garden.

Bordering the lake another clump of perennials with some of the best lilies you will see anywhere. The white lilies were a mere 5 feet tall. The hot pink ones below were in another corner of the garden at over 7 feet.

On a trip into Middlebury to see some sights I came across this famous two lane covered bridge just as a funnel cloud instantly descended and I thought I would be sucked up in some sort of tornado. Just as fast as it came, the funnel cloud spun and dispersed and the skies returned to the best shades of blues that I have ever seen.

The outing I was on was intended to get me to the University of Vermont Morgan Horse Farm. Here the breed known as Morgan horses were originally bred from a stallion named Figure. This was the first breed of horses of total American origin. The horses are known for their build and trotting ability and were the favorite horse during the Civil War. The site is located on a rambling hillside with magnificent views.

Neighboring swamp to the Morgan Horse Farm

Vermont is rather unique in weather, size and the quickness that paved roads become less so. Leaving Middlebury on Creek Road you follow along the Otter Creek (a great Vermont beer is named for the Creek) then you continue down these great farm fields and before you know it you are on a dirt road called Three Mile Bridge Road (the bridge is long gone but the name remains) with some great farms bordering the Cornwall Swamp Management Area. Wonderful wildlife and scenic beauty and just as fast as the road became gravel it returns to fully paved for another stretch.

Strange times and events led for houses in the area to be abandoned. This typical Vermont farmhouse is slowly being reclaimed by the elements and maybe it will be restored by some owner. It has a perfect metal roof. Adjacent to this beauty is one of a different kind.

Just when you thought you had seen it all next to the abandoned house on Creek Road there is this Chalet with three of these A-frames with a small concrete animal for your pleasure. Hey, it takes all kinds!

Just down the road from the house I am staying is this wonderful old garage with several inches of moss and ferns just waiting to be photographed. I wonder if they get any TV reception, we don't nor do we get any cell phone coverage.

Kampersville is a facility on Lake Dunmore that serves campers of all kinds on a private stretch of forest and lakefront. Here private camping whether by tent of RV are accommodated and the Sexy Squirrel serves to mark a place to resupply yourself on fuel, food or Sunday New York Times (the only place to get it nearby) which is how I came by the squirrel. By the way it was $6.00 for the New England Edition.

These campsites are also here in part because of the attraction of the region and the longstanding heritage of camping. Keywaydin Dunmore is purported to be one of the oldest boys camp in the country dating to 1910 where boys came to rustic cabins and army tents. Songadeewin, its female counterpart dating from the 1920's and now reorganized into the Keywadin management is another of the standards. All I can say is that I wish that I had parents enlightened enough to send me to a camp at such a wonderful place as Lake Dunmore.

Nearby Waterhouses' is yet another campground on the "busy end of the lake" as locals say where you can also get gas for your powerboat.

We are miles away from the major campsites located on the north end of the lake. In the southern end are mostly private homes and family camps like where I am staying. Here too, are unusual camps. While I was kajaking a rain shower started out of the blue and caught me and a cellist at the music camp in the rain. The cellist continued to play making my trip that much more eventful.

As I was saying our side of the lake has fancy and not so fancy houses where families have been returning since the 1930's. I am staying with friends that have called this their summer home since then and met other's like them who share longstanding summer friendships.

This biggest news in the lake is the return of the loons. For almost a hundred years loons were not seen at Lake Dunmore because of its popularity and their need of isolation. A few summers ago a pair returned and are back again. I came close enough on a canoe with friends to take this image. My prior contact with loons has been limited to those on the film On Golden Pond, but this summer I have gotten my fill of them taking the kayak out on daily runs to see them or going out on a neighbor's pontoon boat to an area they have claimed for raising the two chicks. They are very vocal and if you get too close you will get all kinds of alarming bird songs, swear language no doubt, telling you to keep away.

Finally, we had a torrential downpour for about three or four hours; a storm that started with huge hail. By the beginning of the evening there was a clearing of the skies and the Green Mountains opposite us were momentarily lit as though by floodlight and as the light wavered, colors I have only seen on Hudson School Paintings of Frederic Church surfaced. I leave you with this view from our dock. Happy Gardening!

If a cat decides to have kittens in your oven that does not make them biscuits!

Moss Glen Falls on Route 100 near Warren

If a cat decides to have kittens in your oven that does not make them biscuits! In Vermont people are very proud of their heritage, and this saying is one of the many ways that the local folk have of being matter of fact of what qualifies as a Vermonter. It has been many years since I traveled this region on camping adventures with Taxi and my ex. We were much younger and so impressed with this marvelous state; something that could also qualify as a state of mind. No billboards, sublime natural beauty, simplicity of scale, natural forces at play such as black fly, mud season and a hardy winter that keep most away but the toughest.

Beaver Lodge and Lake

I was so impressed with this region and its people that I considered moving here. I thought I would venture out of my natural hardiness zone (those we apply to plants) that I personally use to decide if I can survive in a place. The lowest I considered was for Maine which rates a 6 on the coast. Currently I live in zone 7 which is slightly warmer and shorter period of deep freeze. But Vermont, well, that was another matter. Vermont was a rather chilly zone 3 or 4 which meant periods of deep freeze of 20 below zero. So I discarded the idea of life in the heart of Yankee country.

Writer's Camp at Breadloaf of Middleburry College

True to my expectations, Vermont has continued to excel with New England values allowing freedoms as contrary to the national norm as to be the first state that allowed gay marriage. Marriage, not civil unions! In spite of very strong religious and family values Vermont is a place that prides itself on freedom: Equal under the law. Now, thanks to global warming, Vermont has inched closer to my natural hardiness zone. Depending on the map you use, it can be as warm as zone 5b. No, I am not moving here, but the thought of it is tempting. For the last three days I have been swimming in warm spring freshwater lakes and traveling a land that can only be described as magical.

Warren Inn

The people I have met and the places I have seen lack fluff and are rather earthy and natural. The natural beauty is inspiring with long glacial valleys and stands of wildflowers as far as the eye can see. Best of all, this area is filled with people still filled with the spirit of adventure modern pioneers, still making life in a place than can be less than hospitable. To my surprise I found a young couple selling Cuban food to the locals in the Middlebury Farmer’s Market. The Cuban Diaspora is remarkable.

Love of gardening

Best of all I am staying with UU friends. I am seeing Vermont through their eyes. Friends who have lived here for most of their life. Flatlanders, the term used to describe non native Vermonters, but people who love their second home and who enjoy sharing all that they love about Vermont.

Enjoy a little Vermont!

Wildflowers

First of the Summer Corn. It was real good.

Saturday Farmers Market in Middleburry

Elizabeth and Clayton a Cuban and a Yankee couple at the Farmers Market

Our swimming float

Samson egging me on for another toss in the lake