Every trip we've shared since 2011—filter by where we went, when we traveled, or what we explored.
Showing 29 of 236 posts
United StatesBack on the road for the first time since the Middle East, a trip to see family and play golf, with Janice bound for the Canadian Women's Senior just outside Toronto. The drive up from Pinehurst, Cape Cod and 96-year-old Uncle Bill, and a round with brother Brian at Atkinson before heading for the border.
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United StatesThe last leg, with Janice's sister Connie and her husband Lee in Derry, New Hampshire. We outran Hurricane Henri up from the Cape, ate our way through a New England boiled dinner and the famous 'Stan potatoes,' visited Janice's parents' graves at Lake Sunapee, and played a friendly nine with Lee's buddies before the long drive home.
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United StatesNorth from Pinehurst to Cape Cod, to see Janice's Uncle Bill and Aunt Margaret in Harwich. Along the way, Plymouth Rock and, at the Barnstable courthouse, the statues of James Otis and Mercy Otis Warren, two Founding-era figures who happen to be Janice's own ancestors. Then eye-watering lobster rolls, the Mooncussers Tavern, and a round of golf with ninety-three-year-old Uncle Bill.
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United StatesA week in Raleigh with the family, the opening leg of a longer trip north. At its heart was a celebration of the life of John's brother Will, who passed in July, a gathering full of love, sorrow, and the kind of laughter only Willie could inspire. There was time too for Falls Lake, a round at Wildwood Green, a USGA qualifier, and a Shabbat dinner to send us on our way.
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United StatesThe last leg, and the best kind, a few days in Raleigh with our son James and his family, the grandchildren far more interested in the RV than in us, a day at the natural-science museum with experiments and a butterfly house, and then the early-morning drive south to home in Flagler Beach. The close of a long, full summer.
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United StatesOur last days on Whidbey were all old friends: the Taylors at Diamond Knot, a friendship that goes back generations; Cathy's sister Beth and her new Langley home, near where John fished with his father as a boy; and a Friday barbecue at Camp Wilson with the Wanicks and the Hoversons. As the sun set on what Will calls one of the best views in the country, it was time to say goodbye.
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United StatesWe crossed Washington by way of Wenatchee, the Apple Capital of the World, and the state's astonishing farm country, then drove over the Cascades and rode the ferry to Whidbey Island and John's brother Will's place, Camp Wilson. Will fed us like kings, and we took the ferry over to Port Townsend, where uptown sits on a cliff five hundred feet above downtown.
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United StatesWe spent a Spokane morning tracking down John's family. We found his grandparents' old Rockwood house, were invited in, and heard about the basement safe no one had dared open; we visited St. John's Cathedral, where his parents married and his brother Peter was baptized; and we picked out the Desert family home and the old Desert Hotel downtown. At seventy-two, John's memory held.
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United StatesOn the road to the Bohlingers we swung through Deadwood, hoping to see the graves of Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane, only to be turned back by a road that would not take the RV. Then on to Billings and dear friends John and Nancy, a grandson's birthday with three generations on hand, cheesy eggs in the morning, and a hearing-aid fix before we rolled toward the Lewis and Clark Caverns.
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United StatesBrian rented a house right on Lake Sunapee for the whole family, and we raised the traditional martini toast at Janice's parents' grave. We won the Sunday match, then watched an oak come down across the rented pontoon boat with Steve and Marilyn aboard, mercifully unhurt. There was a wet boat ride to a closed restaurant, good food in spite of it all, and the loons calling morning and night.
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United StatesWe pulled into Derry to stay with Janice's sister Connie and her husband Lee, where Happy Hour keeps its own clock and Connie served flank steak with Stan's potatoes, her late father's recipe. Janice came a stroke shy of qualifying for the USGA Senior, we played Hidden Lake, and Connie and Lee took us to Pipe Dream, a brewery two former Marines built. Then the big day: a Make-A-Wish car show at the Budweiser plant, Lee's '66 Biscayne, the Clydesdales up close, and a brewery tour. On toward Newfoundland, with a promise to see them again at Sunapee.
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United StatesOff the road north, we spent a couple of days on Cape Cod with Janice's Aunt Margaret and Uncle Bill, who turns ninety in October and hasn't slowed a step. Janice's cousin's wife Karen Otis was there too, and we got to talking about the family's deep roots: the Otises of the Revolution, Mercy Otis Warren and her brother James, whose statues stand in Barnstable. There were wild turkeys to debate, three-mile walks in the rain, and dinners out. Visits like this are the heart of why we travel.
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Family(/images/2015/IMG1074.jpg)Welcome to our Christmas. We must admit that it is all different when you have a grandchild to make it a Merry, Merry time! First let us introduce you to Collin, John's son James and his wife...
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United StatesAfter a few days on Cape Cod with Janice's Aunt Margaret and Uncle Bill, we drove into Boston for the JFK Library on Columbia Point. The fourth of our presidential library visits this year. The welcome at the door was more reserved than the others had been, worth noting only because it was so different. The library walks you through Kennedy's life in proper sequence: PT-109 in the Solomon Islands, Harvard, the House, the Senate, the 1960 race against Nixon that included the first televised presidential debate in American history, the inauguration and 'Ask not,' the Bay of Pigs lesson three months in, the Berlin Wall and 'Ich bin ein Berliner,' the thirteen days of the Cuban Missile Crisis, civil rights, the moon program, the Test Ban Treaty, Robert Kennedy at Justice, Jackie's White House restoration, and Dallas. In the morning we drive west to Hyde Park for the FDR Library.
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United StatesOut of Coeur d'Alene, twenty miles through the rest of Idaho, then on to Spokane, where both of John's parents grew up before meeting in Seattle at the University of Washington. The Ginkgo Petrified Forest at Vantage, a stop John remembered from family drives between Seattle and Spokane as a boy. A Columbia River campsite, Snoqualmie Pass where John learned to ski in first grade, across Lake Washington into Seattle for Pike Place Market and chowder at Lowell's. The Mukilteo ferry to Whidbey Island and three days with John's brother Will and his wife Cathy: salmon, mussels, the family deer, and Janice doing the actual RV repair herself with Will helping. Then ferry to Port Townsend, Hurricane Ridge above Port Angeles for a few snowballs in July, down the Olympic Peninsula and Highway 101, across the Columbia to Astoria. Down the Oregon coast in rain, Bandon Dunes too cold to play, and on to Crescent City and the start of the Redwoods.
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United StatesSouth out of Yellowstone into Teton National Forest, the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Parkway with the Tetons all the way down the right side, and into Jackson, where the farmers' market was in full swing on a Saturday morning. Then north to Virginia City, Montana, a real ghost town with deep family weight: John's mother's great uncle, Bill Fairweather, was the prospector who discovered gold at Alder Gulch in May 1863 and effectively founded the place. John had last stood at Bill's grave in 1958, at age eleven. Then over to Big Sky to spend a couple of days with old family friend John Bohlinger, Lt. Governor of Montana from 2005 to 2013, the Republican half of Brian Schweitzer's bipartisan ticket. Lunch at the Montana Club in Helena. Spruce River Campground outside Kalispell, an electrical problem on the Roadtrek that needed a part to be picked up in Seattle. On to Lake Coeur d'Alene.
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United StatesOut of Missouri toward Cody. The golf course we had on the schedule was hosting a Missouri Golf Association tournament, so we adjusted, did the Truman Library, then headed west past the Eisenhower Library in Abilene. John could not drive past Manhattan, Kansas without stopping at Kansas State University, his old college, to see the fraternity house and a couple of other old haunts. Then across Kansas to Lake Waconda in the wheat country, the largest community ball of twine in Cawker City, Ft. Collins for golf, Cheyenne for RV light repairs, and into the Medicine Bow National Forest. The Ames Monument at the highest point of the original transcontinental railroad. A campsite outside Centennial, Wyoming, found through the kindness of a bartender and a woman named Jenny. The Snowy Range at sunrise. A pronghorn antelope, the last surviving member of its family. Split Rock on the Oregon Trail. Saratoga's hot springs. And the dinosaur museum at Thermopolis, with one of twelve known Archaeopteryx specimens in the world. Then on to Cody.
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United StatesOut of Acadia and south down the Maine coast to Bath, to visit Bob Bittner, who has known Janice since grade school. They had not seen each other since high school, until Facebook reconnected them. Bob and his wife Raisa, an architect who redesigned their place themselves, live on a stretch of water acreage with a great room and a view from the back porch. Bob has been in the radio business for twenty years and owns two AM stations playing adult standards from the 1930s through the 1960s, drawing from a library of more than 5,400 records. We toured the studio (78s, 33s, and 45s for the youngsters), and the garage, where Bob's lifetime license-plate collection runs into the thousands. And then we waved goodbye, and headed home, the long summer through four Canadian provinces and a slice of Maine quietly closing behind us.
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CanadaBack from Newfoundland and onto the north shore of the Bay of Fundy. The Truro tidal bore turned out to be a small wake of a wave that produced an entire crowd singing 'Is That All There Is?' Five Islands, Nova Scotia, was the most beautiful campground of the trip, with hummingbirds at the fish store next door. The Hopewell Rocks at low tide in New Brunswick. Kelly's Bakery cinnamon buns in Alma. And a meaningful detour: a Fairweather family ancestry mission in Sussex on behalf of John's brother Will, where we found four graves of our forebears, including Hanford Fairweather, who died at age ten and for whom John is named. Then to Saint John, the Reversing Falls, the ferry to Deer Island and on to Campobello, FDR's summer cottage, and the bridge across to Lubec, Maine. Back in the USA.
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CanadaInto Halifax for the Maritime Museum, where the Titanic story still lives because Halifax was the port that received the bodies. A reunion with Roadtrek friends Ann and Ruth, who had just arrived in Nova Scotia. The Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo on Saturday afternoon, with the 1812 Overture and a surprise wedding inside the show. Then over to Cape Breton: the Ceilidh Trail, fish and chips at the Rankin family's Red Shoe Pub in Mabou, a shot at the Glenora single-malt distillery, the Cabot Trail, the Englishtown cable ferry, and a quiet round at Seaview Golf. And finally the Marconi National Historic Site at Glace Bay, where a retired ham operator named James Charlong gave us a tour that turned out to be one of the highlights of the whole trip, partly because John had reviewed Morse code messages for the Army Security Agency a long career ago, and standing at the foundations of Marconi's 1902 transatlantic station closed a quiet circle.
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CanadaFrom the wedding, north to Canada. A visit with Janice's cousin Bobbie Dawes in Clinton, New York, a free overnight at the Akwesasne Mohawk casino, and over the border to Camping Alouette outside Montreal. Lunch at Poutineville with David Williams (Parker's cousin, so a Wilson by way of Carol), and with Courtney and Amanda, who shared the news that grandchild number two was on the way. The afternoon at Saint Joseph's Oratory on Mount Royal. Then on to Quebec City for the only walled city in North America, the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, the Château Frontenac, the Citadel, and the story of how the British took Quebec in 1759. Plus a garage update from home.
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PennsylvaniaBack in the Roadtrek after two weeks home. The garage project is underway in the old carport, the foundation blocks set. First stop, Gettysburg, where our son James married Mary Albin under a beautiful summer sky. Rehearsal dinner at Appalachian Brewing Company. The toast, naming the five women in James's life, from sister Kieran through to Mary. The Wilson family sword from 1944, used to cut every wedding cake since Jack and Grammy. A garden wedding in Hanover. Mary becomes Mary Wilson. Eastern Canada is next.
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AlaskaTravels have ended for now. We've landed in Flagler Beach, Florida, where we're looking for a new home. A look back at the whole year, the miles, the bears and moose and orcas, the wine consumed (sixty bottles), the people we met, and the day on Tracy Arm to Sawyer Glacier that has to count as the single biggest thrill of the trip. We'll restart in the spring with new adventures.
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New YorkOut of New England with Irene behind us, a stop in New Bedford with the fishing fleet still in port, the ferry from New London to Orient Point, and on to Carol's in Locust Valley. A run into the city to see our daughter Kieran and son James, with the inimitable Panna II in the East Village (chili-pepper Christmas lights, disco ball, and a fake birthday). Then Labor Day weekend at Carol and Parker's beach trailer at Shinnecock Inlet, where this family has been gathering for 35 years.
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New EnglandPittsburgh with our son James and his fiancée Mary, and the great mouse caper that began in the Midwest. Clinton NY with Janice's cousin Bobbie. Elvis Weekend at the Akwesasne Mohawk Casino with Steve and Marilyn. Long Lake with Kim, Tony, Stella, and Daphne. Vermont, then a quiet visit to Janice's parents Stanley and Jeanne at Eastman Cemetery. Connie and Lee in Derry, the Bush home at Walker's Point, Cape Arundel at sunset, lobster in Rockport, and Cape Cod with Uncle Bill and Aunt Margaret as Hurricane Irene rolled through.
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MichiganAcross the Upper Peninsula on the UP Golf Trail. Mackinac Island with the Grand Hotel, the red phone booth, no cars since 1898, and clubs hauled between the front and back nine by horse-drawn carriage. Sleeping Bear Dunes with Pat and Anna Carney, who were also on the long road home from Alaska. Traverse City with our friend Robin Vaught and her family. And on to Noblesville, Indiana, where Janice took a swing at qualifying for the USGA Women's Senior Amateur.
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WashingtonA pause on Whidbey Island at John's brother Will and his wife Cathy's home overlooking Mutiny Bay. The Roadtrek needed a new radiator part, Janice and Will took care of it, and the Walkabout was about to begin in earnest. A look back at the months that bridged the gap: Clay's wedding in Hawaii, the Lake Jovita home selling, and becoming officially homeless.
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HawaiiThe whole reason for the Hawaii trip: our nephew Clay Trauernicht's wedding to Talia, on the North Shore of Oahu. Then a week on the Big Island with the Wilson clan, Akaka Falls, kayaking out to the Captain Cook Monument in Kealakekua Bay, and snorkeling among more colorful fish than we knew the ocean held. And the news at the end that turned the page on the rest of the year: we had sold the house in Florida.
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HawaiiA visit to Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona Memorial. Over six hundred feet of battleship resting on the floor of the harbor with the sailors of December 7, 1941. The wall of names, the small amounts of oil still escaping from the hull, and the USS Missouri turned inward to watch over them. Eleanor Roosevelt's wartime prayer at the circle of remembrance.
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