North to Newfoundland, 2017
11 stories, in order from the beginning of the trip.
1July 17, 2017
Dateline July 17, 2017, Let the Summer Begin
Summer set us off again, north this time, aiming for Newfoundland and Janice's place in the Canadian Women's Golf Championship in August, with golf, family, and good country all the way up. First, the Saga of the Cabinet, the cherry cabinet we designed and built ourselves after our carpenter quit on us, with brother Brian's help to finish. Then our first stop, Georgia Veterans State Park on Blackshear Lake, a campsite on the water and a fine morning round. In the afternoon we waved at Plains, Jimmy Carter's hometown, with his library to come.
2July 18, 2017
Dateline July 18, 2017, Plains and the Jimmy Carter Library
From Georgia Veterans we made a day of Jimmy Carter's Plains, a whole town inside a single square mile: the depot that ran his campaign, a downtown mural of the landmarks, a memorabilia man with buttons dating back to Woodrow Wilson, and fried peanuts and peanut ice cream. Then on to his presidential library in Atlanta, the energy crisis and Janice's 21% mortgage, the Camp David Accords, and a humanitarian record after office that puts most presidencies to shame. We left, as we always do at these libraries, grateful to all who served.
3July 28, 2017
Dateline July 28, 2017, North Carolina and Rhode Island
North up the coast, we skipped the stops we'd shown you before and kept to the new ones and the good golf. We leveled the RV on a hillside near Asheville and played Black Mountain, sweated through a 99-degree round on Arnold Palmer's Lonnie Poole with our daughter Kieran in Raleigh, and got a four-year-old's dawn hug at our son James's in Wind Gap. Then Rhode Island: golf at Winnapaug, and Newport's Trinity Church, where Marty and Jeff were married, leaning six degrees until steel set it straight. A good day, and on to Janice's aunt and uncle.
4August 7, 2017
Dateline August 7, 2017, Aunt Margaret and Uncle Bill
Off 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.
5August 8, 2017
Dateline August 8, 2017, A Little Golf
With the Cape behind us, we made an early Sunday run north of Boston for a few rounds of golf. Cape Ann in Essex gave us a Golf Digest hole looking out to Gloucester and two friendly local couples to play with. We camped on the ocean at Salisbury Beach and played the Sagamore-Hampton course in New Hampshire, good enough to come back for, and there met Dean and Melissa Rascoe, who bought us beers after Janice gave Melissa a tip or two. Then on toward Janice's sister's.
6August 9, 2017
Dateline August 9, 2017, Connie and Lee and the Car Show
We 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.
7August 12, 2017
Dateline August 12, 2017, New Hampshire and Maine
From Connie and Lee's we wound through the White Mountains: golf with our friend Maurica, the Flume gorge at Franconia Notch, and the grand Mount Washington Hotel, where forty-four nations built the postwar financial order in 1944. We stayed with Janice's cousin Brian and his Donna in their light-filled forest home, then crossed into Maine for Castine, older than Plymouth, and a campsite supper of two-pound lobsters delivered for twenty-seven dollars. In the morning, the Canadian border.
8August 19, 2017
Dateline August 19, 2017, New Brunswick and the Bay of Fundy
We crossed into Canada and picked up the Fundy Coastal Drive, the road that hugs the Bay of Fundy and its tides, the highest on earth. We started at pretty Saint Andrews, bought sausage and sourdough at a Legion hall market in Saint George, and wound up the coast through Saint John and Fundy National Park to postcard-pretty Alma, with a waterfall and an old barn at St Martin along the way. Next, Nova Scotia and some golf.
9August 20, 2017
Dateline August 20, 2017, Golf in Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia gave us three rounds and a new friendship. At Amherst we drew Spud and Patty from Truro, Spud raised on PEI potatoes, thirty-one years a sailor, and we liked them enough to follow Spud to his home club. A roadside repair set us back eighty-five dollars and not much time, a lakeside campground tried to park us beside two Porta Potties and lost our business, and The Lakes at Ben Eoin turned out one of the prettiest, toughest courses we've played. On to Louisbourg.
10August 21, 2017
Dateline August 21, 2017, The Fortress of Louisbourg
Everyone said not to miss Louisbourg, and they were right. The great French fortress, once guarding the third-busiest port in the New World, has been brought back to life a quarter at a time, its streets full of costumed soldiers and storytellers. We pulled on wool uniforms, stood up as new recruits before a crowd, heard how a recruit chose each month between shoes and wine, and fired the muskets ourselves. Down the road stood the first lighthouse site in Canada. A day we won't forget.
11August 22, 2017
Dateline August 22, 2017, Alexander Graham Bell
Our last stop in Nova Scotia was the Alexander Graham Bell site at Baddeck, where the great inventor summered. We knew him for the telephone; we did not know he was Scottish-born and a longtime Canadian, nor that he chased the Wright Brothers into the air with the Silver Dart, built a record-setting hydrofoil, and gave his deepest passion to teaching the deaf, work for which Helen Keller said he carried her from darkness to light. In the morning, the six-hour ferry to Newfoundland and the heart of our trip.