We just got home from our week and a half trip through Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire, which started with some end of season blueberry picking in the ski bowl in North Creek New York. This was Calvin's first time picking and he managed to cooperate rather nicely with Isabel in filling a bucket.

When we left New York, we headed for Vermont where we visited the Rowley farms in Milton and their camp on Lake Champlain, where my mother longed to go as a child, but due to the dastardly deeds of her father, was excluded. Isabel and I went for a pirate adventure in a giant tractor inner tube with Margaret, while Calvin stalked the beaches throwing stones at imaginary invaders.

From there we visited a man named Dog in West Corinth who lives on 600 acres with several families that are all alternative types. They are very dynamic and active people with lots of interesting ideas about securing the future. They don't have health insurance because it's too expensive, and luckily they are in good health...!

From there we headed to the boondocks of Maine, where my father was born, north of Rumford and visited him and his new camp where he wants to live until he dies. Shortly after that we ran into what we think is the birthplace of HENRIETTA the giant chicken of Pinkwater fame. Note the more normal sized chicken in the foreground.

From there we went to Portland where the kids played in the fancy children's museum. We made a brief trip to Old Orchard Beach where the water is freezing, even in August. I don't know how I swam in it as a child. In Portland Dave connected with one of the kids that he used to babysit (and play chess with) at Deep Springs College, now a carpenter whom we hope to lure to work on our cabin before he settles down permanently -- or goes off to Southeast Asia. Dallas wants to save some travelling money, so we are bribing him with free room and board in hopes that he will make some improvements on the place.

Finally we went to visit Anne Huberman in her empire on Sunset Lake, where the kids took Finnish saunas, canoed, rowed, swam, and otherwise delighted in the Huberman camp traditions.