We have been summering at Lake Rescue in Ludlow, Vermont, and the sheer magnitude of the wild birds that make their home on and around this 184-acre body of water in the Green Mountains is breathtaking. The secret to seeing the most avian activity is to rise early and get out on the lake, preferably in a kayak, to observe the birds’ early-morning fishing routines before the human population begins to intrude. Here are a few.
(If you click on the pictures, they will expand to full size.)
Duck Duck Goose
Ducks and geese are by far the most common bird we have found on the lake. They are bold and will swim right up to your boat or climb on your dock.
Loons
Common loons have been living on Lake Rescue for more than a decade.
Herons
I was fortunate to encounter Great Blue Herons and Snowy Egrets fishing early in the morning on Round Pond, at the north end of Lake Rescue. The grasses on the isthmus between the lake and the Black River, and the sand bar created by storms, provide and enticing place for birds to walk and fish.
Ospreys
We discovered ospreys, on the direction of a neighbor, in a cove near the Red Bridge.
Bald Eagle
A bald eagle family maintains a nest in a cove near Discovery Island, and returns year after year to hatch new eggs.
Vermont has an endless bounty of hikes, from the challenging Appalachian/Long Trail that traverses the entire state, to short hikes with big rewards. All of them are steep, because these are the Green Mountains, after all!
Here a couple we enjoy that can be done with the kids, or with people in your party who aren’t used to long hikes. Both will reward you with outstanding views for not too much effort. Don’t forget to pack your binoculars or a camera!
Hike to the Top of Okemo
There’s a short hike to the top of the Okemo Mountain Road that gives you an awesome vantage point with less than a mile of hiking. You can hike through dense, magical woods up a steep, rocky trail, or you can hike up a relatively easy road. At the top you have a mountain-top view from the Okemo Peak that lets you gaze down upon the Village of Ludlow, Lake Rescue, and mountains all the way to New Hampshire. You’ll see the ski lift and can climb to the top of the Fire Tower (if you’re not afraid of heights). It’s less than a mile round trip. There are some pull-offs with scenic views on the way down. Learn more.
Directions to the Trailhead:
Turn left on Route 100, then left at the end. Make a right onto Okemo Mtn Rd. Drive up to the Okemo Lodge, continuing up the private road to its left (OPEN from late spring to late fall). This road will switchback straight up the mountain for about 4-5 miles until you reach the top. You’ll be able to park at the end and either walk on the road or go up the trail to the left.
Echo Lake Vista Trail
Children as young as five can successfully navigate the hike up the Echo Lake Vista Trail. It’s steep but not brutal, and the views of Echo Lake, okemo Mountain, and the whole area from the top are breathtaking. there’s a nice rock there where you can relax and enjoy a snack. It’s only 1.5 miles round-trip.Learn more.
Directions:
The trail is located at Camp Plymouth State Park Distance. Go north on Route 100 (turn right from Benson Point), North, then turn right onto Kingdom Road at the Echo Lake Inn, follow 1 mile to Boy Scout Camp Road, and turn left to Camp Plymouth State Park. Park for free in a parking lot on the right before the road crosses the creek. The trailhead is past the cabins on the right, or you can go farther on the road and access the trail by old wooden steps that take you through an ancient cemetery.
When the coronavirus started to get serious, my husband Bob and
I were at a Mexican resort, trying to take one last vacation before the world shut
down, unable to enjoy watching pelicans dance with the waves because of worry.
Acapulco was gorgeous but we were too worried to enjoy it, and left early to start the journey home
Our oldest child, Aryk, was hunkered down at Keele University in England, one of the last students still on campus, trying to decide if coming home would disrupt their chances to graduate this summer. Our youngest, Gavin, was in Vermont, gathering up their things (and their emotional support cat) from college.
Bob and I had stopped working full-time in 2018, envisioning
an adventurous retirement spent exploring the world. We rented out our house
and happily hit the road. The kids went to college. We explored Mexico. Life
was good.
But the coronavirus changed everything. In a blink of an eye, we needed a family home, and to reel in the kids, ASAP. Since Bob’s mom had passed away in January, we decided to move into her Pennsylvania condo instead of selling it. We hustled to purchase plane tickets for kids before borders closed, flew from Acapulco to Mexico City, packed up our truck, and began the five-day, 2,500-mile odyssey north from Mexico City to Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.
Thus all four of us journeyed toward the empty condo of a dead woman from different points on the globe.
Bob and I, driving 8-10 hours a day in our trusty Toyota Tacoma, worried about picking up the virus from every gas pump, every hotel room door, every person who coughed near us in a rest stop on our way to the bathroom. Shoulders tight, we fretted that the Mexican border would close before we got through, that we would get sick or be stopped and quarantined along the way, that we wouldn’t be able to get food to eat.
Images from the rainy drive home
When we crossed the border into the United States, I cried
with relief.
At the same time, we worried that our kids would pick up the virus as they traveled. Gavin had to fly from Mexico City (where they were visiting us for Spring Break) back to Champlain College to pick up their books, clothes and their emotional support cat, then from Burlington, VT, to Harrisburg, PA. Aryk had to cross the Atlantic Ocean to Atlanta , GA, before boarding a plane to Harrisburg. Both then had to take Ubers to Grandma’s condo.
Gavin arrived at the condo first. He was already experiencing coronavirus symptoms by the time Aryk showed up a few days later. They wisely isolated from each other as Bob and I powered northward, white-knuckled. By our final travel day, Gavin was coughing and feverish. Of course, we ran into a traffic jam in the last few hours to further exacerbate the tension.
Gavin with his trusty cat in Grandma’s condo, getting his temperature taken
But now we are together, and I am grateful. Gavin is on Day 10 of what we presume is the coronavirus (though the PA State Health Department declined to test him), still with a fever, extreme dehydration and no energy, but thankfully, the disease has not lodged in his lungs. The rest of us have no symptoms, but Bob and I are keeping six feet away from Aryk for 14 days, just to be safe. I serve Gavin meals and meds and massive pitchers of water wearing a hospital mask and rubber gloves, and pray I don’t catch it. We all wash hands and doorknobs voraciously. When Gavin is no longer ill, the 14-day quarantine clock will begin for us all.
Out walking with Aryk, always six feet apart
Every day that the three of us don’t experience symptoms is a victory. Every tick down of Gavin’s thermometer is a relief, though the subsequent day it always goes back up, so we are not out of the woods yet. We are all quarantined, getting food delivered and staying inside except to exercise.
But I’m grateful we are together, that we have a place to stay that feels like home. I’m grateful that Grandma left us some unexpected gifts, in addition to the condo, such as two thermometers, and masks and gloves to protect me from Gavin’s virus. I even found an electric keyboard in a closet, which will keep me busy for the next year re-learning how to play. I think Bob’s mother would be happy to know that, in death, she is taking care of her family so well.
Grandma’s unexpected gift
Most of all, I am grateful to be with my husband and kids. I pray we all make it through unscathed, not just the ones in my household, but my stepmom and six brothers and sisters, their spouses, my nieces (one pregnant) and nephews, great-nieces and great-nephews, aunts and uncles, and many, many cousins. Traveling the world seems like a distant memory. Now my dream is that my family and friends survive this and we can all restart our lives next year.
And I am eternally grateful that Grandma hoarded toilet
paper.
Fortunately for us, Grandma was prepared for ArmaggedonBy Lisa Hamm-Greenawalt
Happy Valentine’s Day! We wanted to celebrate the annual day of love by sharing the story of our love locks.
A couple of weeks ago, Bob and I attached a little gold padlock to the new Love Lock Bridge near the Riverwalk in San Antonio to lock our love forever, then kissed and took a selfie to mark the occasion. On our lock was written in Sharpie “RG & LH,” inside a hand-drawn heart pierced by Cupid’s arrow. The bridge was actually a chainlink fence along the San Antonio River, but it was covered with hundreds of locks of other couples declaring their undying love.
It was the 15th time we have declared our forever love by
placing a lock on a bridge. Normally we are not super-sentimental people, but
love locks are a ritual we have grown to cherish during our travels, leaving
our mark on bridges and walls all over the United States, Europe and Mexico (so
far).
Paris, France
It all started in the summer of 2016, when I was planning to
accompany Gavin’s scout troop on a week in the romantic city of Paris. Before
we left, Bob gave me a padlock and asked me to write our initials on it and
hang it on the Pont des Arts Bridge, which was famous for having so many
lovers’ padlocks affixed to it that it groaned under the weight, and
authorities had had to cut them off. He had seen the bridge during a weekend he
spent alone in Paris during a business trip, and thought it would be nice to
have our own lock there.
Surprised and touched by this rare sentimentality, I happily obliged. After the troop set off for the next leg of their trip, Switzerland, I went down to the River Seine and searched for the love locks. The city had decommissioned the Pont des Arts Bridge in 2015 because of the weight of the locks, so I went to the Pont Neuf. It was covered with thousands of lovers’ padlocks tumbling down the banisters and onto the railings of the river walls beyond. Across the River Seine from where I stood was a magnificent view of the Louvre. I locked our padlock, blew a kiss to Bob across the ocean, and took pictures. I’m sure if the locks get too heavy, authorities will cut them off again. But until then, RG & LH will grace the Pont Neuf in Paris, the city of lovers.
Paris
It was a grand, and small, gesture of love. It felt good. It
made me think about why I had married this man, what we had experienced
together, and how special our life was.
Hamburg, Germany
Three years later, we were visiting my brother Patrick in
Hamburg, Germany, and walking along the Elbe River when we saw another bridge
covered with lovers’ locks. We didn’t realize the tradition had expanded beyond
Paris. Since we were leaving the country the next day, we went and found a
hardware store to buy a lock, wrote RG
& LH with a Sharpie and enlisted Patrick to hang it for us. A few weeks
later, he sent a photo of our lock on the bridge. (Thanks, Pat!)
Hamburg
And with that, we were off, searching for love lock bridges, or creating our own, everywhere we went, together or apart. While on a five-week tour through Europe, we hung locks everywhere.
London, England
In London, we strolled across the pedestrian Jubilee Bridge and listened to a street musician playing Caribbean steel drums while we snapped our padlock in a spot all its own and kissed above the Thames River.
London
Rome, Italy
After a long day of sightseeing as a family in Rome, when Gavin’s and my feet were aching from miles of walking, Bob trekked back in the rain to hang a lock over the Tiber River.
Rome
Sorrento, Italy
Farther south in Sorrento, on a solo weekend trip while I
was off doing genealogy searching with some Italian cousins, Bob discovered an
iron fence with love locks along the Mediterranean coastline about a mile from
his hotel during his morning run. He spent the afternoon searching for a
padlock and a Sharpie, but a torrential downpour forced him to wait to return
until the next morning, when a break in the rain gave him time to quickly walk
there and fix the lock in place before heading for the train station.
Sorrento
Hydra, Greece
In Greece, during a daylong boat trip, Hydra, an idyllic fishing village where bleached-white houses climb up the mountainside from the azure Mediterranean, offered herself as an entrancingly scenic host to our love lock.
Hydra, Greece
Ludlow, Vermont
The tradition continued when we returned to North America. First, we affixed a love lock to a bridge in Ludlow, Vermont, where we have our second home.
Ludlow
New Orleans, Louisiana
Then we headed down to live in Mexico for the first six months of 2019. During a two-night on break the road trip south, we took the streetcar to hang a lock on a chain-link fence in New Orleans, under a banner that read Love Locks NOLA in front of the Eiffel Society, a club built from parts of a former Eiffel Tower eatery.
New Orleans
Leon, Mexico
When we came to Mexico in January 2019, the first city we stayed in was Leon, where we found the Puente Del Amor (love locks bridge) at one end of the Causeway of Heroes, a wide pedestrian walkway that serves as the gateway into the old city. After spending an afternoon looking for ferreterias (hardware stores) to buy a padlock, we put our lock through the padlock of another lock at the top. The bridge looked down upon a highway, with mountains in the distance.
Leon
Lake Chapala, Mexico
We never found a good spot in Tlaquepaque, where we lived for four months, or Guadalajara, the city next door. But we visited beautiful Lake Chapala, half an hour south, for a day trip and walked out to the end of a fishing pier to hang our lock on a rusted turquoise railing overlooking Mexico’s largest freshwater lake. On the way, we had been stopped by announcers for a local radio station who were broadcasting live, and thus posed for the obligatory selfie in our new orange Guadalajara T-shirts.
Lake Chapala
Guanajuato, Mexico
By far the most interesting place to hang our lock was the
magical town of Guanajuato, where there’s an alley so narrow that people can
kiss from across two balconies. There’s a tragic legend of a young man who was
killed for stealing a kiss from the daughter of a rich man. We put up our lock
and kissed across the alley. (Fortunately, Bob survived.)
Guanajuato
Montreal, Canada
We lived in Vermont during summer 2019, and took a couple of trips to Montreal, Canada, hanging one lock on a bridge overlooking Gay Village and the other on a small bridge in the main pedestrian area along the St. Lawrence River, looking out at a huge Ferris Wheel.
Montreal
The Farm, Cascade, Pennsylvania
When we visited The Farm, the family homestead in the mountains of Central Pennsylvania where Lisa’s paternal grandmother grew up, we hung a love lock from the rusty metal rope that secures the entrance to the old lane.
The Farm
Thwarted
We were occasionally thwarted in our efforts. In the beach town of Cambrils, Spain, there was no official Love Locks bridge, so we scouted the promenade along the ocean but never found a spot where we could thread a padlock. There was an official Love Locks spot in Barcelona, but we didn’t have time to visit it. We have looked several times while in Burlington, VT, but have not yet found a spot for a padlock.
Part of the tradition of the Love Locks is to throw the keys into the river to seal your eternal love, but we don’t do that because we don’t think it’s good for the health of the fish or the river. Thus we still hold all the keys to each other’s hearts.
Our Love Locks Map
Click on each pin to see an image of the lock in its home!
Up Next …
We have just arrived in Mexico City and are looking for a place to hang our 16th lock. We’ll keep you posted!
On our single full day in New Orleans, we opted for history instead of entertainment and headed to the National World War II Museum. It was, without a doubt, one of the most spectacular, illuminating museums I have ever experienced in my life. This museum, which started out as the D-Day Museum in 2001, and is located in New Orleans because most of the landing craft used on that turning-point day in history was manufactured here. The D-Day Museum was so well received that it was expanded a few years later to become the National WWII Museum.
Lisa’s dog tag
You start by getting a dog tag to represent a soldier you
will be tracking all day at check-in stations, and board the same kind of train
many soldiers took when they embarked on their journeys. It was a truly
immersive experience as, with seats rocking, the train whistle blowing and the
grainy black-and-white landscape flying by, the conductor welcomed you aboard.
Beyond Boundaries Film
After getting off the train, we started our explorations by watching the 48-minute film Beyond Boundaries, a 4D experience narrated by Tom Hanks that used film and other sensory effects, including a 1930s wooden-cabinet radio, falling snowflakes, a plane cockpit that lowered from the ceiling to punch out an air battle scene, and more to introduce us to the sheer magnitude of World War II. The mini-documentary stunningly put into perspective the global threat presented by German Furer Adolph Hitler, Italian Benito Mussolini, and Emperor Hirohito of Japan, the Axis leaders who wanted nothing less than global domination. It ended at the climax, the bombing of Pearl Harbor that dragged the United States in the war and engaged every person in the country in the fight for the very survival of democracy.
We learned how the ill-equipped United States, previously hesitant to join in the war as Nazi forces took over country after country, stepped up when it came under attack. Men young and old rushed to join the war effort and defend their country against the invaders. Women, who were home raising children, took factory jobs and churned out an incredible volume of planes, jeeps, weapons, artillery and more.
The European Theater
The WWII Museum is comprised of five buildings, and we only
had one day, so we chose to enter the Road
to Berlin: European Theater gallery. I don’t even know how to describe the
experience after this. We spent five awe-struck hours being assaulted from all
sides by grainy black-and-white film, sound and lighting effects, real-life
voices telling their stories, radio broadcasts, flashes and explosions, and
much more.
This breathtaking exhibit took us through the major steps in the European campaign, starting with North Africa and moving across Italy, southern France, Normandy, the Battle of the Bulge, D-Day, England, and Germany, that culminated in the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany. We experienced the shock that troops felt when they discovered the atrocity of the concentration camps and the slaughter of 6 million Jews, as well as millions of others deemed inferior to Hitler’s Aryan race. We met military leaders and foot soldiers, journalists (including Ernie Pyle’s life and death) and pilots. We saw airplanes and jeeps, nurses’ uniforms and bomber jackets. We shivered in the snowy woods in Germany and leaned away from incoming anti-aircraft fire from a small plane. I thought of my three Troisi uncles who flew many missions in Europe and for the first time had a concept of what their experience was like.
A plane goes down during an air battle
My dog tag soldier, John, was a 17-year-old who went to
Canada to pursue becoming a pilot when the United States rejected him because
of a previous broken neck. He ended up doing bomb runs for Canada, and then
England, before the United States decided to let him join. He won a medal of
honor and was a prisoner of war in Germany for more than a year.
Planes, Jeeps and
Submarines
We also visited the US
Freedom Pavilion: The Boeing Center, where we saw a number of WWII planes
and jeeps, as well as the Medal of Honor Exhibit.
Wartime aircraft
Medal of Honor recipients
We still need to go back to see the other Campaign of Courage: The Pacific Theater, especially since that’s where Bob’s dad was stationed on a Destroyer Escort in 1943-45. There’s a whole hall, the Arsenal of Democracy, that we didn’t have time for, and a doomed submarine experience I’m interested in. The outdoor area is under construction to create a Freedom Garden.
New Orleans is about a lot more than Jazz and Jambalaya. If you visit this city, definitely devote a day or two to the National WWII Museum. To get the full experience of the museum, watch Bob’s video on the Messy Suitcase YouTube channel.
We just spent a couple of nights in New Orleans to break up the road trip from Pennsylvania to Mexico City. We rented a lovely, pet-friendly cottage through AirBnB that had a kitchen, living room and two bedrooms, just a short Uber ride from the action. It was pristine, affordable and super comfortable.
After working out and showering, we spent our first NOLA night
on Bourbon Street, a place we barely got to explore last year when we came
through because it was just too loud for Gavin. But this time, with Gavin off
at college, we headed down there again. Mardi Gras is still a month away, so it
wasn’t high season yet, and we headed out early to avoid crushing crowds and
deafening noise.
Bourbon Street is the heart of the touristy French Quarter,
and we were planning to go to historic Preservation Hall to see classic New
Orleans jazz. For $20 seats on the floor, we would need to stand in line
outside to get day-of-show tickets. After a day spent driving, we weren’t in
the mood.
Bourbon Street
So we instead opted to get a more local experience
recommended by our Uber driver, Joe. First we shared a mouthwatering dinner of
blackened redfish and jambalaya at an oyster bar on Bourbon called Le Bayou. Jambalaya
is a kind of dirty rice with spicy tomato sauce and andouille sausage. We also
enjoyed hurricanes, a classic New Orleans drink with rum and fruity juices. Our
waiter kept calling us “y’all,” so we couldn’t forget we were truly in the
south. After filling our stomachs, we strolled along Bourbon, taking in the
crowd scene, and even saw a school band marching up the road, followed by a
small parade of what I assume was a krewe, a social organization that helps put
on a parade or ball during the carnival season, which runs January and
February.
Bourbon Street is amazingly loud, even in the off-season, and the road is closed to traffic so people can just wander at their leisure. Musicians with saxophones, guitars or even just spoons and plastic buckets, entertain for tips on street corners. The shops are filled with colorful art, with candy skulls, masks, voodoo paraphernalia, and jazz accouterments.
We walked about a mile to Frenchmen’s Street, a locals’
favorite area. Frenchmen’s is lined on both sides with lively bars and
restaurants. As you wander along the sidewalk, you can listen to the music
blasting out the open doors and choose your poison. Most have no cover and a
local clientele. We chose Marigny
Brasserie, and enjoyed an hour of music by a sweet jazz duo. A drunken
regular celebrating her 71st birthday alone plopped down next to me
at the bar and I was friendly to her. That turned out to be a mistake as she
subsequently kept hitting me to get my attention, then ranting in a slurred
voice about the injustices of her life and why it was horrible that the bar was
showing The Waterboy and Captain Phillips on the big screen when
people should be getting to know each other instead. Since she sitting on a
stool between me and the band, it was impossible for me to watch the band. I
guess if you want to be where the locals are, sometimes you have to put up with
a local!
But we ducked out and wandered, encountering an Art Market where local artisans sold jewelry, paintings, even hand-made three-string guitars.
Scenes from the Art Market
The band at Bamboulia’s
On the second evening, we ate at Bamboulina’s, a cozy bar with exposed brick walls, and enjoyed incredible pulled pork and a wonderful blues band. If I lived in NOLA, I think I would go to Frenchmen’s every weekend and try a different bar each time! Our last Uber driver encouraged us to try Magazine Street in Uptown New Orleans next time, so watch for that blog in the spring when we pass through again on our way back north!
We have booked a wonderful penthouse apartment just a couple of blocks from Chapultepec Park in Mexico City for our 2 1/2 month stay this winter and early spring.
We have done a bit of research into Mexico City, talking to friends who have lived here or visited, and reading books and perusing online resources, to determine which were the safest and most fun neighborhoods to live in — Polanco, Juarez, Roma Norte and Condesa among them. We knew we wanted to live near a park for running, near public transit, and within walking distance of restaurants and other amenities.
The kitchen and dining room
This apartment in Juarez was on sale for half-price because it was a new listing on Airbnb, so we are getting a big place in a great location for pauper’s prices. It’s also a new apartment, and newly furnished, and the landlord says most of the other apartments in the building are not yet occupied. It has two bedrooms with large closets, a little room with a bar, a full kitchen/dining/living area, a patio, and even a roof garden, where the landlord, Eduardo encourages us to practice our instruments. He doesn’t normally allow cats but is making an exception after I begged. (I think he thought it was worth it for the income.) This is the unit: https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/40229764
A little patio for the cats
Huge closet in the master bedroom, which has a king-sized bed
This location is perfect for us because it’s just a couple of blocks from Chapultepec Park, one of the largest city parks in Latin America. This park is more than twice as big as New York’s Central Park, with a zoo, seven museums, live music, and of course great running (which we missed in Tlaquepaque). There’s even a lake where I can kayak!
Chapultepec Forest Lake (Source: Pixabay)
The apartment is also a couple of blocks from Paseo de la Reforma, a wide, tree-lined avenue that runs across the heart of Mexico City. We’ll be able to run down it to the city’s historic district. It’s also about three blocks from Calle Chapultepec, another popular avenue with lots of restaurants and nightlife that starts at the park by the same name.
Paseo de Reforma (Source: Wikimedia Commons, Fortepan — ID 73834: Adományozó/Donor: Romák Éva)
There are several close subway stations, which is good,
because we will park our truck in a secure parking spot when we arrive and not
use it again until we leave.
We are confident this is an apartment where we – and the
cats – will be able to spend a safe, happy two and a half months in Mexico
City.
Enjoy our YouTube video about our successful search for a place to stay in Mexico City!
It’s hard to believe it has been seven months since we left Mexico. A brief summer interlude in Vermont getting one of our vacation homes ready to sell and settling our youngest child, Gavin, into Champlain College in Burlington turned into a much longer stretch in the USA when Bob’s mother, Jane, called us in August to say she had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer.
Enjoying a boat ride in Montreal during a weekend off working on the Vermont houses
So after spending the summer painting a house, tiling a kitchen, planting two gardens, refinishing a floor, staining two decks, replacing windows, and doing more tasks than I care to remember on both houses – punctuated, thank God, by a couple of long weekends in Montreal and Burlington and many visits to local craft breweries – we moved into Jane’s house in Mechanicsburg, PA, in October to care for her in her last months.
While living here, we kept busy. Lisa signed up for National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo) in November and wrote a long-postponed book. Bob threw himself into the editing of his many videos from our time in Mexico for the Messy Suitcase YouTube channel. We both spent countless hours studying Spanish and practicing our instruments (Bob saxophone, Lisa guitar). We spent 9 days in Cancun in November, during a period when Jane was doing better and we needed a break.
The official winner’s certificate for Nanowrimo. Lisa wrote a YA fantasy novel called Elephant Rock.
We also spent time with some of Lisa’s family members around the winter holidays, and got to know Jane’s neighbors in her over-55 community. As her health deteriorated, we became quite attached to her regular visitors from Homeland Hospice, who became our family’s lifeline: her CNA (certified nursing assistant) Sherry, who came every day to bathe and dress her; her hospice nurse Hannah, who visited weekly; and our social worker Pam, who supported us all in too many ways to count.
Jane was able to lift a glass of champagne on New Year’s Eve. She passed away a week later.
Meanwhile, we cared for Jane and tried to keep her comfortable. We watched Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy with her. The kids came home for Christmas break and got to spend time with their grandmother. Bob’s sister Beth came to visit regularly.
And on Jan. 7, 2020, at the age of 89, Jane Greenawalt left us.
Now the funeral is over, the spawn are back at college, and we are officially empty nesters. Although Jane’s stuff still needs to be sorted and dispersed, and her condo needs to be fixed up to sell, we are deferring that till the summer.
It’s time for us to get back to our lives, at least for a while. So we are planning to return to Mexico later this month and spend the rest of winter and half of spring there. We’ll come back in late April, before Gavin’s school lets out for the summer, and spend some time in Vermont before returning to PA for the next round of heavy lifting.
This time we are headed for Mexico City! We are excited at the prospect of living in a big city, after spending the summer in rural Vermont and the fall in this Harrisburg suburb. We are currently deciding between several condos in a safe neighborhood – Condesa, Roma Norte or Polanco – near a huge park (a requirement for us as runners). We are also looking at language schools, because we plan to study Spanish every day, at least for the first month, the way we did in Tlaquepaque last year. It will only be for two hours a day this time, because Lisa is editing her book and we want time to enjoy the city.
We’ll keep you posted as things develop! Right now the plan is to leave Jan. 28 and drive our trusty Toyota Tacoma (with two cats on board; the third now lives with Gavin at school) slowly south, stopping in Cincinnati, Memphis and Austin on the way so we can see some friends and take some breaks from the road. We should arrive in CDMX (Ciudad de Mexico, Spanish for Mexico City) on Super Bowl Sunday.
We visited the studios of about 13 artists during Fall Vermont Open Studios Tour weekend. We met artists who crafted using a large variety of media, including potters, wood workers, painters and a digital artist who combined computer art with oil, markers and other media. Below is a list of the artists we visited, grouped by type of art. I have included addresses, phone numbers and websites in case you have any interest in visiting their studios or purchasing their products. Meet some of the amazing artists we encountered!
Walter’s specialty was teapots and vessels, and he often attached found pieces of wood and even beads to his one-of-a-kind pieces. 658 Orchard St Brattleboro 05301 (802) 257-1030
David created simple, affordable, useful pieces for the home, including coffee mugs, soap dishes, sponge holders, and bright orange ceramic jack-o-lanterns.
Rich DeTrano Rich’s turned bowls and vessels, often accented with sticks, were the highest quality we saw. His dragons were amazing, but alas, not for sale.
Contemporary craft gallery and open studio experience featuring live glass blowing by Randi Solin and the open ceramic studios of Natalie Blake. Randi demonstrated how to create maple leaves out of hot glass.
(This wasn’t part of the Open Studios Vermont circuit, but we dropped in and got a wonderful glass demonstration.)
John Davis John, a triathlete, created unique pieces comprised of native rocks and stainless steel figures of athletes, including rock climbers, runners and fishermen.
442 S. Wardsboro Rd. Newfane VT 05345 (802) 380-9773
We recently spent a peak fall foliage weekend visiting artists’ studios and workshops around southern and central Vermont. The quality and variety of the craftsmanship that we discovered on Saturday, the first day, was so enthralling that we repeated the expedition in a new region on Sunday.
Vermont Open Studio Weekend is a fascinating event organized twice a year by the Vermont Crafts Council, a nonprofit comprised of artists that seeks to nurture public appreciation for “the quality, beauty, and history of Vermont crafts and artwork in order to encourage and sustain the creation of original craft and art work in Vermont.”
Vermont is amazingly welcoming of artists, and they return the favor with a fierce devotion to their craft and by generously welcoming people into their studios and even their lives.
We found nests of artistic production and inspiration on Main Streets and at the ends of dirt roads. We saw price tags in galleries ranging from $10 to $1,200. We often found the cast-offs, pieces discounted because they were not deemed high enough quality, to be as interesting as the finished pieces. Unfortunately, as wanderers whose possessions need to fit in the back of our truck, we are not in the position to acquire art right now, but we saw many pieces that we wanted. In the end, I bought one colored-clay necklace.
The Tour
We spend the first day around Brattleboro, a city in the southeast corner of the state that attracts a disproportionate percentage of artists, many of them New York transplants. The second day we visited a studio in Ludlow, where we’re staying, and then headed west toward Shrewsbury, Castleton and Rutland.
We discovered that most Vermont craftspeople work in studios located in or close to their homes. Some were near downtown areas (Brattleboro) or even on the main street (Castleton), but many more were in remote areas, far off the beaten path. We drove many miles up narrow mountain roads and around bends, through gold-and- red dappled fields and past squawking wild turkeys, to find studios inside barns surrounded by trees and fields. These were places we never would have discovered on our own, but bright yellow “Vermont Open Studios” signs directed us to each new discovery and beckoned us in.
The artists’ studios were amazingly diverse and told part of the story about their residents – whether it was a basement transformed into a woodturning workshop, a drafty wooden barn, a retrofitted garage, an upstairs bedroom or a large, beautiful dream studio made of barn wood and giant windows. A former film editor who had worked on major studio films in New York had built a huge, slick studio barn for his oversized digital art.
Diane Echlin’s studio
Nature’s Turn’s studios
Maya Zelkin’s off-the-grid studio
Orchard Street Pottery studio in Brattleboro
Michel Moyse’s Digital Art studio
The Tools
The artists’ tools, often self-crafted, showed real ingenuity.
One woodturner had retrofitted an optical stand he bought for $5 at a local fireman’s auction into a tool holder. Another created an electric hammer because his hands got so sore from hammering metal. Several had designed and built wood kilns or stoves out of bricks and mortar, sometimes even dismantling them to move and then reconstructing them in a new location. Most of the potters, not satisfied with any commercial product, created their own glazes.
Maya Zelkin’s handmade wood-fired kiln
Sanford Stagnell’s Hammer Machine
The Effort
Not one did anything the easy way.
They labored painstakingly to produce the detailed result they wanted, even if meant waiting a year while wood cured before carving it, rebuilding an entire kiln because it didn’t heat right, or disregarding wood-turning machines in favor of the rougher precision of hand tools and elbow grease.
Next up:
Vermont Open Studios 2019, Part 2: Meet the Artists
By Lisa Hamm-Greenawalt
