Tuesday - July 12 2022 - Vernon VT to Burlington VT

 

Dave made us pancakes for breakfast (with real maple syrup!), we said our goodbyes and headed north. We Rt91 to Bellows Falls, stopped there and wandered around town. There is dam on the Connecticut River and whay back when, "the falls" was the furthest point north you could get with a boat. They built a canal with 9 locks between 1797 and 1802 to get the boats past. Now I have been coming to Bellows Falls since I was in short pants and never knew any of this. I also never wandered over to what I used to think was New Hampshire and discovered it is an island (kind of) that is still Vermont. It's like found money!! More Vermont.

Then we drove up Rt 103 which is the well worn road I used to take to go between Brattleboro and Burlington on my motorcycle when I went to college. Lots of cold wet memories there. We stopped in Chester which is cute little town. I used to ride past the downtown all thos times and it wasn't until a few years ago I accidentally discovered there was a downtown. Classic cute VT. Coffee in Rutland and then on to Burlington. Hotel and then walk down the street to the Windjammer restaurant where we used to go all those years ago. Place hasn't changed..

Monday - July 11 2022 - Miller Brothers get together

 

Today was get all my close family together day. Dave Deb and I stopped for bagels and coffee and brought them up to Putney to my brother Reed's farm. Marissa and Kathy were working in the fields and Reed and Ben were there. It turns out Bradley Palles, my niece Kathy's son from South Carolina was there with his girlfriend but we somehow missed them. Marissa had a friend from Texas there as well with her two kids. So a busy place on a beautiful day. 

Reed, Dave, Deb and I drove up to Dick and Lori's and spent the afternoon catching up and getting the "4 white haired brothers" picture. Todd and his daughter Audrie were there as well. We keep getting all these bonus people to catch up with!!

Back to Daves, dinner on the back porch and bed. 

Sunday - July 10 2022 - Dummerston Millers family reunion

 OK, I didn't snap any pictures so you will have to use your imagination. We had a perfect weather day at the church in Dummerston. We had 30+ people show up and there must of been 5-10 Zoom folks joining us. The Zoom this is great for all of us because we used to here from far flung people who would sent greetings and best wishes but could not make it. Special thanks to Sue Miller for putting it all together.

We met at noon and the usual New England food assortment (potatoe salad, jello salad, home made breads, brownies and lemon meringue pie, and Art Miller brought real Miller Farm milk which they sell through stores. Coffee, Maple, Chocolate and plain whole milk.

We had the usual suspects and also some new young faces.

We talked ourselves out and had a really great afternoon, then we drove back to Vernon to recuperate.

My old buddy Skip has moved back to New Hampshire from Florida so I gave him a call and we met me, Deb and my brother Dave met Skip at the restaurant in Brattleboro right on the river. Great evening catching up with Skip. 

Then back to Dave's and crash.

Someone send me a reunion picture I can post here!!

Saturday - July 9 2022 - Greenport NY to Vernon VT

 We slept well in the Clubhouse and Eric rode his bike into town to get fresh bagels. They had a charter at 9: so we were "wheels up" at 7:45 to catch the ferry at 8:30. You have to make a reservation and it was pretty booked up since it's tourist season. Beautiful day for the 1.5 hr ferry ride. The must have a bunch of different size boats because we have taken this ferry as passengers before on larger boats. Probably anything that floats during the busy season.

Easy drive up to Vermont and back roads to Dave's house. Vermont (and Mass of course) are beautiful this time of year. Forgot about driving through green tunnels. The temperature was upper 70's to lower 80's so the extra humidity is not a problem. Dave had steaks for the grill, salad, cold beer, much welcome after the last week of road food.

Friday July 8 2022 - Washington DC to Greenport NY

Goodbye Washington!! We will be back. So sometime we have UPS's, Unexpected Pleasant Surprises, like Jon and Michelle meeting us for dinner last night. Well today's UPS was getting to see Hannah and Eric in Greenport NY. We had not planned on seeing them because this is their busy time of year, but Hannah called and said they had no bookings this afternoon so come on over and stay on the boat tonight. We told Google to get us there and $42 worth of tolls later we arrived.  Their boat looks amazing (see their web site for more details). The mizzen mast is fixed, they have a brand new anchor chain, Everything is painted up beautifully, and the new refrigerator / freezer is a wonderful addition.

Eric bought fish from the fishing charter guy next door and cooked us a dinner with fresh corn and fresh beans, long overdue on our road trip. We slept in the aft cabin (the Club House) which is very cozy. Ferry tomorrow morning to Connecticut and then Vermont tomorrow night.

Thursday - July 7 2022 Day in DC

 

Can you believe I have never been to Washington DC. Deb has but it was a long time ago. The big bonus was Charlotte, our niece, who finished her freshman year at American University so knows the town, offered to give us a tour. We started the morning as rank amateur Metro riders and ended the day as less rank amateurs.  

First stop, breakfast, at the Je Ne Sais Quoi for pastries and coffee. Good people watching as DC is a busy fast moving diverse town. People walk fast here and it seems to be a young fit person's town. Lots of Bird and Lime scooters, bikes to rent everywhere, and you can even rent what look like 125cc scooters. By rent I mean just scan a QR code (ask your grand kids) and off you go. There is a lot of car traffic, but I could see the day where cars are not an asset in getting around this town.

The Metro is also easy to use. You buy a card for $2 and then fill it with money. You touch it to the turnstile and it tells you how much money is left on your card. When you exit you touch it to the turnstile and it tells you what's left. It cost $2  to ride anywhere off peak and $2.25 during peak times for where we went today.

It was very humid and in the 80's so we were sopping wet most of the day (check out our pictures for sweat).

The first stop was the National Portrait Gallery where among other things the president portraits are. Wonderful to walk through, or in our case power through (thank you speed reading course back in high school). We realized half way through that we need to come back for a week and really see everything. So high gear the rest of the day. We then boogied over to the mall which is when it hit me that we are really here!! All those news pieces and movies that are shot here make this place a sort of fantasy place but once you step out on the mall and see the White House, Washington Monument, Lincoln Monument,  Jefferson Monument, Reflecting Pool, you realize it is indeed a real place. 

Lots of activities going on with stages and fences being put up or torn down I suppose for whatever public event, protest, speech or demonstration is happening this last or coming weekend. This really is the people's place.

Next up was the Spy Museum. Once again, it was hard to spend enough time here to really take in all that they were showing. It would have been twice as much fun with a couple 10-12 year old kids. Secret compartments, invisible ink, tiny cameras, they have it all. Underwater kayaks, encryption machines, interrogation rooms. Again, we need to come back when we have more time.

But next was a short walk down to the riverfront to the TNT Tiki Room to meet Michelle and Jon, Pete and Louise for drinks and dinner. Charlotte had to work at the library but we did have her all day so we did not see here again. (Thank you so much Charlotte for spending the morning with us.).

Charlotte offered to give us night tour of the monuments but at 9 point something miles on the ticker, we were ready to call is a day.

We gladly accepted a ride back to our hotel with Pete and Louise and said our goodbyes.

We will be back!!

Wednesday - July 6 2022 - Radford VA to Washington DC

More driving and coffee drinking today. Got to DC early afternoon. Thank goodness for Google Maps. As you can imagine DC roads are highly evolved and Deb asked for no tolls please (we forgot our EasyPass again!!) , so After arriving at the hotel we had the kid working the lobby park our car somewhere. We walked to the Metro, Red line, figured out the Metro pass vending machine and took the metro three stops (with Pete's golf clubs) and walked to Pete & Louise's place. Louise and Char were working and Pete works from home. Took the dog for a walk around their nice neighborhood. When everyone got home, we took the Metro to a "diner", had a nice catch up with everyone. We ate outside under a tent and it rained. Rain stopped by the time we got back on the Metro and back to the hotel. The humidity is hard to get used to, temps in the 80's. Tomorrow Char is giving us a walking tour of the town.  My first time in Washington DC!!