Pre-post Pandemic Journey 6.10.2021: July 2021

Anna arrives Portland July 27. We visit friends and family in Burlington VT, then to Camp.

Remarkably enough Southwest Air arrived on time! Anna deplaned with bags filled with paintings to hang. This continues a tradition of making a gift to Camp for the pleasure of a visit.

But first. We stopped after a 100 miles drive for a Valvoline 15 minute oil change in Hooksett NH. I should have known better! A week later I observed the hood on the passenger side of the Sprinter was slightly higher than on the driver side. As I tried to open the hood, I found it very difficult. The technician, not knowing how to release the lock feature, and failing to ask someone, instead put his full weight on the hood bending the stay into a pretzel. It now seems likely after negotiating with Matt Lombard of Valvoline Corporate (800-327-8242) that I will be refunded the cost of the oil change and repair to the hood with a new stay installed. Stay tuned!

Relieved to have stopped the blinking oil change light, we proceed to Burlington VT to visit Margo White and Ken Axelson.

Margo and Anna were friends during their college years. Today Margo and Ken are deep into Vegan cooking; Anna later ordered the books. I loved the tasty dishes and found that Vegan agreed with me. We've kept up eating Vegan when convenient (in means a lot of preparation).

We four together walked downtown to Church Street so beautifully empty of cars. I took the free #7 bus back and was dropped at the door of 142 North Champlain where on the second floor Ken & Margo's apartments are located. The NUNYUN breakfast cafe occupies the first floor.

The next day, I arranged a visit with Jackson Lyttleton and his son, 14 mo. old Anthony, for breakfast at NUNYUN. My great-niece Key Trevett, Anthony's mom, was on a mom date with girlfriends. The building is owned by Ken, who buying it years ago, saved it from demolition. Ken Axelson is a friend; he's soft-spoken, smart and a talented builder. He became a multimillionaire on a stock tip from an unknown Ukrainian guy he met on his morning walk. You just can't make this stuff up.

Anna, Margo and Ken

One of Margo's artist friends repurposed plastic bottles into all-in-one weather vanes and anemometers. When the wind blows hard enough one hears a pleasant rattle and the cap on the bottle run through by a coat-hanger finds its way into the teeth of the wind.

Jackson, Anna and young Anthony enjoy French toast at NUNYUN; the space has a storied past in the new Burlington. Both Jackson & Key are seniors at University of Vermont; he has applied to medical schools, among them Creighton in Omaha.

This device swings and rotates easily on the carefully articulated coat-hanger. The wind driven propellers are cut into the side of the bottle and each blade is shaped into an airfoil using a propane BBQ lighter.

Next post is Upta Camp

Lubec, Maine

Lubec ME, a tourist, fishing and border town is the Eastern-most town

in the United States where the sun's first rays shine on U.S. soil.
I arrived here on July 23rd, the day of a full moon.
As the sun sets, the rising full moon appears.

The bridge crosses to Campobello Island in Canada, the site of the Roosevelt Campobello International Park, President and Eleanor Roosevelt's Summer home. There is no other bridge to mainland Canada and this one remains closed due to COVID-19.


Stranded Canadians are allowed to cross for food, essentials, and presumably Amazon deliveries.

Then to complete the celestial triple I awakened
early to photograph the sunrise.

Anna’s arrival at PWM is next

Belfast -> Trenton - Tidesway -> (https://gullrockpottery.com) -> Downeast

Denny & Jen Trevett live in Trenton, Maine just across the bridge from Bar Harbor. Two years ago in August 2019 we celebrated Ken & Bev’s Commitment Ceremony at Tidesway, Jen & Denny’s home in Trenton. After two years and a global pandemic we had much catching up to do. Jen kindly and authoritatively mapped out my next several days exploring Downeast* Maine.

* “Down East” is best described as any point on the coast between Ellsworth and the Canadian border. At times, it is jokingly referred to as any point east on the coast from the speaker. The truth is no one really knows it’s origin, but every Mainer cherishes it. There is even a Downeast magazine. Some think the term hearkens back to sailing-ship days when ships navigating from Boston upta the Maine coast experienced a downwind journey, thus “Down East”. Clearly recalling the hurricane of 1954, that was and remains the prevailing wind, a tailwind to modern Navy men, but Down wind to any sailor modern or historic. As Brother Rich informed me years ago, if you were headed “Upta Camp” it was heard as the same, but served to identify a “flat lander” (a person from Boston, or worse, New York) who ignorant of Maine dialect, pronounced that she was going up to Camp. But I digress.

Tidesway, their home on the water, is undergoing renovation to accommodate year round living and the Maine coast winters. Designed originally by Jenifer and built in 2006, their home in Trenton views across the inland waterway to Acadia National Park.

Cadillac Mountain Acadia National Park Maine.

These rocks throw off a beautiful reflection when the tide comes in.

(https://gullrockpottery.com)

is the first stop for my Downeast trip. Gull Rock Pottery

This property with sculptures, a pottery shop, and a home kept my attention for an hour. I purchased a spoon crock which we will use at home in California.

See Lubec next

Several Moments: Songs - Upta Camp at Weld - New Cousins - The Cog Railway on Mt. Washington

Grandson Sonny Giuseppi Lodato - Covering Peter, Paul & Mary -

I'm temporarily parking this video here. I wish to celebrate the remarkable musical talent in our family. Here's Marion & Zack's now 13 y/o Sonny when he was 4 (?).

Tonight, July 6, 2021, Brother Rich invited me to his home for dinner and a chat. The Lasagna was very good. We talked of our common experience of summers working on the Cog Railway (link brother Rob's video opens in a new tab) on Mt. Washington NH. Thanks to Cousin Leslie (Holden), we learned the Burt family's storied history on Mt. Washington. Great-Grandfather Henry M. Burt and others, including his young son, our Grandfather F. Allen Burt, ran a newspaper at the Summit called Among the Clouds. (Click to find samples in brother Rich's BLOG which opens in a separate tab) Henry has "Burt Ravine" (see below) named after him on the North side of the Cog Railway tracks.

All four Kent boys worked at the Cog. Fred was there 4 summers starting as a soda jerk, then moving to Brakeman and finally as a fully qualified Fireman. Firing a steam locomotive was a demanding job. One learns to shovel non-stop nearly a ton of coal in order to build a fire hot enough to boil the water taken on at Waumbek. I've asked brother Fred to explain the Fireman's job.

Fred adds this detail of his Mt. Washington experiences: "My best experience was during an August snow storm with thunder and lightening. I was a brakeman on the Cog Railway and just finished moving the 9th part of the nine part hand moved switch when lightening struck the track...close call and I think that was when my hair started turning white :-) Another track worker in close proximity and at the same time was holding a gallon bucket of switch grease when the strike occurred. The lightening jumped from the track to the bucket and knocked him on his butt and burnt a hole in his work boot. We all just went back to work, not thinking much of it at the time."

I was there 2 Summers, 1961 and 1962: one year in the gift shop and short order cook; the second and final year I was Brakeman on passenger cars.

A Brakeman's job on the Cog is to throw switches on the track to sideline our engine to take on water; I'd give a short speech about the history of Mount Washington and the Cog Railway. The first stop was called Waumbec. The returning train would move past during the stop. After climbing to the Summit we'd have a 20 minute stop. Returning down the mountain was when the Brakeman cranked down on the brake wheel to keep the full passenger car from bearing all its weight on the descending engine, and to protect the occupants in case of a runaway engine. The challenge was to manage the varying passenger load with the angle of descent.

Wonderful summer job!

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Photo by Rich

We had a fun visit. I even recited of one of my favorite Yeats' poems

The Song of Wandering Aengus

I went out to the hazel wood,

Because a fire was in my head,

And cut and peeled a hazel wand,

And hooked a berry to a thread;

And when white moths were on the wing,

And moth-like stars were flickering out,

I dropped the berry in a stream

And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor

I went to blow the fire a-flame,

But something rustled on the floor,

And someone called me by my name:

It had become a glimmering girl

With apple blossom in her hair

Who called me by my name and ran

And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering

Through hollow lands and hilly lands,

I will find out where she has gone,

And kiss her lips and take her hands;

And walk among long dappled grass,

And pluck till time and times are done,

The silver apples of the moon,

The golden apples of the sun.

-----W.B. Yeats

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Click for a Short Welcoming Movie

Having left our Northern California Bay Area home June 10, 2021, I arrive at Weld on July 6th.

Welcome to Weld - Ancient times (To view this old video you need to Click the link a couple of times. You'll be given a security warning when the pdf loads. Just ignore it and select play it anyway.

My welcome to Weld came several days later with this quiet sunset, and a series thereafter. Since I arrived, Burt's Point has been populated with cousins, nieces, nephews and siblings but last evening, July 12th, everyone save Cousin Heather's son Donovan & Kite with their son, Hawk and a friend, had departed the Point. I chatted a bit with Kite by the fire pit, then took myself to the Sprinter. The odometer now reads 120,890 close to 5,000 miles traveled.

Together Anna & I traveled across the country in the Sprinter twice before, once on I 90 and I 80, and another on I 10 to Ken and Bev's Florida home; this is my second solo trip with the most miles on I 40 as you will see on later postings. As I write this entry I had an insight into why I would undertake such a long, meandering, journey. Being on the road is comforting in that it is all consuming. Nothing matters but the bare essentials.

Upta Camp in the morning, I’m greeted by the entire Rob & Anne Kent families. Victoria/Joshua, Andrea/Tyler and Ryan/Kristin are expecting as this series shows. And there's more! Here below: on Sept25th, Julia and Nelson, give birth to young Ruby Moon Rogers. (Click any image to see all together in their original size.)

Kristin at Weld July 6th

Ryan with Calvin Earle Kent 8/19/21

Lucas Robert Kent August 31, 2021 8lbs 5oz

<== Tyler & Andrea with young Hudson on July 7th at Kawanhee Inn for dinner hosted by Rob and Anne.

Victoria and Joshua are due in November 2021. Here they are at a completely different venue for Vic's baby shower at Anne's sister's Ailene & Angelo's wine country manor in Shingle Springs, CA, thirty miles East of Sacramento.

Update: Welcome to Iris Anne Kent Samuel December 4th 2021.

Iris Anne Kent Samuel 12/4/2021

Grandmother Anne, Iris & Victoria

Julia & Nelson's baby girl Ruby Moom Rogers Friday Sept 25, 2021.

Ruby on St. Patrick's Day 2022

Webb Lake viewed from the Eastern shore is a most photogenic place, in particular the sunsets. Byron Notch directly across the lake features Tumbledown Mountain, and below to the South is West Mountain. Before she died, Sister Barbie said she wished to be remembered (or found!) in the sunset. Clever woman she was; now everyone has a reason beyond the beauty of it to go to the beach in time for sunset. Here, clearly, are her eyebrows with the familiar colors of many beautiful memories of Barbara, and sunsets.