We’ve actually finished the trip, but the days were so packed I had little time to catch up in the evenings, not to mention the spotty internet performance in hotels. Part 1 ended with our arrival in Ohio and a lovely stay with the MacDonalds, specifically (from right to left and a bit wind blown) John’s sister Carolyn, her youngest daughter Kathlyn, visiting nephew William, and visiting aunt Kathleen. To the right is the photogenic Kirby at his front door spot where he looks out for visitors.
From Ohio on we had 6 continuous days of stays with family and friends, which meant great company and home cooked meals! So there are no accessibility updates in this installment.
Our stay in Vienna
It was a short day’s drive to Vienna, Virginia, just outside of DC, with William riding along. There we stayed with Kippy and his human companions Ellen (John’s younger sister) and Brian.
First night we were treated to a lovely fancy fondue meal to celebrate multiple recent and pending birthdays. With apologies to Ellen for the photo, but this was the kind of fun we had, sampling from multiple pots of cheese and chocolate, stuffing ourselves with melted goodness and generally making a mess.
The visit was about family and friends. One evening was a large extended Klemm family gathering — 19 guests as I recall. Here we see surprise guests Aunt Joyce and her daughter Vicky, plus John looking startled as he shares a laugh with his brother Jerry.
On the final day in Vienna our Kurdish friend Heval came down from his summer job in New York to travel with us for a few days, and we had a nice dinner out with a bunch of John’s friends from high school that he stays in touch with.
Heading north
We got a very early start on our drive to Massachusetts to avoid the horrible DC beltway traffic — the estimated travel time dropped more than an hour from a later estimate. We needed the time because this was the only day we had to visit with my sister Madelyn. A long hike by the Smith College lake gave us time to relax and talk, Here we see Madelyn communing with nature and Heval cavorting on a precarious log while on the phone!
We sadly had to say goodbye to Madelyn as she went off to Provincetown, a long planned outing with a good friend from high school. We enjoyed the hospitality of Dennis and Elizabeth, both formerly of Stanford, for our two day stay. We met their new furry children, sisters named Moxie and Sprite (despite different patterning, they share the same small white mittens and long white leggings).
Day 1 we had an outing to the Beneski Museum of Natural History at Amherst College, a rather amazing collection. That’s Heval and Dennis behind John in front of Triceratops, and Elizabeth confronting Tyrannosaurus Rex.
We had lots of time to relax at home. Here we see Heval exploring Dennis’ new (to us) tree house, and Elizabeth showing Heval how to shuck corn for the first time — fresh sweet corn for the aforementioned home cooking.
The second day Dennis had to leave for New York while we explored nearby sites just north of Amherst, some new even to Elizabeth … Poet’s Seat Tower, Turners Falls (former falls actually, now a dam-controlled spillway into a canal), and Mount Sugarloaf overlook. That’s the never camera shy Heval perched atop the corner of both the tower and overlook.
Final Morning …
… we had a fine breakfast that included home-made corn fritters from the preceding night, then we headed West, dropping Heval off in Springfield for his return to NY.
To be continued …