What are we doing in Vermont?

For the past thirty years or so, Liz and I have been going to Heart Lake for much of the summer. In 1981, shortly before he died, my father told me he thought we could buy the cottage we now have at a pretty good price as long as we undertook to dispose of my my great aunt’s belongings – that her son did not want to have to do that. It took a few years for us to make the decision, but in 1987 we finally bought it.

We love it at Heart Lake. We also love Vermont – much of Liz’s family has ended up here – and our daughter Jane is here, along with our granddaughters and our son-in-law. So we come to Vermont a lot in the course of a year.

This year, though, we are here at a resort – Smuggler’s Notch Resort (Smuggs) on the west side of the Green Mountains. My cousin Vicki and her husband Jess are owners of a timeshare here and invited us to come up and spend time with them. It’s an almost new experience for me – Liz and I once won a short stay at a resort in Jamaica – that was in a hotel while this is in a condo apartment. Smuggs is about an hour from where Jane and Scott live near Montpelier, and they and the girls came over yesterday evening for dinner – we were so glad they got to meet Vicki and Jess – one of the reasons we came here was so they could meet.

We leave here tomorrow, Friday, to spend some time in Poultney with Liz’s sister Nancy and her husband Ross. We are co-owners of the property in Poultney which Liz’s parents bought and later retired to. Because of a partial family rift, we haven’t attended any of the annual family meetings since the summer of 2001, but we are going to attend the meeting this time – on Saturday in Rutland. Then we will drive back to Heart Lake on Saturday afternoon.

A week from today, Jane and Scott and the girls will be coming to Heart Lake for their annual brief stay. We’re att looking forward to that. Then, in two weeks, we are coming back to Vermont, to attend a memorial service for Liz’s uncle Perry and his wife Kathleen. Uncle Perry died this past winter – Kathleen died several years earlier, but had not been memorialized. We are going to pick up Liz’s Aunt Adele at the Albany airport and bring her to Poultney and thence to Ripton for the memorial service on Sunday. Liz’s brothers and sister will see to getting Adele back to the airport – meanwhile Liz and I will proceed to Jane’s to babysit the girls on Monday and Tuesday. Then it’s back to Heart Lake as August winds down.

I'm not good at keeping these promises, but I promise to update this with pictures -- soon.