Building Gypsy Rose

I’m writing this entry from my seat on an Amtrak train. Marion and I are on the final leg of a three week journey we’ve titled the “Daughters Tour 2008.” Along the way, our route has taken us through 19 states on a great circle loop across the northern plains, down the California coast, and, as I write now, into the Colorado Rockies. The trip has exceeded all expectations (and delivered some long awaited hugs).

Marion and I have both traveled extensively. During our years as U.S. Air Force radar technicians (long, long ago) we crisscrossed the states, including much of the countryside we’re seeing today. In my years I’ve taken countless transcontinental flights, driven cross-country several times in cars and trucks, ridden a motorcycle from the Golden Gate to Vermont, hitchhiked across the nation (after reading Kerouac while in college), bicycled across (twice), but, until now, I had never taken the train. With many other modes for comparison, I must say that the train is tough to beat.

Yet, as magnificent as the view is from our coach window, we both agree that there’s no place like our home in Vermont.

We’ll be returning to a landscape that has already seen the first of winter’s snow. Raven is scheduled to be hauled from the waters of Lake Champlain on November 12th and we’ll make the seasonal transition to our Gypsy home. A greenhouse/workshop and the installation of solar power will be at the top of our project list for the coming weeks.

Above, Marion transplants a garlic chive from our summer garden in Burlington to the apple orchard in Tunbridge.

Gypsy is back in place, astride her newly poured footings, ready for snow!

Home sweet home!