sue – The Destinators

Charlestown, RI

Robert and I crossed paths twice during our respective careers, first at the Travelers and later at Ernst & Young. Toward the end of my time with E&Y, I had the pleasure of actually working with Robert. With a family of skiers/snowboarders, he took an interest when Doug and I bought our VT house, initially intended to be a ski house. He, his wife Kassie and 3 young (at that time) kids visited and were quite taken with the area and Sugarbush. Soon after, they bought a condo nearby which afforded us more time to connect socially and become better acquainted as friends.

As the kids got older and started favoring skiing in the west, family trips to Sugarbush became increasingly rare, and Robert and Kassie sold the condo. With their now-grown and married children (and grandchildren) all living in Colorado or Utah, we haven’t seen each other in 10-12 years. When they’re not visiting the kids or traveling the world, Robert and Kassie split their time between Rhode Island and Florida – so we were delighted to learn they’d be in RI in mid-October. Yay!

Voorhees, NJ

A coupling (dissasembling) travel tandem bicycle (Photo courtesy of Santana Cycles)

We met Steve and Marie about 40 years ago. We had just bought ourselves a tandem bicycle as a wedding present, a couple of months in advance of our wedding, in order to attend our very first Eastern Tandem Rally in the Finger Lakes Region of upstate New York. At this rally, with compatible styles and a similar pace, we kept running into another pair of first-timers, Steve and Marie from southern New Jersey, near Philadelphia. At this same rally, the four of us first ran into two more experienced tandem teams, also from South Jersey – our soon-to-be friends (as well as heroes and mentors), Sue and Al and Malcolm and Judy. We enjoyed multiple tandem meetups with this 8-pack (and various sub-sets thereof) over the next 15 or so years.

Valley Forge National Historic Site

We could see Valley Forge from the hotel that hosted our BGU event. Several of our fellow musicians took breaks to visit the site, all sharing that it was worth seeing and there were some very pleasant walking trails. After 5 days in the music room, we were ready for a walk so we made time for a stop on our way out of town.

Wyndmoor, PA: College buds, part 1

At the start of our 3rd year at St Anselm College, my roommates Nancy and Joan and I moved off-campus to an apartment in renovated textile mill housing in downtown Manchester, NH, overlooking the Merrimac River. Soon after we got settled, someone moved into the apartment across the hall from us and we began to hear a piano being played inside. We introduced ourselves to our new neighbor Evan, who had just graduated from college and moved to NH for his first job. Soon we all became fast friends.

When my roommates and I graduated, we all went our separate ways. Evan and I have stayed in touch, so I knew he had become a psychiatrist and lived near Philadelphia with his family, however we’d not seen each other for about 25 years when I stopped by while on a business trip to Philadelphia. We got together for the third time in 46 years, just a few days before the start of Doug’s blues jam.

40 years ago…

We got married in the living room with the delightful fireplace at the Gregory House Inn in Averill Park, NY. We and our guests (all 14 of us) then enjoyed a fine dinner in one of the inn’s private dining rooms. Our families stayed at the inn. We went back to our house in Troy, rejoining our guests in the morning for brunch at the Gregory House before heading out on a week-long, fall bicycle tour of New England on the tandem bicycle we’d given ourselves as a wedding present. My parents drove our car to their home in NH, and when we arrived at the end of the week, they hosted an outdoor party for more friends and family, then we drove back to Troy. It was exactly the simple wedding we had hoped for.

The best flat tire ever!!!

The plan, once we crossed the border back into the US, was to stop in Plattsburgh to reprovision (can’t carry any fresh food across the border from Canada) and then head straight to Matamoras, PA. There is a campground there that we’ve been to a few times on our way back home. It would be very convenient to take a few days there to just hang and practice.

Well, we got ourselves across the border (no problems there!), replenished the pantry and fridge in Plattsburgh, took care of a few other tasks, and spent the night at a rest area just south of the city. As we got ready to roll in the morning, the TPMS alarm started beeping – one of the tires was low. We pumped it up. The leak was slow, so we could keep moving, however a few hours into the drive we could see it was losing enough air that we should stop for the night and get it fixed in the morning. And we’re so glad we did!!!

Knowlton/Lac Brome, QC

Louise Penny is a Canadian author. She has written over 20 novels (s0 far…) in the Inspector Gamache series, which are set in Quebec and feature the fictitious town of Three Pines. Each story weaves through more twists and turns than a pass in the French Alps. In addition to Inspector Gamache, there’s a small cast of characters common across the books that become like old friends to the regular reader.

I am an unabashedly proud member of the Louise Penny fan club. If you love a good mystery and haven’t read any of her crime-fiction novels, pick one up and read it. You’ll be glad you did.

Tingwick, QC

I’ve heard about Tingwick, Quebec almost my entire life. It was where my dad’s family was from in Quebec. Imagine being a little kid and the fun of saying the word: Tingwick. Say it out loud! Although there was no family left in the town, my dad wanted to visit when I was quite young, 5 or 6. All I remember from the trip was my dad taking me to the barn and fields. He said I could touch the cows, but never touch a bull – they could be dangerous. When I asked him how I could tell the difference, he paused and said something like: ask your mother.

Montréal

We’ve been to Montréal before – it’s only a little more than a 2-1/2 hour drive from our house – though it has only once made it into the blog. We already knew it’s not a great place to be driving around in an RV (it’s not really all that easy in a car!). We also found out that the city would be hosting the 2026 UCI Road World Championship bike races during the time we were looking to be there – this was certain to complicate getting around in the city. However, Montréal is great for pedestrians (as well as bikes), the city has world-class public transportation, and, probably most helpful for us, it is home to a large and thriving community of Uber drivers. There is also a very reasonably priced RV park at the marina in Longeueil, right across the river from Vieux-Montréal, and it had quite a few open sites (after Labor Day…). Reviews of the park mentioned a water taxi from the marina – romantic and convenient to be sure, but, alas, no longer running. Fortunately, it was an easy Uber ride across the Jacques-Cartier bridge to anywhere we wished to go.

Rivière-Beaudette, PQ, deux

La dernière fois qu’on a visité ma cousine Louise et à son mari Daniel, c’était en 2018, et on voulait absolument à les voir pendant notre séjour au Québec. Comme je l’ai mentionné dans un précédent article, la mère de Louise et la mienne étaient sœurs – nos deux familles vivaient pas loin l’une de l’autre (avec la frontière internationale entre nous) et nous nous rendions visite régulièrement. D’âges assez proches, nous, les cousins, avons appris à bien nous connaître durant notre jeunesse.

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