Wednesday, October 21, 2026
Day 45 Cavendish Vermont - A Grand Reunion
Day 45 — Grand Reunion
Saturday, October 17, 2026 — Cavendish, Vermont
We left home on September 4th, 45 days ago. Leaving home always involves mixed emotions. We love our home and our routines, and one of the most important elements of "home" is our friends.
Janice and I, like many of our closest friends, don't have family living nearby. Over the years, we've become each other's extended family. I think of these wonderful people as our Family-Friends. I'm incredibly grateful for the special relationships we've cultivated, and there's always a little sadness when we or they travel and we don't have opportunities to spend time together.
Several months ago, while watching the PBS series The Revolution with our dear friends Ken and Jenny Carloni, we shared our plans to visit New England in the fall.
Ken grew up in Connecticut, and his father purchased a historic schoolhouse in Vermont back in the 1970s. Ken and his older brother helped their father restore the building, creating decades of family memories in the beautiful Vermont countryside.
Back in February, we talked excitedly about how wonderful it would be to get together in Vermont during our Grand Adventure.
Today, we did just that!
We spoke with Ken on the phone Friday after checking into our Harvest Host at Vermont Vines Winery and made arrangements to meet near the village green in Cavendish at noon.
When we woke up Saturday morning, it was wet and chilly outside. Janice made coffee and brought it to me in bed. She had an impish grin on her face.
"There's a No Kings protest about 15 minutes away today!"
We decided to have breakfast in Bellows Falls before joining the gathering.
Janice found a dog-friendly restaurant called Moon Dog Café. We quickly packed up and headed into town.
We brought Tad into the café, where we were warmly greeted by Susie, our waitress. She directed us to a table where Tad would be comfortable. There were only six other customers in the café, and before long, Tad was attracting attention.
An older gentleman, probably about our age (how is it possible that WE are now in the "older" category?!), even took Tad's picture.
As usual, our handsome Irish Setter was a star.
Susie took our orders and asked whether Tad could have a treat. She returned with four pieces of Vermont cheese.
Tad could hardly believe his good fortune! Apparently, Vermont was turning out to be a pretty wonderful place.
We enjoyed delicious breakfast burritos and friendly conversations with the locals before heading across the street, where a small group of people had gathered on a corner holding signs.
Once again, Tad stole the show. Everyone wanted to greet him, and he happily soaked up the attention.
A young woman named Liz approached us with her ballot in hand and asked if she could pet Tad. He leaned into her, as he always does, and graciously accepted another helping of affection.
The theme of the nationwide No Kings protests was "Vote Early." I was encouraged to see people from different sides of the political divide standing together, smiling and holding signs encouraging everyone to exercise their right to vote.
In a time when our country seems so deeply divided, it was refreshing to experience a little common ground.
After about 45 minutes, we said our goodbyes and headed toward our next Harvest Host, Rockledge Farm Woodworks.
We wanted to check in before meeting Ken and Jenny at noon. We parked the motorhome in a large field across from the farmhouse and woodworking store.
Scott, the proprietor, greeted us as we approached and welcomed us into his workshop and showroom.
There were three rooms filled with beautiful handcrafted woodwork. As we wandered through the displays, we told Scott we were visiting from Oregon.
He mentioned having visited our state many years ago and how much he'd enjoyed Portland. He lamented how much the city had changed because of homelessness.
We agreed that homelessness was a serious problem, not just in Portland but throughout the country, and assured him that Portland was still a fun and interesting city.
As we continued exploring, we noticed a couple of letters displayed on the wall signed by the current president, thanking Scott for participating in the Made in America program.
At about that moment, Janice suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to purge and made a hasty retreat to the motorhome to attend to her symptoms!
I continued browsing and purchased a beautiful cheese-cutting board and knife. I thanked Scott for his hospitality and explained that we'd be returning after seven that evening.
He was kind and gracious, and we appreciated his welcome.
Then it was time for the main event!
A Grand Reunion
We met Ken and Jenny at noon, just as planned.
What a wonderful feeling to embrace dear friends from home more than 3,000 miles from Roseburg!
For a few precious hours, the distance between Oregon and Vermont seemed to disappear.
Ken and Jenny had rented a small sedan for their visit, so Tad got to ride on our laps as we headed off on our adventures.
Our first destination was a special place Ken has loved since childhood: Cavendish Gorge.
I'm not going to reveal its exact location. Ken made us promise to keep it a secret, and apparently even some longtime locals, including Scott at Rockledge Farm, don't know about it.
Some treasures are best left for people to discover on their own.
The fall colors continued to dazzle us as we followed a trail through the woods toward the gorge. Brilliant yellows, oranges and reds glowed against the darker greens of the evergreens.
We chatted cheerfully as we walked, like a bunch of schoolkids reunited after summer vacation.
Early in our hike, we encountered another fellow named Rip about our age accompanied by his dog, Ryder.
We stopped to visit and talked about what a remarkable place the gorge was and how few people seemed to know about it.
Our conversation eventually wandered into politics, and we discovered we shared similar concerns about the challenges facing our country and hopes that the upcoming midterm elections might begin to address them.
Then we continued our exploration.
The geology of this part of Vermont tells a fascinating story stretching back hundreds of millions of years. The Green Mountains were shaped by ancient tectonic collisions that folded, fractured and transformed layers of rock. Much more recently, during the last Ice Age, enormous glaciers sculpted the landscape, leaving behind valleys, ridges and deposits of sediment. As the ice retreated, meltwater and rivers continued reshaping the terrain, carving channels through rock and carrying away material loosened by the glaciers.
The nearby Black River valley offers a particularly dramatic example of this process. A glacial lake once occupied part of the valley, and its eventual drainage helped create the Cavendish Gorge. But nature's work didn't stop there. During Vermont's catastrophic flood of 1927, the Black River carved an enormous new channel around part of the gorge, dramatically altering the landscape. Standing among these ancient rocks and rushing waters, it's humbling to contemplate how brief our own lives are compared with the immense forces that shaped the land beneath our feet.
The human history of this region is equally fascinating. Indigenous peoples traveled through and used these valleys thousands of years before European settlement. Archaeological evidence around Cavendish includes stone tools dating back roughly 5,000 to 7,000 years. Later, the Black River and its tributaries helped support farms, mills and small communities. The same waterways that provided energy for sawmills and other industries also periodically unleashed devastating floods. It's a landscape where geology, ecology and human history are inseparably intertwined.
Tad was delighted to explore another place filled with new smells, sights and sounds. After his unfortunate encounter with a porcupine in Maine, however, I was taking no chances. I kept him on a leash, mindful of both potential porcupines and the steep cliffs surrounding the gorge.
We spent nearly two hours exploring this wonderful place, and by the time we returned to the car, Tad was one tired puppy!
We drove back to Cavendish, where we'd parked the motorhome, and dropped Tad off so we could continue our adventures in places that were a little less dog-friendly.
Our next adventure took us north through more spectacular Vermont countryside.
Along the way, we passed a large historic facility known as the Bates Hotel, which Ken said had once earned the rather unflattering nickname "The Bad Wives Motel."
According to local lore, wealthy husbands from cities like Boston would send their wives and children to Vermont for the summer to escape the heat. Allegedly, some of those husbands took advantage of their families' absence to entertain mistresses back home!
Whether the stories are entirely true or have grown more colorful with the passage of time, they certainly added a little spice to our history lesson.
Our next destination was especially meaningful.
A Schoolhouse Full of Memories
Ken took us to the Wheeler Schoolhouse, a historic one-room schoolhouse that his father purchased and restored in the 1970s.
The building stands in a beautiful rural setting near the intersection of Twenty Mile Stream Road and Chapman Road, with Gilead Mountain looming nearby.
I was fascinated to learn that the Wheeler Schoolhouse was built in 1861, during the first year of the American Civil War. It replaced an earlier schoolhouse known locally as the "Wigwam," which stood across the road.
According to the Cavendish Historical Society, Colonel Wheeler donated the schoolhouse and approximately an acre or two of land to the local school district, with an unusual stipulation: if the building ever ceased operating as a school, the property would revert to the neighboring farm.
For nearly a century, generations of local children attended classes here. Imagine all the lessons learned, friendships formed and memories created within those walls!
The school finally closed in 1955, and the property returned to the farm, just as Colonel Wheeler had stipulated.
In 1964, the Stowell family purchased the farm. About nine years later, they sold the schoolhouse to Ken's father, Al Phil Carloni, who began restoring the historic building with the help of Ken and his older brother.
I was delighted to discover that the Cavendish Historical Society published an article in 2019 that specifically mentions the Carloni family's restoration of the schoolhouse!
The article includes recollections from Sara Stowell, whose family once owned the property. She described how the Carlonis preserved the character of the old schoolhouse while adding a sleeping loft and converting the original outhouses into a storage shed.
What a wonderful piece of living history!
Ken's brother is now continuing the family's stewardship of this remarkable building. He has already installed a new basement and foundation, helping ensure that the schoolhouse will survive for future generations.
Standing there, listening to Ken reminisce about helping his father restore the building, I could almost hear the voices of children arriving for school, horses and buggies traveling along the country roads, and the sounds of a bustling farming community.
The schoolhouse has witnessed more than 165 years of change, yet it remains a tangible connection to the people who lived, worked, learned and raised families here long before any of us were born.
I love places like this. History isn't simply a collection of dates and names in books. It lives in old buildings, stone walls, country roads and the memories we share with one another.
And now, through the continuing efforts of the Carloni family, another chapter is being added to the story of the Wheeler Schoolhouse.
How special to stand in this historic building with Ken, whose family has helped preserve it for more than half a century! brother is now in the process of updating the building and has already installed a new basement and foundation.
And now Ken's family is adding another chapter to the story of the Wheeler Schoolhouse.
From there, we continued our exploration with a stop at Buttermilk Falls, where we enjoyed another beautiful walk to the cascading water.
Our next stop was the Green Mountain Sugarhouse, where we purchased a few souvenirs and treated ourselves to maple creemees, Vermont's delicious version of soft-serve ice cream made with maple syrup.
What a wonderful way to celebrate being in Vermont!
The Green Mountain Boys
We finished our afternoon by driving up Okemo Mountain, a popular ski destination overlooking the surrounding countryside.
The views from the mountain were spectacular. Forested hills and valleys stretched into the distance, with the Green Mountains rising beyond them.
Standing there, Ken and I had a wonderful conversation about Ethan Allen, the Green Mountain Boys and their role in the American Revolution.
The history of Vermont during the Revolutionary era is particularly fascinating because the people living here were fighting for more than independence from Great Britain. They were also struggling to protect their farms and communities from competing land claims by New York and New Hampshire. Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys emerged from these disputes in the early 1770s, organizing to defend settlers' land claims. When the Revolutionary War began in 1775, they became an important part of the struggle for American independence. Allen and his men, working alongside Benedict Arnold and other colonial forces, captured Fort Ticonderoga in May 1775, securing a strategically important British stronghold and its artillery.
The people of this region experienced the Revolution not simply as a distant war fought by famous generals, but as a struggle that affected their homes, farms and futures. Cavendish itself was a tiny frontier settlement when the war began, with only five families living here. Its first European settlers, John and Susanna Coffeen and their children, had arrived in 1769. The Crown Point Road, built during the French and Indian War, passed through the area and connected important military outposts. Families throughout the region faced difficult decisions about allegiance, security and survival. Vermont even declared itself an independent republic in 1777 and didn't join the United States until 1791.
Looking across the mountains, I thought about the ordinary people who lived here 250 years ago. Farmers, craftspeople, mothers, fathers and children whose lives were shaped by the extraordinary events unfolding around them.
It seemed especially meaningful to be reflecting on this history during our nation's 250th anniversary year, just hours after standing with fellow citizens in Bellows Falls encouraging people to participate in our democracy.
The struggles of the past and the challenges of the present are separated by centuries, but the responsibility of ordinary people to shape the future remains.
A Perfect Ending to a Wonderful Day
Eventually, it was time to head back to Cavendish.
We had about 45 minutes before our dinner reservation at Murdock's on the Green, so we decided to pop into Outer Limits Brewing, conveniently located next door.
The brewery has a fun science-fiction theme inspired by the classic television series The Outer Limits, and its beers have appropriately imaginative names.
A friendly waitress named Frevy served us, and we enjoyed relaxing together after our full day of exploring.
Then it was time for dinner at Murdock's.
We enjoyed a delicious meal, lively conversation and the pleasure of reliving the day's adventures together.
What a wonderful day it had been!
The manager at Murdock's graciously gave us permission to stay overnight, which meant we wouldn't have to drive back to Rockledge Farm Woodworks.
I took Tad out for an evening walk around the village green before we all settled into the motorhome for the night.
As I reflected on the day, I kept coming back to the wonderful feeling of being reunited with Ken and Jenny.
Forty-five days ago, we left behind our familiar routines, our beautiful home along the North Umpqua River and the people who make our lives so rich.
Since then, we've traveled thousands of miles, explored extraordinary landscapes, learned fascinating history and shared countless memorable experiences with family and friends.
But today reminded me that some of life's greatest treasures aren't places at all.
They're the people we share our lives with.
A few months ago, four friends were sitting together in Oregon watching a documentary about the American Revolution, imagining how wonderful it would be to explore Vermont together in the fall.
Today, surrounded by the brilliant colors of New England, we turned that little dream into a beautiful memory.
Home isn't just where we live. It's also where we find the people we love.
And sometimes, if we're especially fortunate, we find a little piece of home waiting for us 3,000 miles away.
Tuesday, October 20, 2026
Day 48: October 20, 2026: Dual celebrations.
Monday, October 19, 2026
Sunday, October 18, 2026
Day 46: October 18, 2026. heading west
It was freezing overnight, the mercury dipping down to around 27 degrees. At that temperature, the furnace cycles on and off bringing the noisy hum of the blower fan with it every time. It’s that back-and-forth click and roar of the fan that keeps waking me, cutting short any chance of a truly deep sleep.
Sometime before first light, I bundled up to take Tad out for a quick relief break so we could both get safely tucked back under our respective blankets. Frost glittered across the ground, and a paper-thin skin of ice had formed over the driveway puddles, so neither of us felt like lingering. Back inside the motorhome, I lit the burner under the coffee pot and slid straight back into the still-warm bedding, pulling the covers secure until only my face was exposed. As I drifted in and out of sleep, my mind wandered back to our uninvited hitchhiker rodent. I haven't heard a single scratch or rustle since that campground stay. Perhaps it rethought its travel plans or simply froze in last night’s chill.
We were parked in the back of the restaurant where the owner had kindly let us set up for the night. It saved us a solid fifteen minutes of driving and, best of all, gave us full cell service.
A couple of hours later, we finally got moving to prepare for departure. After weeks of steady travel, today is the real turning point. From here on out, we are charting the most direct route home, sprinkling in visits with friends along the way wherever we can fit them in. I always feel a bit guilty that we can’t stop to see everyone along our path, but once your wheels are pointed toward home, the subtle pull of the familiar starts tugging hard.
To maximize every bit of heat inside, we pulled the living space slides in before the light starts to fade. Our theory is that it minimizes the volume of air we have to warm inside, minimizing the surface area outside, and creating a tighter seal against the motorhome walls. When those slides are extended in sub-freezing cold, you can easily feel drafts sneaking in through the gaps and see tiny slivers of daylight around the seals. For all its promises, the built-in "Arctic Package"—a tank-warming setup underneath—isn't quite built for true multi-day freezes. And since we’re rarely plugged into power, we have to keep the thermostat set low anyway, or the constant draw from the furnace fan will completely drain our house batteries.
We managed to scrape through the night just as the battery voltage was teetering on the edge, so I fired up the engine early to give the house battery a much-needed boost. Breakfast was a low-key bowl of cold cereal, and before we knew it, we were rolled out and on the road. Outside, the peak autumn color has officially passed. After a heavy frost like last night's, the leaves are coming down in subtle, steady showers with every mile we head west.
The local brewery where we stopped was officially guarded by a friendly female Lab mix named Chinook—or "Nook" for short. Her command station was a comfortable couch positioned right by the front window. She would nap or keep a lazy eye on the driveway until a car pulled up, at which point she’d spring into action, trotting behind the bar to give proprietor Bill a quiet alert that incoming visitors had arrived. It was hard to tell who ran the place, but Nook clearly took her greeting duties very seriously.
Kasey had a flight of beer to sample the various kinds. I had a hibiscus ginger cider.
We were low on fresh water so Bill kindly let us top off our water. This prompted us to return to the motorhome to take care of that and walk the dog around the neighborhood.
With light traffic and no sidewalks, we took to wandering along the edge of the road to explore the neighborhood. We had just reached the first residence and were about to turn back when a large dog came charging out toward us in an aggressive, threatening posture, a woman giving chase behind and shouting frantically for her dog to stop. A second, smaller and much friendlier dog trailed in their wake, eventually catching up as the woman reached us.
We paused to chat with her for a bit about the local area and nearby attractions, but as we turned to take our leave, her larger dog, a Golden Retriever with a coat almost identical in color to Tad’s, began to escalate, bearing its teeth, snarling, snapping, and posturing aggressively toward Tad. The woman tried to regain control by grabbing and pulling on her dog’s tail, but with the threat mounting quickly, Kasey and I took immediate action to protect our leashed boy. Kasey stepped in while I delivered a solid kick to the dog’s chest to create separation, and boomed out a stern, authoritative "NO!"
The sharp reset was enough to break the Golden's focus. We put distance between us as fast as we could and headed straight back to the safety of our spot at the brewery where Nook was undoubtedly keeping a much more disciplined eye on things.
After placing Tad safely inside the motorhome where he could rest away from any more outside excitement, Kasey and I headed back into the brewery to continue our conversation with Bill.
He takes extraordinary care with naming his beers—you could say he is deadly serious about it. Over the next hour, he shared the stories behind each logo, mapping out how the area's rich history was carefully woven into every design. Local train lines, historic oat crops, and devastating regional fires were all thoughtfully incorporated into the names, artwork, and logos. No detail, no matter how small, is overlooked.
His absolute pride and joy is his Serious Blonde—a signature brew that seamlessly fuses several of these historical concepts and local elements into a single glass. Listening to him speak, it was clear that every pour was as much about honoring the community's past as it was about great craft beer.
Another tap story Bill shared with us was for Schoharie Burning, a award-winning Belgian Wheat beer named after the tragic burning of the wheat fields throughout the Schoharie Valley during the Revolutionary War. Flavored with sweet orange peel, grains of paradise, and coriander, it’s a beautifully complex brew that honors a pivotal moment in New York history.
Then there was The Running Red Coats. Originally intended to be a traditional red ale, Bill accidentally doubled up on some of the specialty grains during a batch run. The resulting brew turned out far darker than expected—much more brown than red. Rather than scrapping it, Bill embraced the mishap with his trademark humor, joking that the rich brown color perfectly matched the backside of the British britches as they high-tailed it out of Saratoga!
The bar closed up at 6:00 PM, and after gathering our accumulated purchases to take along on the rest of our journey, we settled in for the night. As the last of the patrons cleared out, the back parking area quieted down completely, leaving us with a peaceful, silent spot to spend the evening tucked away in the motorhome.
Reflecting on the Road Ahead: A Living Map of American Transportation
The next time you cruise across a turnpike in the East or enjoy a long, uninterrupted stretch of freeway in the West, you're experiencing a living map of American transportation history! Whether navigating eastern turnpikes or winding backroads, every mile west brings us closer to home.
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