The trip from Brown to Rochester was not the way I used to do it 50 years ago.  Then I filled the car – a 1960 Dodge Dart convertible – with paying passengers and set out for the 400 miles at high speed with a fixed schedule to drop off riders along the way.  I never thought about changing drivers and stops were basic, fill the tank, empty the bladder and move on.  Also the route was direct. RI 146 to Mass Pike to NY Thruway and let’s get it done (note the lack of Interstate numbers, the toll roads were not in the system).

This time we meandered down to Point Judith, about 30 miles, and after a pleasant night in the state park campground, we caught the ferry to Block Island. All those years in Providence and I never made it to Block Island until now.  Norm Topf was at the ferry to meet us and take us to their home where we were to stay the night.  Shelley had baked and she ample food for lunch.  We set out to tour the island after some food and a lot of sharing and talking.  It has been a year or more since we have seen them.  Dinner at Hotel Manisses was wonderful and after a great night’s sleep and plenty of talking over breakfast we caught the ferry back to the mainland to pick up the coach and head another 30 miles west to Seaport Campground in Mystic CT.  We were there to visit Marcia and Howard and their friend Betsy who we had traveled with on the Japan trip in April.

I won’t detail all the meals since we were there three nights.  We saw a lot of Stonington, New London, Mystic and other towns in the area. Betsy gave us her personal guided tour of Stonington Borough where she is on the preservation board. Not only did we see a lot of the town, but we had a lot of interesting stories about the people and places.  As a special treat for Carol two dinners were in vegetarian restaurants. Actually the second restaurant, 6 Main, is vegan. Marcia and Howard’s son David joined us and he is vegan so they knew where to go. David is a percussionist, trained at Juilliard, and so naturally the talk turned to the percussionists Carol and I know and our ties to music and the Rochester Philharmonic. We were pleasantly surprised to receive this link http://artnhv.com/2014/06/04/existence-of-a-small-world-confirmed/ to David’s blog.

As we headed toward I 90, finally, we made one more stop just short of the Mass border to chat with Joe Green and his wife Jenny. We actually pulled off the road into a school parking lot that was empty, it being Sunday, and had room to turn the coach and get reasonably level. Various meals were consumed, Joe brought breakfast I had lunch and we had a wonderful hour to relive the reunion and share more stories we had not been able to get to in the crush of so many people at reunion. It really is amazing how we can pick up the threads after so many years.

We had one more stop to make before the storage yard. We stayed the night at Villages at Turning Stone, the RV park across the street from the Casino. There Carol cleaned the interior to prepare it for storage and I started transferring the limited items we need to move from coach to apartment into the car so that when we arrived we would mostly need to deal with moving the food into the car. They did not permit washing the coach so I will need to find another way to get the exterior cleaned.

I am starting to prepare for Jazz Fest and don’t expect to post anything until that gets underway.