Summer Drawing to a Close

I was texting with my friend Sheila today and she asked, "How has your summer been?"
"Long and lonely," I responded.
Maybe lonely is an exaggeration since I've gotten to spend it with my charming husband, but it has been an eye opener for me, reminding me that I do need outside stimulation.
Still, there have been some high points.
We reunited with old friends who live in Connecticut, just two hours away.
I had an old phone number for Judi, but I tried it and sure enough! We got together for a short visit when Earl and I ventured to Ikea (my virgin Ikea trip). Then they came for an overnight and we went back there for the day.

Our visit to New Haven included a couple of museums 

We got the old gang back together. A few more gray hairs but still having fun. 

Mirrored art of the queen at the British Museum in New Haven. 

Yale took us right back to Europe. The buildings are impressive

A proper library! They should have filmed Harry Potter here. 

You know they're good friends when you can just pick up where you left off, maybe 15 years ago.
We relived a lot of good times. Their son and one of our sons were best friends. We had camping trips and long days by the pool when the kids were little.
And now we can look forward to their visit to France next year, but we'll keep in better touch. Already, they're consulting on our new house colors.

Enjoying coffee in front of a glass that reflected the town hall

We spent another day in Northampton. For my Quillan friends, I'll say that Northampton is the Esperaza of Massachusetts. It's filled with alternative people, like the guy who carried the sign warning people about the dangers of plastic. I couldn't help but feel he was preaching to the choir in this town of tie dye wearers. The education rate is high since it's a fulcrum of a number of colleges, including Smith College, but it seems to also have a high rate of homelessness and mental illness. Many people talking to themselves wander the streets there.
We found a book store, a Moroccan restaurant for lunch, a haircut for Earl and some coffee before we returned to the hinterlands.

Earl looking spiffy with his new haircut. He hadn't had one since we left France

Friday, we went down the river on our inner tubes again, feeling like professionals by this point as we avoided the dead spots where we've had to struggle to get back into the flow. For two hours we floated and enjoyed the beauty of the countryside, the cool water freshly released from a reservoir in the mountains.
We landed and put the inner tubes in the car, then climbed the stairs to a restaurant that overlooks the river.
This summer has been peaceful. If I lived in a hectic city and wanted to get away, I could not think of a better place to spend it.
Even with all the down time, I haven't gotten as much accomplished as I would like. But I have no excuses, except the lure of the lazy days. (Okay, I usually do teach every day for three or four hours in the morning and maybe an hour or two in the evening, but it still seems kind of lazy.)
Maybe that's the summer I needed.
Less than a month before we return to France and our new house. I'd better enjoy my lazy times while I can.

Swept Up in the Solitude

Just today, as I lay in an inner tube floating down a river, my eyes drawn toward the sharp blue sky, the mountains and dark green trees surrounding me, I thought, this isn't so bad. Maybe I've found some peace in this solitude that is the Berkshires.

I walked back and snapped a few pictures after the inner tubing experience

This is the second time that we have gone inner tubing. It isn't complicated. It is just like it sounds. We get in an inner tube and relax down the river for an hour or two. If the sun beats down, it doesn't matter because the water splashes up. It's a lot less work than kayaking, and being down in the inner tube makes it seem less dangerous than perching on a raft.
The river is most of the time just a bed of rocks scrubbed smooth by waters. But on four days a week, a reservoir releases water and the river has enough water for kayakers, rafters and inner tubers. It's strange to call and ask when the water will be released and then to time when the river will be passable. But that's life in the Berkshires, apparently.
A lot of the river is smooth, the buoyancy of the inner tube floating along, allowing time for contemplation of my plastic shoes that stick from the end of the tube.
But in places, as the water bounces over those smooth stones, the water becomes frothy and white as the tube is rushed through. You can hear the sound before you see the turbulence. Of course, I'm usually turned around so I have to struggle to right myself before the water sweeps me away. I bark out a laugh as a wave sweeps up wetting my hair. Most of the time, the water isn't that agitated. It kind of feels like being on a log flume, not the big downhill parts though.
I don't take my phone along, so this is another part of the solitude.

Here's a sun-streaked selfie in my #teamlydia t shirt for my nephew's little girl who was in the hospital at the time. 

Last time we did it, Earl and I shared a double tube. We could talk about life when the river didn't need our attention.
Today, we had individual tubes and didn't come within arm's reach of each other most of the two-hour trip. Sometimes he was ahead, sometimes I was ahead. We'd raise a hand hello across the expanse of water.
Once I ran aground on a big rock in the middle of the river. That's gonna leave a bruise. But I pushed myself off with my feet and kept going.
In my head, I still imagined that the trip would be better with a soundtrack -- my soundtrack. And at one point I did wonder if I could read a book the next time I was out there floating, but I decided it was kind of like running, a time when you had to make peace with the stuff running through your head.
Inner tubing makes you feel like you've communed with nature, that you've done something athletic when you really haven't. You've lain in a river for a few hours, occasionally reaching out an arm to paddle.
It's something I like about the Berkshires though, so I'll stick with it.

Managing My Berkshire Expectations

When my kids were swimming competitively, there was a tshirt that read: "If I have but one day to live, please take me to a swim meet because they last forever."
That has kind of become my motto this summer. If I were facing the end of my life, these days in the Berkshires stretch interminably in front of me.
How many are left?

But who's counting?

What did I think it would be like spending the summer in the Berkshires? Well, I knew it would be cool (as in the weather), and it has been. 

I guess I pictured the Berkshires like the Catskills or the Poconos. The kind of places you see on television from Dirty Dancing or The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. 

A scene from the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel in the Catskills

Perhaps there'd be dinners out and boating and games. 

I didn't plan for no cell service and the closest neighbors being not close at all. 

Don't get me wrong. I know some people would adore being isolated in the woods, maybe people with high-stress jobs who just want to get back to nature. 

And it is beautiful here in places, not unlike where my parents grew up in Kentucky.

The tiger lilies bloom later up here 

We have had some ventures into towns. I would say nearby, but truthfully, the closest towns are 45 minutes to an hour drive.

Last week we drove to Northampton, having no preconceived notions about it. Why did we go there? To work in a Starbucks. (I know, Theresa, but we all make compromises sometimes) My writing has stalled and I hoped that by returning to a coffee shop, I might jump start it. 

Instead, a man sat down at the communal table with me and Earl and began telling us his life story. 

Still, Northampton is an interesting town. The most liberal town in Massachusetts, where Smith College is located. 

Luckily, I wore an Indian designed top so felt right at home amidst the tie-dyed shirts and bright colors.

A shop window in Northampton

There were lots of people asking for money on the street and several musicians busking, even on a weekday afternoon.

Best of all, there was a candy shop called Sweeties. I took a picture and sent it to my friend Derrick. Sweeties is what the Brits call candy and I'm trying to make his niece and nephew learn American English so they have to ask me for candy instead of Sweeties. 

Jelly beans, fudge, chocolate, runts...

We also found a book shop, so the trip was definitely worth it.

On Sunday, we traveled two hours to Saratoga Springs, New York. Earl has a friend there that he went to Ohio State with in the journalism department. I had never met Barb and her husband Jim, but now I regret all those years we didn't know each other. We had a delightful time. 

A beautiful copper roof on the new building. The original building was built is 165 years old. 

The horses sweaty after a race. 

We went to the racetrack and spent about $20 betting on horses. Earl won $10 and my horses sometimes were limping so I was very bad at choosing.

Afterward we walked downtown. It's a very civilized town and even had an Aveda shop, which I've been searching for. I bought some new moisturizer and felt like I might be able to survive the remaining days in the Berkshires.

So, it's a lot of driving to get to anywhere, and most days, we don't leave our big, but cluttered house with the old dog and two mischievous cats. I've been walking every morning after I teach. I've managed to run down hill some, but I'm still having pain in my ribs from my fall so can't push it uphill because of that thing.. oh, yeah, breathing. It hurts to breath too deeply. 

We plan to go tubing, maybe Friday or Saturday. Apparently, there's a reservoir that lets water into the river on Wednesday, so the river is not high enough for tubing early in the week. Some things are still a mystery to me here. 

There's also kayaking for another day. And we even spotted a zipline. 

We're spacing out our fun activities so we always have something to look forward to. 

The "Bear" Necessities Require Closing the Door

I blame my husband who just yesterday was lamenting that he never saw any wildlife when he was hiking.
That day as we were walking home from the mailbox at our rural Berkshires (Massachusetts) housesit, we saw a fox in the middle of the road, and he got nervous because the cats were out and about. We had left the back door open during the 20 minute walk so the dog could go out if she needed it. But I shrugged off Earl's worry about the fox. I had seen two foxes the week before on an early morning run in Florida. They were young and they both stopped in the middle of their playful games to stare at the lights on my shoes. 

A fox that stopped to check me out during a predawn run in Florida

So last night, we gathered the animals in around 8 p.m., as we usually do. Jenny the arthritic dog, and the two young cats, Kepler, black, sleek and obviously a hunter, Tanna, a bit chunky mottled color and satisfied to lie around and be petted.

The dog and two cats followed me on an attempted run up the mountain yesterday. 

We closed off the cat door and pushed the back door closed  without latching it. 

The owners had already told us that the dog could push inside the back door since it doesn't close well.
Earl and I were sitting at the kitchen table when I saw a black and brown head appear in the window of the kitchen door.
A bear!

Just checking things out. Not really afraid. 

I jumped up and ran to the door, wondering what I would do if the bear pushed the door open before I got there. Could I get away from it? Why wasn't my husband running to protect us from the bear?
That's when I heard him.
"Wait! You'll scare it! I want to get a picture."
Are you kidding me? I wanted to scare it.
He had hesitated to grab his camera so he could record the event.
He was right that, thankfully, I did scare the bear. It went lumbering across the yard, but not at a fast pace.
And the picture of the bear slowly peeking into the glass of the back door will remain etched in my mind -- like a scene from Goldilocks, but opposite. The bear was just checking to see if we were home.

The backdoor view from the kitchen table. I will forever picture a bear's face in the bottom right. 

When we took over this housesit, the owners told us they left the doors open all the time (not unlocked, but open) and they weren't even sure if there was a key to the house.
That same day, we had driven an hour away to a grocery store and simply left the back door open for the dog to go in and out. I wondered if the bear had been by earlier casing the joint.
So we locked the door last night, the only way to latch the back door.
This morning though, the door is open again to let the fresh 80 degree air in, and the front door is wide open too.

An open door leading to peaceful woods for all mosquitoes and wild animals to enter. 

Hopefully, the bear won't return, but if it does, I'm afraid it might find an open-door policy. 

A June Whirlwind

I can't believe it's July already.
June was a blur of activity.
We hiked in Spain,

Me with Earl and Maurice as we crossed the Pyrenees

 bought a house in France,

It needs a little love, but it has a garden

 said goodbye to all of our friends in France before we left for the summer and spent a night in Paris,

Always love the dramatic sky in Paris

flew home to the States,

Always love spending time with Mom and Dad.

At the Gulf of Mexico with Earl

drove from Florida to Ohio

Dinner with two of our three kids

 then Ohio to Massachusetts.

This is actually a view in Vermont, I think. Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire are all very close together here.

And here we are for most of the summer.
It's rural and I am sure to have lots of time to write, but less to write about.