ACROSS THE COUNTRY AND INTO THE WOODS

On my last blog, we finished our journey exploring the libraries and complexities of Mexico. This new series of blogs will explore the libraries and culture of three different countries. But first, we start with our annual pilgrimage to our little cabin in the woods in Vermont.

At the beginning of August, before we left San Francisco, our son Walker and his friend Nick began driving our Prius on a camping trip across the northern US and Canada. They canoed and camped on their journey across the northern woods, eventually winding up in New England.

At the same time, back in San Francisco, we were fortunate to begin hosting a Fulbright Exchange student from Russia named Daria. She will be staying with us for a year, and we look forward to getting to know this remarkable, brave young woman who had to leave Putin’s Russia a year ago with her husband and her cat. The few days with her was spent showing the sites of our beautiful city during the month we call Fogust.

On the day we flew across country with Nick’s wife Thais and Walker’s girlfriend Rosa, we met Walker and Nick at our cabin in Vermont. It was great to be there with them all and a few days later they helped celebrate my 73^rd birthday.

It is always a shock to travel from California to Vermont. I’m not used to green and humidity. The massive rain and snowfall we had this winter helped pull California out of a crippling multi-year drought. But Vermont also had a huge amount of rain this summer which resulted in wide-spread flooding and lots of damage.

Much of the time here was spent chilling, watching the grass grow, and marveling at all the little creatures of the Vermont woods crawling around. Even the mushrooms are exotic and grow everywhere in this forest that covers almost 80% of the state.

Vermont lies within an interesting biological transition zone between the northern boreal forests and the southern deciduous forests. Over 80% is privately owned but only 1% is owned by businesses. Our place is shared by three families and has been managed by Ellen’s brother John. We helped a little when we are here such as digging ditches to save the trails in this very wet year. But John and his daughter Phoebe do most of the hard work. One day we took an epic Gator ride with John to the top of his adjacent property. Because of the recent rains, the trail was squishy, the sky was close, and a soft mist covered the trees. We saw close ups of deer and wild turkeys in this crazy, beautiful place.

After far too short of a visit, Walker and Rosa and friends had to go back to San Francisco. After a short stop in SF, Walker continued on to do a story for CBS News on the recent, devastating fires in Maui, Hawaii. Altogether, he traveled 17 hours to go to work. Tough commute!