Plymouth Notch is a very small town nestled in the quiet Vermont countryside and is now a Vermont State Historic Site and the entire settlement is a historic district. There is a Coolidge Museum and Education Center plus a restaurant, general store, a few other buildings, and an operative cheese factory. The village is virtually unchanged since the time when Calvin Coolidge lived there.
Heading south? Consider stopping in Charleston on the way. Charleston has survived wars, fires, earthquakes and hurricanes – and despite it all, retained both her beauty and dignity. With more than 130 churches Charleston has been dubbed “City of Spires.”
The Spanish brought the donkeys to the island to use as draft animals.
When they were no longer needed, the donkeys were set free to roam the island. They did not fare well. In 1993 Dutch Nationals, Marina Melis, and her husband, Ed Koopman, established a donkey sanctuary on Bonaire for sick, wounded and orphaned donkeys.
For years, there has been a controversy as to where Christopher Columbus is buried. It seems Columbus continued to travel after he died! In 1506 he was buried in Valladodid, Spain. When I was in Seville, Spain, I went to see his tomb in the Cathedral of Santa Maria de la Sede.
When John and I told people we were going to Bonaire most people would say, “Where is that?” Bonaire is 50 miles north of Venezuela and 86 miles east of Aruba. Bonaire was part of the Netherlands Antilles until 2010 when it became a special municipality within the Netherlands. Most people speak Dutch, English, Spanish, and Papiamento (the island language).
The Uros Islands are just one of the amazing sites in Peru. The islands are located near the Andean city of Puno. If visiting Peru is on your bucket list, and your travel dates are flexible, check the airfares frequently. I have never unraveled the mysteries of airfares. I have seen some flights to Peru for under $500. I find it less expensive to book the land portion of travel myself.
When John and I visited Sodus Point it was a beautiful sunny day. The lake was calm, there were a couple sailboats enjoying the day, and all was peaceful. Things were very different during June 1813. During the War of 1812, the frontier villages along the lake’s shore were aware of the danger with the British fleet never too far away. Some government stores were kept at Sodus Point and it was the policy of the British officers to commandeer the stores if they found the place undefended, by force if necessary.
There are about 200 cobblestones houses near the shores of Lake Ontario. In fact, historians estimate between 75 and 90 percent of all the American cobblestone buildings are located within 100 miles of the Cobblestone Museum in Albion. The lake provided the stones. They were there for the taking. Masons who no longer had work once the Erie Canal was finished provided the expertise.
The James A. Garfield National Historic Site is located in Mentor, Ohio, just a short detour off Interstate 90 east of Cleveland. Recently John and I visited and learned many interesting facts about a president who only served 200 days. The last 80 days of Garfield’s presidency was spent trying to recover from an assassination attempt. On the morning of July 2, 1881, as Garfield walked through the railroad station with his two sons on the way to New Jersey for a short vacation, a disgruntled job seeker, Charles Guiteau, shot him.
I think everyone has at least one thing that is a must-do during the summer. For me it is spending time on the Erie Canal away from the hustle and bustle of the everyday world. This year I took the MidLakes Navigation’s Emita II from Dutchman’s Landing to Cross Lake. The name Dutchman’s Landing intrigues me. Captain Dan Wiles explained that before MidLakes Navigation bought the land there was a bar there of the same name.
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