We are back at our northeastern home base, the house where I grew up, lakeside in Vermont.   We are nearly 3,000 miles and two months of travel from our southwestern home base, the way we drove it.

Of course, more lies between the two points than miles and camping nights.   The voyage from one place to another is an experience, different every time we have it, full of people, rich with events.   We could have hopped an airplane from Tucson to Burlington VT.   In a day of travel and one change of plans in New York or Chicago we’d be back, and we would have “saved” two months of our lives.   But what for?   I can’t think of anything I would have rather done with the past two months than exactly what we did.

Our plan is to stay here for two months, more or less.   I mention this as fair warning to those who prefer to tune out when we are parked.   But despite the fact that the Airstream is wedged into the driveway, I don’t think we’ll be just sitting here.   If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you already know: I’ve got plans …   and even when we aren’t taking the Airstream places we will be exploring something.

I’ve said before that when we see saguaro cactus, we know we are close to home base in Arizona,.   Here in Vermont, it was the distinct and familiar smell of liquid cow manure spread over fields.   There’s nothing quite like it.   Not glamorous, that’s for sure.   Even before the classic view of green tree-covered hills and white wood farmhouses appeared in the windshield, that perennial springtime Vermont smell told us we were home.

A lot of people have never been here, so I’ll tell you a little about it.   In Tucson a couple of weeks ago, the first one hundred degree day arrived, an event the locals refer to as the day “the ice melted in the Santa Cruz River.”   It will keep hitting the triple digits for several months.   In contrast, here in Vermont in early June, the Airstream’s furnace is running to keep the interior at 68 degrees.   The weather is unpredictable: we might get anything from frost to upper 90s, but mostly it is cool. This is a special part of the country with its own climate, not just “New England,” but “northern New England.”

Even though summer won’t arrive for a few more weeks, the good camping season has begun.   In this part of the country, we can’t wait for the peak of summer before getting out to do things.   The summer is just too short.   So campgrounds open up in mid-May when the black flies are also open for business, and close in mid-October when the nights are almost always freezing.   In between, northern New Englanders rush around to get as much done as they can.

July marks the middle of that season, which is part of the reason why we chose July 11-14 for the Vintage Trailer Jam.   I finished my pre-rally work this morning at the Saratoga Spa State Park. Colin Hyde drove down for the morning to join me in meetings with the park’s manager and the director of the Automobile Museum.   Things are looking good.

That park keeps getting better and better.   We’re only the third group ever allowed to camp on the premises (the first was the Boy Scouts).   In addition to all the stuff I discovered yesterday, it turns out the park has a second Olympic-sized swimming pool with a zero-depth entry (“beach”), a water slide, and a kid’s “mushroom fountain” wading pool.   It’s all free to us.   We also picked up a schedule for the Saratoga Performing Arts Center and discovered that the New York City Ballet will be performing.   I’m starting to think that a week in Saratoga Springs this summer won’t be enough time.

One thing I know we won’t be doing this summer, fortunately.   We won’t be spending weeks at our storage unit disposing of possessions.   We finished that job last summer and no longer have a Vermont storage unit. (We do, however, have an Arizona storage unit — it’s called a house.)   I only have one major thing to find a home for: a 1963 Serro Scotty “Sportsman” 15-foot trailer.   It’s darned cute, light as fluffy pancake, and more or less usable, but I just don’t have time to fix it up the way it should be.   I’m going to look for someone who wants it. In this age of $5/gallon diesel, maybe someone will want to tow it behind a compact car.