Family Reunion trip summary--part one

One more note about Tuesday’s preparation for the drive to Vermont from Michigan: When Uncle and I went into town to get the trailer, the air conditioner on his van malfunctioned. And although we could fire up the generator on the multi-purpose van and run the air conditioner installed in the van, it was still hot and humid inside. That being said, here’s a description of the rest on my trip.

Wednesday, June 29
Aunt and Uncle were able to load the van rather quickly with food and suitcases. We then hooked up the van to the trailer carrying my car. We left the peninsula at roughly 9:30 AM, went to Traverse City to fuel up the van, and then proceeded down I-75 to Port Huron, MI where we fueled up again before getting to the U.S. Canadian border. At the border, we were asked the standard questions for crossing into Canada: what city, what destination, what purpose, etc. I was surprised that we weren’t asked for our passports.
We drove non-stop across the Ontario Province of Canada north of Lake Erie and south of Lake Ontario. Eventually, we arrived in Hamilton, CA and contended with the rush hour traffic until we arrived at our first night’s destination Niagara Falls. We established our campsite at a KOA campground, unhitched the trailer, and then proceeded to Niagara Falls. We got there with about three and half hours of daylight left. We took the obligatory pictures of the falls and then had a prime rib dinner at a restaurant adjacent to the falls. We took one more look at the Canadian Horseshoe Falls and the American falls including a glance at the “Maid of the Mists” tour boats fighting to get a close look at the falls from the Niagara River.
After our second look at Niagara Falls we got ice cream and souvenirs. We went to our campsite where Uncle helped me pitch my tent in the dark. It took us thirty minutes to get my tent ready for the overnight, but we were successful. Aunt, Uncle, and cousin slept in the van. After Uncle helped me mosquito-proof my tent, I went to sleep. I had a rough night of sleeping as my airbed sprung a leak and I was waking every two hours to re-inflate it.

Thursday, June 30
Despite my troubles, I awoke feeling energized and ready for another day of traveling. We ate breakfast, disassembled our campsite, got some propane for the van, took one last look at Niagara Falls via the Rainbow Bridge and prepared to cross the Canadian-U.S. border. This time we presented our passports and answered the standard questions presented to us by the border officials. We then went into New York State, my first time ever in this state. We hooked up with I-90, a toll road and started the west to east drive across the state. If I were to offer any opinion of traveling in Western New York, I would say it’s like driving in Western Kansas or Western Nebraska except Western New York has more trees.
We got off the highway at Utica, NY and took state highway 8 through the Adirondacks. Not only did highway 8 provide a direct route to our first destination in Vermont, it also gave us an opportunity to at least drive by a summer cottage, Waldheim cottage at Brant Lake, that had been owned by our family a couple of generations ago. I believe the property was sold by my Great Aunt Tia in 1962 three years before I was born.
My great grandfather E.S. Lorenz owned Waldheim as well as the surrounding property that included a boathouse and another house that was built directly on the lake. The cottage was large enough to house he and his wife, their five children, and the 18 cousins (my mom was one of them) comfortably. The lake house is where he wrote a lot of his religious music. The lake house also served as a place where Ellen Jane Lorenz Porter (grand daughter) worked on her hand bell music. BTW, a Google search on Ellen Jane will give you a lot of interesting results.
We arrived at the property in the late afternoon. Two different families now own the cottage and the lake house. We first explored the lake house and bumped into the owners who just arrived there. They were gracious enough to give us a tour of the house. They remodeled the building by adding a fourth floor-sleeping loft but the rest of the building was as my Aunt remembered it.
We then went up to the Waldheim cottage. We took some pictures of the cottage’s exterior. Uncle went up and talked to the owners, a couple which had just arrived from Long Island, NY. My Aunt explained to the owners why we were looking at the place. Soon, we were invited on a tour of the inside! We saw all four floors as well as the back of the house which had a beautiful view of Brant Lake and the “Three Brothers” mountains. One note: I think the older generations would flip out if they saw how the present day owners arranged the living room of the cottage—with a billiard table and the trophy heads of all the animals they had hunted. Still, this was a special moment for me. I had always heard of mom talking about Brant Lake and Waldheim prior to her death in 1991. It was great to finally see the place.
We had dinner at a Fort Ticonderoga mom-and-pop restaurant and then made camp at Crown Point campsite, located at the south end of Lake Champlain and a stone’s throw away from the Vermont state border.

Friday, July 1
We ate breakfast, packed our cars, and explored a lighthouse marker that was very near our camp. We then got on the highway, crossed Lake Champlain via an old bridge, and entered Vermont. The driving in the beginning portions of Vermont was not as pleasurable as driving through the Adirondacks, but still better than driving through Western Kansas.
We arrived in Burlington, VT mid-morning, released my car from trailer captivity, and returned the trailer to the U-Haul store. After having lunch with Aunt, Uncle, and cousin once-removed, we parted ways. I proceeded to drive to the family reunion site while they went to the Burlington airport to pick up their daughter, my cousin. I drove to Montpelier, Vermont and then took state highway 2 to Lyndonville, VT. Along the way, I made the stop at a general store where I bought four jugs of Vermont maple syrup and other souvenirs.
I arrived at the Lyndon State College in the late afternoon. After checking-in and taking luggage to my dorm room, I took a brief tour of the campus. The college is a NAIA school and has half the student population of Emporia State University. I was told that the school’s specialty is astronomy studies. After dinner, the Lorenz reunion played the “Brush with Fame” game. We were to guess which family member had encountered which famous person. The type of famous people encountered ranged from Babe Ruth, Martin Luther King, Jr. to Nobel Prize winning chemists. My brushes with fame were with Arlo Guthrie, the singer, and Larry Brown, the only basketball coach in history to win the college and professional championships.