We spent a few days in the Berkshire Mountains. We had fun walking around the nearby towns of Lee and Lenox.

One day, we hiked down the Appalachian Trail to meet Pa’s college friend, Joel, who was leading a student backpacking trip. We hiked with the rest of Joel’s family. I had fun playing tag and other games with Joel’s kids. One of the students started the fire with flint and steel, and Ma decided that starting a fire without matches would be my new challenge.

One day, we drove up to Amherst to see Pa’s grandparents’ farm, that he visited often as a child. We took the long way there, stopping in Shelburn Falls and Montague. In Shelburn, we saw the glacial potholes, which were really cool. We also saw the bridge of flowers, a huge walking bridge covered with plants. Of course Little Kid, our little Ferdinand, loved the bridge. Then we went to the Montague Book Mill, whose motto is “books you don’t need in a place you can’t find.” We spent a long time reading in the bookstore, which was awesome. I bought a cool book. Afterwards, we drove on to Amherst. I liked the farm.

The night before we left Lee, it was so hot that we left every single window open, but when we got to Vermont, we were getting out all our fleece.

We spent a week or so with Grandma in Stamford, Connecticut. For the first few days, Little Kid and I had colds, but after we got better, we had a lot of fun. We weren’t allowed to park the RV in Granny’s driveway, so she arranged for it to be parked at a temple nearby, and we stayed in Granny’s house. It was great to be with Granny! Every day, we went out to one of the delicious restaurants in the area. Also, we went to some cool parks, once when Aunt Martha and Peter came up to visit.

One of the things we did was go to the Nature Center, where there were all kinds of animals. We saw goats, llamas with strange haircuts, cows, and baby sheep. We even saw the beehives being checked!

While we were in Stamford, we went to Manhattan to see Pa’s sister, Martha, and my cousin Peter. We had fun in Riverside Park and went to a huge exercise area with rings hanging on long chains, very far apart. There was also a slightly smaller one for kids. I made it all the way across the kids’ one!

One day, Granny and I took the train into New York City to see Matilda at a Broadway theater. It was great! One of my favorite parts was when the evil principal started spinning a girl around by her pigtails, the lights went out, and a moment later she fell down from the roof, and a bunch of other girls caught her.

We will see where Granny will meet us next!

We spent a few days with Ma’s friend from college. I spent most of my time hanging out with the kids, Brooke and Zack. Two nights, I had a sleepover with Brooke. It was fun! We spent a lot of the night playing truth or dare. I also played with Zack, and we had lots of fun fencing with sticks. Ma had a lot of fun hanging out with Lisa. Lisa and Dave made delicious vegetarian meals every night, which was awesome. Basically, we had a great time.

Planting with the girl scouts

We spent a few days on a working dairy farm in Amish country near Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
  

The first day we got a tour and learned how everything works. We saw the hutches for the calves, and the four barns for cows of different ages. We saw the milking barn where the cows are milked by machines. Ma had fun milking a cow by hand. The next day, we got to bottle feed the calves! Very soon, we learned that calves are very strong. They would pull on the bottle to get more milk, and we would almost be pulled over. When the milk was gone, the calves went crazy, searching all around for more milk. Another day, I got to lead a calf from the barn to the calf pens.

The farm is family farm, the parents and their two sons in their twenties are the only people there. Every day at four am and four pm the cows are milked. Th family also has to manage the cows’ food, grow the hay, and take care of the cows that aren’t giving milk yet. With 160 cows, it is a lot of work!

One cool thing was that there were tons of kittens on the farm. My favorite was a little gray kitten that was very curious. She always kept playing with my hand. By the RV, there were five kittens that were shy but cute. The farmers said that we could take a kitten, but Ma and Pa said, “No!”

While we were there, we got to feed and brush Sunny, their miniature horse. Sunny ate about five carrots, and when we were done brushing him, there was hair everywhere. Soon after we were done, Little Kid and I got to ride in a tractor. Little Kid loved it! After spending time on a farm, I decided that it would be fun to live on a farm for a little bit, but I wouldn’t want to do it the rest of my life because it is too much work.

We spent about a week in Shenandoah National Park, Virginia. Our first couple of nights, we were in a spot in the middle of the campground that was okay, but it wasn’t the best. Then one day, Ma was out walking when she saw a cool spot that was right next to the Appalachian Trail. Moving to the new spot took way too long, but our new spot was awesome. We spent our days exploring the Appalachian Trail and other trails in the park, including one that went down to a huge waterfall. The waterfall was beautiful! Another day, Pa found a spring on the Appalachian Trail, and I spent a long time exploring downstream. By the stream, there were tons of green plants and moss. It was so cool.

While we were at Shenandoah, we went to a ranger talk about birds of prey, and the ranger brought a real hawk. The funny part was that sometimes the hawk would try to fly off her hand, and then it would end up hanging upside down from the leash attached to its ankles. The ranger assured us that the hawk did that often, and it wasn’t getting hurt. Still, the hawk upside down looked pretty weird.

Also, one day we drove out of the mountains to see my cousin Tricia, who is in college.  We had a great afternoon hanging out together, eating ice cream.

I was very sad when it was time to leave Shenandoah, but I was also excited to see Washington DC.