Vermont's Best Kept Secret

Winhall Brook Campground. In September 2010, we were innocently driving back from an appointment to possibly sell soap to Inn in at the base of Stratton Mountain. The end result of that meeting was that the end keeper wanted us to sell large amounts of our product to them at cost with the idea that the people that used it at the end with them pay retail for it on the way home. Obviously a very stupid idea. But the trip wasn't without benefit.

As we were coming up route 100 North we noticed a very plain brown sign, a very government style sign with white letters that said "camping area" in the area of South Londonderry Vermont.. We follow the signs. What we found out there was Winhall Brook National Park. It went on to become what I would call, Vermont's best kept secret. it was a little piece of paradise in a valley. The sites were roomy and inexpensive. Everything was perfect. There were a couple of playgrounds and even one of those wooden train sets to play on. Our kids, who  who were not crazy about the ride were now very happy and jumped out of the car and ran and played on everything.

Our choices in campgrounds would be different than the majority. Some people think a campground with arcade games, a pool, rec hall and a stupid firetruck is where it is at. But, those hideous insults to camping WE generally refer to as "cramp-grounds". This because you would have more room parking in a Walmart parking lot. And amenities?  I have always noticed that the more amenities a campground has, the more it generally sucks. Those are the places that some old drunken idiot is the first one to get after you for driving 7 miles an hour in a 5 mph zone. That same idiot will be recklessly drivng his golf cart at 27 miles an hour, hooting and hollering, three sheets to oblivion at 10:30 that same night. In fact, one time at Windy Acres Campground at West Hampton Massachusetts, there was a kid dance at the rec hall across from the field from where we stayed and they  played " Who Let the Dogs Out" so many times and so loudly that it was burned into the fabric of my existence so deep that I still have nightmares. Fortunately, "Baby Shark" was not invented yet.

 Winhall however was charming. With only a hand full of electric and water sites, everything else is dry camping. It was priced exactly the same as Vermont State Parks and sites were nice and spacious like Vermont State Parks. Unlike Vermont State Parks you do not have to pay for the showers. Here  you got so much more scenery and then you did have most State parks. The West River and another river join each other in this Park and it has 2 rail trails that go different directions out of the park.

It would be almost 11 months before we actually made it back to the campground. Our first stay was the third week of August 2011. We had an awesome time. That Sunday on the way home there was a freak thunderstorm that came through that dumped tons of rain.  As I drove through the center of Springfield Vermont there was a foot of water running down Main Street. And when I got home my neighbor's swimming pool had a tree fall into it and wrecked the in-ground pool and flattened his pump house. This was nothing compared to what was about to happen next. 6 days later Hurricane Irene hit and the water in the National Park rose to 30 feet higher than the actual level of the average campsite level which was 10 to 20 ft above where the water sits.

Three weeks after the hurricane, we visited on a Sunday afternoon and this beautiful paradise was transformed to something that resembled the surface of the Moon. Everything was just covered in river sand and rock. It was the most unbelievable thing I have ever seen.

We were pretty sure that they campground could not possibly open on time the following year, but nature has ways of healing things in ways we don't fully understand. While I know that I'm sure there was a lot of excavation and chainsaw work happening, what surprised me is how the plush grass found it's way up through the hard sandy soil and thrive the once again. We came here the following July and stayed for 5 days and unless we knew about the hurricane we may not have figured out that some of the things that we could see where actually caused by something like that in only one day.

Again in again, we came back to this beautiful campsite with our 2008 Jayco pop up. Our final camp in the popup was Memorial Day 2015, when we realized we outgrew that camper.  We traded up to an old Innsbruck 25 foot travel trailer. We spent vacations here as well as long weekends. People we met here told us that back in the 70s and 80s, this campground was free to stay at!

Free or not, my kids have been raised here.  I wonder if decades later, they will bring their families here and tell all the stories of their growing up and the many stays here in this sweet severe valley.

The Sunday Morning Gentleman's Club - Chapter One

Chapter One

Not Sure How We Got Here

We know the story of why it started.  We just cannot remember how it became a ritual.  The Sunday Morning Gentlemen’s club may seem to me, all of these years later as some nebulous dream-like memory that part of my daily consciousness seems to view silently.  The Club was so much more than this though.  There are people at possibly every corner of the world that just may be telling a story or two about a Sunday morning at 111 Avenue J in Port Aransas Texas.  When they think back upon it, it probably amounts to a pleasurable blink in life.  I also wonder though if when they think back, they are reminded of a girlfriend or boyfriend that was a permanent part of their life at the time, suddenly remembering some exact way that it felt to be next to them.

By definition, the Sunday Morning Gentleman’s Club was 4 guys that met at 10 AM every Sunday at the home of my father and I, so that we could drink beer and play darts. The permanent members, Steve, Glenn, Joe (my father) and I made up the core club.  The event took place in our much too old mobile home on Avenue J in Port Aransas.  A small kitchen just to the right of the door coming into the living room.  The ceiling was low with a bamboo curtain covering the entire surface to probably block watermarks and possibly holes.  The floor in the living room was a series of checker board like (but many color) squares put together from remnants of Odette’s former construction jobs.

Drinking in public was prohibited before noon on Sunday mornings.  For reasons that we understood back then, in context, this was not tolerable whatsoever.  But, it was a major inconvenience to have to hide your beer on the beach on Sunday morning.  It never was an option to just NOT drink till after noon.  This was potentially expensive since the TABC (Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission) patrolled the beach handing out $120.00 tickets to offenders.  You could save $2.00 by buying Milwaukee’s Best instead of Lone Star, then get nailed by the TABC for drinking 120 minutes too early.  That has got to be it’s own form of irony.  The Sunday Morning Gentleman’s Club prevented this danger by keeping us safely under cover.

We were all from somewhere else.  Islanders all seemed to be from other places because at this point in time, I was hard pressed to find someone that was born and raised in Port A. I am aware that this logic probably only applied to MY group of friends. Natives were there, I was not finding them, except perhaps those out there were my sister's age of 15 or so.   I subliminally decided that Port Aransas was a place were people even at younger ages landed in and then never actually left again.  I think this is why after 3 years I was so afraid to get stuck there forever myself.  I think I could have.  I learned later, that Port Aransas to those I thought may have been "lifers" may have actually been a small dot of an island to land in an ocean a million miles wide, that we crash landed on and stayed for a few years while we nursed our wounds in a Jimmy Buffett - Margaritaville sort of way.  Of course some never made it off the island, and that is OK.  That is it's own unique honor.

Being an island in the very salty Gulf of Mexico in South Texas, things rusted A LOT.  When you live on a small island where your vehicle runs in short bursts of 15-30 mph, you need to get it up to 55 miles per hour every now and then.  For this, there was Park Road 53, the road, also known as "18 Mile Road" that headed south down Mustang Island to Fish Pass that would cross onto South Padre Island.  Right about where our road, Avenue J was, Park Road 53 changed from 30 to 55 mph. When it was time to "exercise" your rusted out vehicle, you would stomp on the accelerator to "clean the cobwebs out" and many times inadvertently, "blowing the muffler off the exhaust system".  Let's just say, there were many loud vehicles in Port A.  That section of Park Road 53 an un-designated graveyard where old mufflers went to die.

Steve would usually arrive first.  Steve originated from the Fort Worth area. This punctuality despite a very unambitious life.  He was a stay at home Dad, but not in the widely understood definition of the title.  I always got the impression that somewhere in time, he kicked some serious corporate/business butt. But now, at the 38-40-ish that he was, he appeared to have found a permanent landing zone here in Port A.  Steve was very intelligent and funny.  His raspy Texas drawl was often laced with laughter and over all was an entertaining person to be around. He was a gingery medium built guy, with a red-ish beard with sort of a softer edge Treat Williams.

Steve would stay home in his chair and drink beer all day and smoke a little pot. (Actually, it would be easier to name the people who DID NOT smoke pot.)  He’d nap whenever he felt like it and his 2 year old son Johnathan would do things like, attempt cooking or dump 5 lb bags of flower all over the dark blue carpet in the living room or decide to go for a walk several blocks away from the house.  Steve’s wife Cathy was a school teacher and obviously the only bread winner in the house.  She never really seemed happy (go figure) and there seemed to be something brewing just below the surface with her but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I always got the impression that she was screaming inside.

Next comes Glenn.  Glenn was from somewhere in New Mexico.  Glenn was truly unique.  He worked in the public works department with my Dad. He was tall and very slim.  Tanned from his lawn care side business that he maintained. Brown hair that just about reached halfway down his back and a scrappy beard that did not grown in fully.  Glenn was and still is one of the most well-read people I have ever met.  Glen was like my brother although he was closer to my Dad's age than mine.

By 10:05 AM, all members present, beer, cigarettes,darts and Joan Jett, Little Feat, and Jim Morrison all at the ready, we all sort of recapped the highlights of our week.