Woodstock CT Café

On November 16th in the year 1993, Mariah, her dog Lickity, and her mom and dad drove out of Palo Alto CA on their extended tour across the nation and back. Mariah had expressed the desire to see her Granny June and Grampy Peter in Woodstock CT and other friends and relatives scattered around the country. She also wished to drop in on Bill and Hillary at the White House. Thus we embarked (pardon the pun) on a four-week road trip chronicled here.

(click pictures below to enlarge)

We drove down through southern CA by Bakersfield and Barstow to Kingman AZ – then down past Tuscon and into NM to Las Cruces – then to El Paso TX to our first destination, Odessa TX. We arrived in Odessa on the eve of Nov 18th in time to see big sister Elizabeth (16 yrs old) inducted into the National Honor Society. Eliz obviously inherited her dad’s intelligence . Unfortunately she also shares with her dad the accomplishment of totalling the family car in her first year of driving.

The following night Elizabeth, Mariah, and mom and dad attended the way off-Broadway production of “Gloweena” staring Mariah’s other sister, Christina (13 yrs old). Christina played a budding holyhock in the production. The musical ended dramatically with Mariah entering stage-left to join her sister on stage. At that point Mariah’s parents adopted anonymity until the entire audience had left the theater. Several years later, as a senior at Odessa High, Christina went to the Texas state finals as the lead in her acting troup only to lose because they went over the time limit. Christina’s success is chronicled in “Friday Night Lights” in the left side-bar.

The next day, Saturday, Mariah, Lickety, and her mom and dad drove to San Angelo TX to see her brother Drew and his soccer team play the arch rival Purple Gang in a soccer tournament. After the game which ended tragically, we took Drew (left) and his teammate and mother to lunch. At this point, we sadly said good-bye to Drew and drove on to Irving TX near Dallas. A few years later brother Drew graduated from Plano High with the graduation ceremony taking place in Texas stadium where the Dallas Cowboys played.

The main event in Irving was Mariah having a much need bath with cousins Emily and Michael while mom and dad visited with Auntie Julie since uncle Andy was away on business in Colorado.
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We saw cotton growing from CA to Tennessee. Mariah finally got to walk in a cotton patch (left) in western TN. After we got back into the car Mariah memorialized this experience with this illustration (right).
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We then drove to Rowayton CT about 40 miles up the Long Island Sound. Dad grew up in Rowayton which is a wonderful beach town in Fairfield County. We stayed with auntie Phoebe and cousin Danielle. During this stay Mariah learned several new methods of impishness from cousin Danielle. Danielle later graduated from Woodstock Academy and Eastern CT State.
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We finally arrived at the farm in Woodstock Valley for Thanksgiving and four days of rest after eight days on the road. While Mariah receives help from Granny June, Grampy Peter is seen practicing several versions of the Leavitt scowl.
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Uncle David and JoAnn joined us at the farm in time for Thanksgiving dinner. They developed a strong friendship with Lickity unaware of the dog’s demonic intentions.
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After Thanksgiving we headed back toward Washington DC for our appointment with Bill and Hilary. We stopped in Marriottsville MD to take a look at our house and property which was rented. We wondered when the tenants planned to cut the grass on the front lawn.
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We arrived in Washington DC for our visit with Bill and Hillary. We checked into the Sheraton not far from the White House. When we went to the White House, tours had been cancelled. So Mariah missed her opportunity to give Bill an earful. As the pictures suggest, the weather was perfect for a late fall day. So we decided to tour all the sites on foot … using four feet instead of six. The second picture shows my site-seeing stance during our two days in DC. We went to the Smithsonian touched Moon rocks and saw other amazing things.
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 After we left DC, we drove to Boone NC to get together with uncle Peter. Mariah was immediately captivated by Peter’s charm as you can tell by her expression. In the second picture, Mariah guards the store while Peter counts the money. In the third picture uncle David joined us for breakfast before we said good-bye at Peter’s store. We all suspected that Peter was pocketing the money from the muscular dystrophy donation can at the lower right.

We stayed at Peter’s cabin for the night and found out who Peter had been hanging around with lately.

Peter’s turkey became quite attached to Lickity but the feeling wasn’t mutual. Needless to say, Lickity got no sleep while we were in NC and had ocassional nightmares during the rest of the trip. Becki and Mariah learned to imitate the turkey gobble which kept Lickity in constant fear.
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At this point in our trip we started to get a little homesick for Palo Alto so we decided to return to California as quickly as possible. We passed by Lubbock TX where Becki was born 38 year prior. Sixty hours later we were back home to the smell of eucalyptus. We had driven through 18 states and about 7800 miles and we were still speaking to each other.