Leaving for Vermont today, so my posts will be sporadic for the next few days. We will be in boy land deluxe: my sister has a 4- and a 6-year-old to add to the mix, meaning that my own children will come home exhausted after a weekend of enforced and adoring little-kid playtime.

The drive takes 7 hours over secondary roads, pretty but endless. I am packing the tunafish sandwiches and the iced tea and the blueberry muffins and the juicy nectarines, and we will eat a picnic somewhere along the river. The trip would be more fun in a gypsy caravan like the one in The Wind in the Willows, but we will have to make do with a car.

In New Hampshire, we pass the turnoff for the Frost Place, where at this very moment all kinds of poetry is happening to many people, including my mother. I am looking forward to getting the lowdown later this weekend. Apparently it hasn't rained all week for the poets like it did for the teachers in June.