Chautauqua Institution

The clock tower and The Chautauqua Belle

For the summer of 2025, we left our camper parked in Ohio and headed out to a beautiful corner of southwestern New York. We took a step back in time to a community of century and a half old homes, where walking and biking are the way people get around. Instead of tv, we enjoyed lectures, concerts, and dialogues, at a place where the young and young at heart can explore, play and learn.

The Presbyterian House, our home for the summer
We loved sitting on the porches and listening to amphitheater concerts

Our friends Debbie and Jack called us last winter and said "we have a job for you!" We are glad they called! Back in 1988, we worked at Chautauqua Institution for the summer. For years we had thought about going back. When they told us about the job opportunity at the Presbyterian House at Chautauqua, we were very interested. We were ready for another adventure, but, instead of our familiar camper home, this one meant staying in a dorm style room with a shared bathroom and working parts of six days a week. Both were things we likely would not have considered any place else, but Chautauqua is unique.

Our friends Jack and Debbie.
 My mom got to spend
a week with us as well. 

If you're not familiar with Chautauqua Institution, it is a place where you can explore a wide range of interests including music, literature, history, science, religion, and politics. It is a place for life-long learning.  We attended performances and lectures that we normally wouldn't even think about. A typical day could start with a Zen Buddhist meditation, then possibly a science talk on robo cars. We could hear a lecture on building comunity through the arts, about AI or on capitalism. At lunch time, we might attend a book talk, or a presentation on climate change. Afternoons might include a religion lecture, an author presentation, or a tree identification walk. In the evening, maybe a blues concert or the opera, a ballet or the symphony, or even an indie rock concert.  If you just want to unwind, there's always a bench down by the lake, a place to sit and relax. 

A purple martin house by the lake

Chautauqua Institution, on Chautauqua Lake in western New York, was founded in 1874 as a training school for Sunday school teachers. Today the community hosts a nine-week summer season with a variety of themes and events, including lectures, concerts, dance and theater. There are religous guest houses of many denominations, and recreation opportunities around the grounds and on the lake. The grounds are filled with picturesque old houses, with gardens and flowers constantly in bloom. I feel like we walked through a botanical garden each day. Part of the reason the flowers are so amazing is that they have somehow been able to keep deer out of the area, so they can't eat all the plants. Most of the houses have porches that invite relaxation and conversation.  It is a gated community, with car traffic mostly limited to dropping off and picking up luggage. They do have shuttles that transport people, but most people walk or ride bikes around the 750 acre area. It's a place where kids can ride their bikes with their friends until dusk.

We loved all the bird houses
in this garden

One of our favorite houses to walk by, 
we wanted to go sit and relax
on their porch!

We loved this garden with so much color and the tall tree lilies

So many colorful houses

One of the many gardens,
this one was right next to the Presby house

We love how the bikes would be
 parked for the night

Our job title was guest services generalist. Most weekdays we worked 4 to 5 hours a day. The mornings were generally free to attend programs.  In the afternoon Mark usually cleaned the many porches and I washed and put away the kitchen towels and cleaning rags. The hours were flexible so that we could go to afternoon lectures if they sounded interesting. Our main weekday duty was to set up, serve and clean up dinner each evening. The only long work day was each Saturday starting at 8 am when our crew cleaned the all guest rooms to get them ready for the new week's guests arriving at 2:30. Sundays we served the noon meal and the evening buffet meal. All in all,  it was a great schedule. 

Some of our work crew, by the kitchen

A Saturday cleaning crew

At work in the dining room

We were generally finished each evening in time to go to the nightly amphitheater events! Some of the entertainment we saw this summer included Counting Crows, Straight No Chaser, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Laufey, the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra and the Ballet. We listened to piano recitals, chamber orchestras, opera, and relaxed jam sessions. Each week had a theme ranging from Comedy week with Lewis Black, to The Middle East: The Gulf States' Emerging Influence, to The Global Rise of Authoritarianism (the most depressing week), to Kwame Alexander and Friends: The Power of One (my favorite week, he has fun friends!).

The Chautauqua Orchestra Fourth of July concert in the amphitheater
They gave everyone paper bags to inflate and pop
 to sound like fireworks.

A sold out Laufey concert.

At the Ballet

Some of my favorite things there were the author and book talks, and the nature walks and talks that included learning about purple martins, trees, plants, insects, and monarch butterfly tagging.  We attended morning meditations with a different teacher each week from many of the major world religions.

Our co-workers included folks of all ages from 18 to 85! They all have interesting lives and stories! We were so fortunate to spend the summer there! Thanks Debbie and Jack for finding us this job!!!

End of the summer staff

Some of our work friends

We have a major life change and a new adventure starting! We bought a house in the Lansing, Michigan area to be close to Kari and Jess and our grandbaby, Elliot!!! It will be a big adjustment for us,  but one that we are excited about! We have sold our tiny home on wheels (our camper) to a lovely family.  We are starting our next chapter and looking forward to new adventures. We feel so fortunate to have met so many wonderful people, and to have lived in many amazing and beautiful places over the last 71/2 years! Thanks for joining us and reading our blog along the way!

We will have a guest room, so come visit us in Michigan!!!

That Can't Happen!

 

Relaxing on the hammock when we finally made it to Florida in February

We were on our way back from Montana, and Glacier National Park in September of 2024. We made it to Indiana, and a very bumpy part of I-70. In the side mirror I noticed that the camper seemed closer to the bedrails of the truck than I remembered! I watched it for awhile, until I was sure, before telling Mark. He said "that can't happen", but we pulled into a rest stop. He checked everything that he could see. Everything that was visible looked ok. He raised the hitch to the highest notch to give more clearance, and we continued down the road. We made it back to Newcomerstown with no further issues. 

 The next day he started investigating the area around the hitch. After he loosened part of the front panel, he found that the metal around the hitch box was cracking in 3 places, and the welds were breaking. How does metal crack we asked? That can't happen!  That's the part of the camper that should be the strongest. It connects the camper to the truck while we're driving down the road. Once we saw the problem, we felt very fortunate that we didn't have a catastrophe while we were driving, and we knew that we couldn't move the camper again as it was. 

Mark made many calls and asked a lot of questions to the camper manufacturer, the frame manufacturer, and the insurance agent (who said it was wear and tear,  so not a covered expense). He contacted camper repair people, some helpful,  and some not so helpful.  Then we waited. Keystone, the  camper manufacturer, said that they would pay for a temporary weld, so that we could get the camper to a licensed repair company. After that work was done by a great welder in the Newcomerstown area, we safely pulled the camper to Indiana and waited. It was such a major repair that the frame manufacturer (Lippert) had to do it. The good news: even though the camper was out of warranty, they covered it. Our camper frame was now better than new. 

Unfortunately, our new camper roof that was put on in the spring was showing some wrinkles, most likely from some frame flexing from when the frame was cracked. 

After we park we could see wrinkles

The good news is that we did make it to Florida for February and March! But when we were ready to head south and pulled in our big slide,  it made a whirring noise. The slide was all the way in and we could travel, so we just didn't open that slide on the trip down. We decided that it would be better to work on it in warm weather. Luckily Mark is very handy and was able to fix it himself when we got to our Florida campground. Then after that Mark found that we had water dripping from our underbelly! That can't happen!  The water should be in the holding tanks! He cut a flap in the underbelly cover to see where the water was coming from and found that the gray water tank (the tank for the shower and sink water) had slid out of place! That can't happen! (He still has no idea how it did happen!) But again, being creative and handy, he was able to fix it!

Mark underneath the camper

We enjoyed Florida, keeping busy,  visiting friends,  swimming,  and working as little as possible. We worked 6 days out of our 2 months, for the restaurant where we worked the year before. We made it back to Ohio with no more issues.

The park in Inverness, Florida

Line dancing  class

Visiting with Sue on Amelia Island

Another great Florida "second summer"!