Hi, everybody!

I finally got all my Vermont pictures posted! Here's a link:
http://img52.photobucket.com/albums/v159/PaulaDec63/Vermont%20Vacation%20Sept%20\
2004/

This is my very first attempt with a digital camera and it's obvious that I
still have a lot to learn! LOL!

Please note that there IS a second page to the album, so be sure to click on
the link for page 2 so you can see them all! Also, if you want to read the
entire caption for each picture, you'll have to click on the picture
individually. This will also give you a close-up view of each shot. Enjoy!

After my initial large group email, sent from Stowe on Friday night, Sept.
24, after we got there, I sent a few more reports from Stowe, but I realize I
didn't send them to everybody who got the first email. I'll copy and paste
those below, and my sincere apologies if you've already read them! Next time
I'll
do better at remembering who I've sent mail to! LOL!

(This was originally sent Friday night, Sept. 24. Most of you who are
reading this now should have gotten it, unless I didn't have a correct email
address
for you.):

**Hi, everybody!

This is a large group email going out to all of you to tell you that tonight
I am finally fulfilling a long-time dream! My mother and I are at the Trapp
Family Lodge in Stowe, Vermont for the first night of a three-night stay, and I
am having the time of my life!!!! (For those of you who don't know, I have
been a HUGE "Sound of Music" fan for a long, long time, and am an even bigger
fan of the real Trapp family and have wanted to come to their lodge since I was
a little girl!)

We flew out of Nashville this morning, came through Philadelphia, and arrived
at the Burlington, VT, airport late this afternoon. Once we got here and got
settled in our room, we went downstairs and watched a documentary film called
"The Real Maria," about Maria von Trapp's return to her homeland of Austria
about four years before her 1987 death. I've read all of her books, and her
amazing personality comes through her writings loud and clear, but it was great
to get to see her on film, hear her talk, and see more of what she was really
like. I most likely will see that movie at least once more before we leave on
Monday afternoon!

There are pictures of the Trapp Family, scenes from "The Sound of Music"
(both the movie and the Broadway play) all over the lodge, so I've had a great
time exploring tonight and just in general acting like an obsessed fan! LOL! I
told Mom I was in my second childhood but somehow I don't think she thinks I
ever got out of the first one! LOL!

We have no firm plans other than going to Elisabeth von Trapp's concert in
Ripton, VT, tomorrow night. For those of you who don't know, Elisabeth is the
daughter of Werner von Trapp, one of the "original seven" von Trapp children
(think Kurt in the movie), and she is a wonderful singer-songwriter. I've
corresponded with her via email off and on since 1998 when she found a question
I'd
posted on a "Sound of Music" message board and emailed me to answer it. At
the time, I just went into shock, telling everybody who would listen and a lot
who wouldn't that "Maria von Trapp's granddaughter emailed me!!!!" but since
I've become familiar with Elisabeth's music, I'm honestly just anxious to
finally get to see her in concert and enjoy her performance first-hand.

When we got here today, somebody who works here at the lodge told me that two
more of the "original seven," daughters Agathe and Maria, are here this
weekend, so maybe I'll be lucky enough to see them! I actually saw and briefly
met
Agathe last year when she was on her book tour (at age 90!) in Nashville, but
I'd love to see her again. This same staff member also told me that daughter
Maria (nicknamed Mitzi, probably so as not to confuse her with "the" Maria
von Trapp, her late stepmother) will be turning 90 on Tuesday and is having a
big party. Too bad we'll be going back to Nashville on Monday!

The scenery here is beautiful. I got a new digital camera a few weeks ago
and have been trying it out. I went out on the balcony and took two shots of
the mountains, which I will shortly transfer to my computer and can hopefully
show all of you. I'm still learning how this thing works, so please don't
expect too much in the way of pictures! I'll try, though!

To all my fellow Christopher Plummer fan friends, there are some movie shots
in frames on the wall across the hall from our room and there he is, gorgeous
as always! And for those of you who remember my Mandrell-crazed years, just
as a point of comparison, this trip ranks right up there with my first trip to
Nashville, my first Mandrell concert, and my first visit to Barbara Mandrell
Country! And going back even further, I was a huge Laura Ingalls Wilder books
fan (think TV show "Little House on the Prairie") at ages 10 and 11, and in
1993, I finally got to visit her home and museum in Missouri when we were on our
way back from Branson. This trip to the Trapp Family Lodge tops all that!!!!

I've been letting work stress me out a lot lately, so I was in bad need of a
vacation, and this one is the best! I plan to take in "everything von Trapp"
for the next few days and relax as much as possible, and hopefully not drive
Mom crazy! LOL!

Hope you're all doing well, and I will be posting on some of the "Sound of
Music" message boards tonight, too! Have a great weekend, everybody!

Paula (and Mary Emily, too!)**

(This was sent Saturday morning, Sept. 25.):

**I have to take a few minutes to report that I saw THREE von Trapp family
members this morning at breakfast! The bellman told me yesterday when we
checked in that daughter Maria was about to celebrate her 90th birthday and was
around here this weekend, as is her older sister Agathe. When we got to the
doorway of the restaurant for breakfast this morning, there was Maria! I took a
few more steps and who should be standing next to her but her brother Johannes!
He looks JUST LIKE his mother Maria, and he's very, very tall! (His sister
Maria is very tiny.) I spoke to both of them, had to tell them I recognized
them and was so pleased to get to see them. I then told Johannes how much he
looks like his mother and he thanked me!

Maria was seated at a table in the restaurant with some other people, and a
few minutes later, her sister Agathe joined her. So I saw all three of them
this morning, and tonight it will be Elisabeth in concert!

My mother said I sounded silly and starstruck when I was talking to Johannes
and Maria, but who cares!!! LOL!

We just got back in from nearly buying out the gift shop, and I also made a
stop by the family cemetery where Maria, the Captain, and three of their
children are buried (and I was very reverent, for a change, not hyper! LOL!).
More
later.

Paula (who's bouncing off the walls!)**

After I sent the above email, we saw Agathe von Trapp in the hall at the
lodge and got to talk with her for a few minutes. She is 91 and is amazing! I
still can't get over her being on a book tour last year at age 90!

(This is the last one, sent Sunday, Sept. 26.):

**Hi, everybody! I'm still bouncing off the walls for the most part, and
here's the latest:

Elisabeth's concert last night was fantastic, and it was great to finally get
to meet her in person! Evidently she'd told her husband Ed Hall about me.
Outside the theater just before the show, we talked to him, and as soon as he
heard my heavy Southern twang, he asked me what my name was, so I knew
immediately that he'd been looking for me! I told him, and then he introduced
himself
and asked me how I found out about Elisabeth's music. He was busy with sound
checks and other preparations for the show, so we didn't really get to finish
the
conversation until later. We sat on the FRONT ROW (it was general admission
seating - no assigned seats) for the concert, and it was great!!!! Elisabeth is
SO VERY talented! If you're not familiar with her music, check out her web
site at www.elisabethvontrapp.com and order her CD's if you don't have them! Oh,
I'd brought her CD's with me (I have all four) to get her to autograph them,
and some of the plastic boxes had gotten cracked in my suitcase on the plane,
and when she saw that, she exchanged them for me! That was SO NICE and totally
unexpected!!!! In talking to Elisabeth after the show, she told me that the
people who were in charge of this event (her concert was part of a Robert Frost
weekend at Middlebury College) were really excited that I was coming all the
way up here from Tennessee for it! When I emailed her last night after we got
back to the lodge, I told her I'm just a goofy Sound of Music fan who has
turned into a big von Trapp family fan and Elisabeth von Trapp fan, definitely
nothing to get excited about! LOL! Still, I guess these people were impressed
that we were coming such a distance.

Yesterday was absolutely incredible, with seeing THREE von Trapps at
breakfast and then Elisabeth last night. It was hard to unwind when we got back
to our
room, and when I emailed Elisabeth, I had a hard time putting what I was
feeling into words. It was a bit difficult to wrap my brain around all that had
happened! LOL!

Today was a bit more emotional, as opposed to yesterday's excitement. I spent
a little bit of time at the gate of the family cemetery, where Maria, Georg,
Hedwig, Rupert and his wife, and Martina and her baby are buried. I've read
Maria's books and won't go into it now, but she's been a real inspiration to me,
and all that went through my mind while I was standing there. I really,
really wish I'd gotten into all this years ago so it might have been possible to
have met her before her death in 1987. It was a very emotional moment, standing
there within sight of her grave (the public's not allowed inside the cemetery)
and thinking about all that.

After coming back inside and transferring the pictures I'd taken outside
(some at the cemetery and different shots of the lodge) from my camera to my
laptop (to free up memory space in my camera), I then went exploring inside the
lodge again, much like I did Friday night when we got here. And.... I got to see
the inside of the von Trapp suite!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That was Maria's room when
she was still alive, and I'd been really, really wanting to see it! (Actually I
wanted us to stay in it but it's outrageously expensive!) I'd figured out
where it was, or at least where I was pretty sure it was, and it just so
happened
that when I was wandering around exploring today, the door was left open
because housekeeping was in the process of cleaning it! I cautiously went
inside,
looked around, and took some pictures! When I left, I saw a housekeeper pushing
a cart down the hall and got her to confirm that that was indeed the von
Trapp suite, and I made sure it was okay that I went in and looked around and
took
a few pictures, and it was! That was another emotional moment, being in the
room that had once been Maria's.

Tonight, daughter Maria (nicknamed Mitzi) was in the lounge celebrating her
birthday along with an Austrian music group, so we got in on a little bit of
that. Lots of great and fun entertainment!

I'm going to probably CRY in the morning when we have to leave! I do NOT want
to leave this place yet!!! I plan to watch the documentary film again in the
morning, hopefully go in the gift shop once more, and maybe snap a few more
pictures before we go. Our flight leaves Burlington at 3:15 in the afternoon,
but we have to get from here to Burlington (probably less than an hour's drive),
gas up the rental car and return it, and get checked in at the airport, so we
need to be there early. But I'll be taking some wonderful, incredible
memories with me, and I wouldn't take a million for this visit!**

Now it's nearly a week after the fact, and I'm slowly coming back down off
Cloud 9. LOL! Elisabeth von Trapp emailed me yesterday and told me that there
was a picture of Mom and me at Elisabeth's concert in the Burlington newspaper
one day last week! Elisabeth's sending me a copy of the paper, which I will
scan and add to the photo album and will let everybody know when it's up.
Also, somebody else took a picture of Elisabeth and me together and is supposed
to email it to me, so I'll also add that when I get it.

Paula

Give your troubles to the Lord before you go to sleep; He will be up all
night anyway!


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