SUMMER VACATION : Favorite Escapes

I question not if thrushes sing,

If roses load the air;

Beyond my heart I need not reach

When all is summer there.

--John Vance Cheney

Poets call it life’s sweetest season, summertime, when precious moments carry over into another winter of one’s life.

Soon days will grow long, with the magic melody of waterfalls, the beauty of wildflowers, the song of birds and the haunting silence of a forest, the thunder of ocean waves.

This is our day for reviewing old memories and determining new vacation plans: There comes to mind Glen Haven, a little Colorado town (pop. 101) that we featured in these pages last fall, the Rocky Mountain village with the creek that flows behind Main Street and a 1900s inn with kerosene lamps and beamed ceilings and magnificent meals. Classical melodies carry up the stairwell to half a dozen simple rooms while thunderstorms explode in a narrow valley through which Devil’s Gulch Road twists for seven miles outside Estes Park.

Across the street, Becky Childs turns out gourmet sandwiches in her old-fashioned general store, and a few doors away Calico Kate exchanges pleasantries with customers seeking Mason jars and antiques that only yesterday graced the homes of canyon residents. It is a special place, this little Glen Haven.

Just as Telluride is, that other retreat high in the Colorado Rockies where thunder on a stormy afternoon rolls through a box canyon like a runaway freight train. From a window at the Manitou Hotel one catches sight of the San Miguel River and a waterfall that spills from a canyon wall.

The town preaches its slogan: “Getting to Telluride is easy, leaving is the hard part.”

Visitors attend movies at the Sheridan Opera House, join the high jinks at the annual Telluride Film Festival and take trips into the Rockies to explore abandoned mines and alpine meadows that flow with wildflowers. A National Historic Landmark, Telluride roars again during the Blue Grass Festival in June when inns, hotels and condominiums are booked to capacity, and those arriving on the Fourth of July join residents at an old-fashioned picnic in the park, with hot dogs and hamburgers and hand-cranked ice cream.

Others this summer will gather at Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. Originally a campground for the Crow, Blackfoot and Shoshone Indians, the park takes in Grizzly and Paw Bear lakes, Moose Basin and Paintbrush Canyon. Set in a valley 50 miles long and 15 miles wide, it is framed by 19 peaks, with a peacefulness that only such a setting could provide.

Nature purists settle in at Colter Bay Village, a piney encampment sprinkled with tent sites, rustic cabins and trailer spaces. A few dollars a day provides a cabin for two, complete with bunk beds, a wood-burning stove and a patio grill. The local purveyor also supplies cooking utensils, camp chairs, extra cots and sleeping bags.

Outdoor types pulling trailer homes get spaced out in a campground complete with water and electrical outlets. Designed for families on a budget, Colter Bay Village operates a coin laundry, gift shops, restaurants and a marina for launching one’s boat. Twenty miles outside Yellowstone, Colter Bay Village features lake swimming, boating, fishing and riding.

A similar lineup of outdoor activities is provided at Jackson Lake Lodge, the spiffy retreat that bears the Rockefeller family seal of approval. At Jackson Lake Lodge, matrons with silver in their hair and newlyweds with stars in their eyes moon over a picture-window vista of the snowcapped Tetons. Nothing disturbs the scene--no cars or roads or houses. Only green mountains, the blue of the lake and, framing it all, the Grand Tetons. Others take up residence at Jenny Lake Lodge, where crickets call out, mountain bluebirds sing and chipmunks give chase to golden squirrels.

Some vacationers this summer will strike out for Valley Forge and Philadelphia for the 200th anniversary celebration of the Constitution. Crowds will run headlong into a latter-day George Washington as he arrives from the Old Courthouse in Chester, Pa., for the reenactment of the Constitutional Convention.

Independence Park will be the centerfold for the summer celebration. To prepare for the crowds, Park Service employees have spruced up Independence Hall and Carpenter’s Hall, where the First Continental Congress convened on Sept. 5, 1774.

The word is out: Man the muskets, lads, the tourists are coming.

As the celebration gets under way, news of special events will be spread by a town crier all gussied up in Colonial threads.

Meanwhile, elms will spread their shade over hallowed grounds at Valley Forge, where during the Revolutionary War 11,000 weary soldiers made their way to this place of solemn beauty. The skies turned gray and winter went on its rampage. Snows fell, ice formed and death made itself known.

More than 3,000 soldiers lost their lives to the bitter winter of 1777-78. Fittingly, Valley Forge became a shrine to those who died and those who lived to continue the fight for freedom. More than 2,000 acres of rolling hills and woods mark this park-like land near Philadelphia.

New England will beckon this summer as well. At the home of the renowned Von Trapp family, the hills of Stowe, Vt., remain alive with the sound of music. Window boxes overflow with geraniums and meadows are a shocking green, bringing to mind a slice of Austria. Vacationers arrive at the Trapp Family Lodge by the busload to hike across trails cut by Johannes von Trapp and to ride and play golf and tennis.

Other Vermont villages will lure the traveler as well: Grafton, Chester, Newfane and Ludlow. And from Vermont, motorists will turn to New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut.

In the South the summer caravan will make stops in Natchez with its pre-Civil War mansions--Rosalie, The Elms, The Briars, Cherokee, Elms Court, Elgin, Fair Oaks, Gloucester, Dunleith, D’Evereaux, Auburn, Long Wood and dozens of others where candles glow and jasmine hangs heavy in the air--where the illusion is created that the bright star of the mid-1800s never lost its glow.

Oldest Town on River

As the oldest town along the Mississippi, Natchez is a port for river boats traveling to and from New Orleans. For those who have grown weary of cruising the Caribbean or sailing to the South Seas, the question being bandied about is--why not a slow boat to Natchez? En route, passengers sip mint juleps and study the muddy wake of the old paddle-wheelers. Overhead a cornflower sky is laced with white clouds, and along the river banks youngsters fish and play, much as Huck Finn did.

In Natchez, passengers file through homes occupied by the ghosts of departed souls. Like Spanish moss dripping from some gnarled old oak, history hangs heavy in a town with antebellum homes that provided shelter for the likes of Henry Clay, Jenny Lind, Samuel Clemens and Stephen Foster. Andrew Jackson wed his beloved Rachel in Natchez, and Jefferson Davis took his bride at The Briars. It’s a history trip for visitors who drop by King’s Tavern, where a Southern-style menu features mint juleps, warm cider, sausage and red beans, rice, gumbo and catfish fresh from the ol’ Miss.

For the traveler who desires to soak in Southern atmosphere, Cottage Plantation, an antebellum home between Natchez and New Orleans, welcomes overnight guests. It was here that Andrew Jackson slept on his return from Natchez after the Battle of New Orleans. Dating from 1795, Cottage Plantation provides a huge Southern breakfast featuring the best biscuits in the South.

From here it is a short drive to renowned Rosedown Plantation, that most imposing of all Louisiana plantations. This was the home of Martha Turnbull, who created gardens at Rosedown fashioned after those at Versailles.

From Rosedown, the drive to New Orleans skirts rolling hills and stands of oak. Although summers are muggy, life in New Orleans’ French Quarter never misses a beat. The bluesy moan of a trumpet echoes down Bourbon Street and visitors still run off to Cafe du Monde for chicory-laden coffee and beignets. They do carriage rides along Canal and Rampart and Royal streets, and take in the action along the Mississippi with its barges and tugs and paddle-wheelers, and later they dine at Brennan’s on Eggs Hussarde and Eggs Sardu.

The French Quarter

Dozens of small inns and hotels welcome guests in the French Quarter. Architectural Digest described Maison de Ville as “one of the finest small hotels in America.” It is a lovers’ choice, a small hotel with great warmth. And there’s Soniat House, which is hidden in a quiet section of the Quarter at 1133 Charter St., a pleasant inn with rooms crowded with antiques and with a carriage entrance lined with lighted candles.

Although Expo 86 is history, Western Canada is anticipating a rerun of last summer’s action when visitors spread out from Vancouver. This summer, crowds will shoot the rapids on the Fraser River and seek shelter at inns on Whistler Mountain. They’ll hike through Stanley Park, canoe at Lost Lagoon and stop to take tea at Ferguson Point, studying ferries that move through the Strait of Georgia.

Several miles outside Vancouver the Sunshine Coast comes alive with small fishing villages, deserted beaches and sheltered coves. Norwegian-like fiords reach out from coastal mountains, and Howe Sound embraces verdant islands. Using Vancouver as a starting point, there’s a drive that takes in the Fraser and Thompson rivers and the Okanagan Valley with a return to Vancouver via the Hope-Princeton highway, a 700-mile journey among mountains, valleys and lakes.

Closer to home, following the California coast, Big Sur will lure vacationers this summer in search of solitude. Deer peer from forests and the wind courses through the big trees to the rocky shores below. Rising on a bluff, that elegant shelter known as Ventana welcomes the wayfarer with its handmade quilts, hot tubs, marble commodes and private terraces that face both mountain and the fury of the ocean a thousand feet below.

Haunting Coastline

Big Sur has been described as 60 miles of psychodrama, with white surf pouring into endless coves and exploding against offshore rocks. Nowhere in the world is there a more haunting coastline, and so it waits, refreshingly unspoiled, with filmy rainbows reflected by ocean sprays that spread themselves along Big Sur’s beaches.

Turning north from San Francisco, en route to Mendocino, whistling buoys cry out to ships along the coast where the Pacific collides angrily with rocky shoulders and beaches strewn with driftwood. To seamen sailing the turbulent waters, it is a nightmare, to the visitor a rare adventure. Blackberry vines scale weathered fences and mists drip from fir and eucalyptus trees.

Where the road turns north, this wild and wonderful land brings to mind the lonely moors of faraway Scotland.

References:

--The Inn at Glen Haven, Box 19, Glen Haven, Colo. 80532; (303) 586-3897.

--Telluride Chamber Resort Assn., P.O. Box 653, Telluride, Colo. 81435; (303) 728-3041.

--Grand Teton National Park--For details, write to Jackson Hole Area Chamber of Commerce, Box E-LA, Jackson, Wyo. 83001 or telephone (307) 733-3316. Other information from the Grand Teton Lodge Co., P.O. Box 240, Moran, Wyo. 83013.

--Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau, Suite 2020, 1515 Market St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19132; (800) 225-5745.

--Trapp Family Lodge, Luce Hill Road, Stowe, Vt. 05672; (802) 253-8511.

--Natchez Chamber of Commerce, 205 N. Canal St., Natchez-Adams County, Natchez, Miss. 39120; (601) 445-4611.

--Cottage Plantation, Route 5, Box 425, St. Francisville, La. 70775; (504) 635-3674.

--Maison de Ville, 727 Toulouse St., New Orleans, La. 70130, (504) 561-5858; Soniat House, 1133 Charters St., New Orleans, La. 70116, (504) 522-0570.

--British Columbia Ministry of Tourism, 3400 Wilshire Blvd., No. 34 Arcade Level, Los Angeles 90010; (213) 380-9171.

--Ventana Inn, Highway 1, Big Sur, Calif. 93920; (408) 667-2331.