Longtime MCC readers may recall one of the recurring motifs in our past vacations was the final resting places of Presidents of the United States of America. In fact, one trip was dedicated specifically to the task of spotting nine such gentleman in a row. They’re not all winners, but they went down in American history as official Presidents, for better or worse, so they count. Prior to 2022 we’d visited the gravesites of 23 U.S. Presidents in all. When last we left off, in 2021 we visited Herbert Hoover’s final resting place in Iowa and compiled a list of all the Presidential gravesites we’d seen up to that point. As it happens, Vermont has one that we had to visit before we headed home.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Since 1999 Anne and I have taken one road trip each year to a different part of the United States and seen attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. We’re geeks more accustomed to vicarious life through the windows of pop culture than through in-person adventures. After years of contenting ourselves with everyday life in Indianapolis and any surrounding areas that also had comics and toy shops, we chucked some of our self-imposed limitations and resolved as a team to leave the comforts of home for annual chances to see creative, exciting, breathtaking, outlandish, and/or bewildering new sights in states beyond our own, from the horizons of nature to the limits of imagination, from history’s greatest hits to humanity’s deepest regrets and the sometimes quotidian, sometimes quirky stopovers in between. We’re the Goldens. This is who we are and what we do.

For 2022 we wanted the opposite of Yellowstone. Last year’s vacation was an unforgettable experience, but those nine days and 3500 miles were daunting and grueling. Vermont was closer, smaller, greener, cozier, and slightly cooler. Thus we set aside eight days to venture through the four states that separate us from the Green Mountain State, dawdle there for a bit, and backtrack home…

DAY SIX: WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29th.

The day had come to leave Vermont at last, but we had a few Vermont attractions left on our to-do list. We settled for breakfast at the hotel one more time due to previous issues with local options…

TOTAL ROAD TRIP MILEAGE AS OF GAS STOP #5: 1,214.

…then left Waterbury and headed south on I-89 toward the tiny village of Plymouth Notch to add a 24th name to our list. That was the birthplace of Calvin Coolidge, our 30th President and the only one (so far) actually born on the Fourth of July (as opposed to the two who died on that holiday). The taciturn man nicknamed “Silent Cal” was a commercial law attorney and the governor of Massachusetts, infamously known for breaking up a Boston police strike in 1919 in a memorable manner (“There is no right to strike against the public safety, anywhere, anytime,” said he) that would influence future Coolidge superfan Ronald Reagan when he fired all the striking air traffic controllers in 1981.

Coolidge assumed the Presidency in 1923 when Warren Harding died of a heart attack (and was subsequently buried in Ohio). Despite the emotional toll of the death of his younger son Calvin Jr. during the 1924 campaign season, he won that year’s election in his own right, fending off challenges from the Democrats and the short-lived, newly formed Progressive Party. He declined to run again in 1928 and made way for Herbert Hoover, just in time for the coming of the Great Depression in October 1929, which may or may not have been caused in part by Coolidge’s penny-pinching policies. He died in 1933 of a heart attack while shaving and was buried in his family plot in Plymouth Notch. Hence our day’s big primary objective: the President Calvin Coolidge State Historic Site.

The experience began at the Museum & Education Center, where we pulled into the parking lot at the same time as their new cashier, ten minutes before opening. We waited outside on the porch while a a cloud of gnats ate us alive, then were permitted inside once everyone was in position and he’d been given a crash course on how to work the register. Most of the exhibit pieces in this initial building were Coolidge’s possessions, many of them gifts received during his time in office.

The Museum was the first of several buildings in the Plymouth Notch Historic District. Several buildings from Coolidge’s childhood community have been restored intact in one convenient spot for guided tours. Anne and I were the youngest in a group of 10, including a docent who was old enough to remember personally when parts of Vermont didn’t get electricity until the 1960s — possibly due to infrastructure limitations but also definitely because elderly skeptics of the era viewed indoor wiring as a fire hazard, or possibly as sorcery. Our guide walked us around most of the structures and invited us inside where allowed. An active road runs through the village; oncoming traffic sometimes required us to move aside like Wayne and Garth pausing and resuming their street-hockey games.

After the tour, we returned to our rental car and drove a mile down the road to Plymouth Cemetery, where Coolidge and numerous relatives were buried. The place is on a hillside, but Coolidge and his immediate family had front-row accommodations.

With that 24th Presidential grave-sighting added to our tally, we headed north toward the highway that would take us west to Vermont’s border. Before we reached our turnoff, on the left was a mother/son entrepreneurial duo running a lemonade stand in their front yard. The 75-cent price tag might’ve frightened Coolidge away, but to Anne it was a fair bargain, especially at today’s grocery prices. I’m finicky about sugary drinks, so I pulled over and let her enjoy herself.

To be continued!

* * * * *

[Link enclosed here to handy checklist for other chapters and for our complete road trip history to date. Follow us on Facebook or via email sign-up for new-entry alerts, or over on Twitter if you want to track my faint signs of life between entries. Thanks for reading!]