Spring Fling 2026 - Day 46: The Von Trapp History Tour

Our last day of this spring Fling before we start heading back towards Colorado. 

We drove to Stowe, VT to take part in the history tour of the real Von Trapp family of Sound of Music movie fame.

Hollywood of course changed the timeline, names, history and general details of the story involving this family. We listened to a briefing on the true history and how it differed from the version offered by Hollywood. 

Then there was a movie featuring the real Maria and showing her return to Salzburg and some backstory tidbits of her life that were featured in the movie, not quite exactly, but you get the idea. 

The tour was finished with a short talk by the current president of the Von Trapp Lodge which has about a 1000 person capacity in terms of lodging.  Quite the enterprise, you might say.  The president is the daughter of Johannes Peterson who is the son of Maria Augusta Kutschera, who was the Maria that married Baron Von Trapp.

Julie Andrews who played the character of Maria, the governess from a convent who ends up marrying the character portrayed by Christopher Plummer in the movie.

An interesting tour and I learned a few interesting tidbits, having been a fan of the movie for many many years. 

Here's the real family tree with the correct names: 

Movie Poster

The real Von Trapp Singers

The small family plot on the lodge grounds are the final resting place of both the Baron and Maria and alongside are some of their children.

We drove back towards New Hampshire, picked up the RV and headed to Brattleboro, VT for a one night stay at the Saxtons Distillery Harvest Host location.

Our host: Ginny 

We turn West tomorrow, having thoroughly scratched ( in Martha's words ) the itch to take the RV into the country's northeast.

Spring Fling 2026 - Day 45: The Star Trek Original Series Sets Tour

 Friday, June 12

The friends we were visiting in Vermont, Tracey and Jason, were at work so we decided to drive over to Ticonderoga, NY to check out a kitschy tour of the movie sets reproduced from blueprints used in the Star Trek original series TV show. 

I say kitschy because that's what it sounded like to me before I got there. It turned out to be a pretty cool and fun experience.  Due to the fact that Lake Champlain is in the way it took about 2.5 hours to get there with the Honda CRV. 

We got there shortly before 10:00 a.m. which is just before it opened.  Soon after we were signed up for a guided tour of the movie sets. 

Just inside the main entrance, it's a whole bunch of Star Trek memorabilia and this scale model of the USS Enterprise featured in the original series. 

The start of the Tour began logically at the transporter room. 

Then it was time to go to Sick Bay:

A brief stop at the ship's conference room, check out the desktop computer: 

We then toured Doctor McCoy's office:

Followed by a tour of Captain Kirk's office and sleeping quarters.  Note: the sets only included one bedroom and office set. Show crews would put/remove personal items depending on which characters room it was.  So, while this is Kirk's stuff, this was the same set use for Spock's office scenes.

The engine room, the lighting was a bit funky but the detail was excellent.

The engine chamber was constructed to create an illusion of depth, in actuality it is only about 12 ft deep.

Last but not least, was the tour of the Enterprise's bridge: 

Everybody in the tour group got a chance to sit in the Kirk chair! 

The view from the chair: 

After the bridge set the tour was over and we thanked our quite knowledgeable and super trekky tour guide, Ashley. 

Back out in the front room / memorabilia room some things caught my eye:

Why a picture of Lucille Ball?  She and Desi Arnaz created the Desilu Motion Picture Studio.  Lucy bought out Desi's share of the studio and became the first female head of a film studio. 

In the trekkie world, Lucy is known as the godmother of Star Trek because she was the one that provided the $700,000 check to finance the pilot episode to Gene Roddenberry. 

She also apparently would regularly fund the production of episodes out of her own pocket and then the studio would repay her later on.  Money was tight since the studio was filming Mission Impossible episodes at the same time.

Each episode cost about $200,000 to produce.  In current dollars, it would be the equivalent of 2 million an episode. 

So, a fun way to spend an hour and a half or so up your time if you're in the vicinity of Ticonderoga, NY.

We decided to take a slightly different route back across Lake Champlain. We used a car ferry on the southern end of the lake to get across. It was $14 total or $7 a person.  Here's a shot of the ferry coming in. Not much sailing involved, I could see steel cables on both sides of the ferry platform.  I believe that it was pulled back and forth across the shores. 

About 3 hours later, we were back in our friend's house in Vermont.  A lovely dinner of Cuban sandwiches was created by Tracey:

After dinner, we memorialized this nice visit with pictures: 

I had sent The picture of Martha and I, with me in the Captain Kirk chair to a friend of mine in Pennsylvania whom we had recently stayed with:

He used a little AI magic to produce this: 

I responded with this: 

I know, wrong Enterprise and franchise, but the Picard look suits me, right?