We call it the Sistertrip, and the rules are simple and sacred: no husbands, no children, no excuses.
Every spring, the four graying Baby Boomers formerly known as the Shea Girls take off together for a sisters-only long weekend. We’ve lingered over sunset dinners in a glass-walled house on the coast of Vancouver Island. We’ve explored graceful old Charleston, funky Savannah and the Low Country in between.
We’ve gawked at the opulence of Spain’s glory days in Madrid and brooded over the El Grecos in Toledo. And we’ve watched spring unfold between New Orleans and Natchez from the decks of a Mississippi River paddlewheeler.
The Sistertrip is a kind of bequest from our father, a New York Irishman who grew up an only child and was determined to create not just a family but a clan. His answer to backseat squabbles, adolescent feuds and grown-up tensions was to roar, “Love each other!”
It worked. After our parents’ deaths, we realized we had lost the centrifugal force that had held us together all our lives. We didn’t want weddings and funerals to be the only times we were together.
That’s when we invented the Sistertrip. We decided that every year, between April 23 and May 4 — the birthdays of the two younger sisters — we would go away together for a long weekend. Just the four of us. One of us would plan the trip each year, and we would try to hold expenses around $1,000 apiece.
Reactions were interesting. Husbands were supportive, if a bit bemused, and our 12 mostly grown children pronounced it very cool, even after they found out that none of them would be going along — ever. Friends were a little jealous.
The first trip was mine to plan, and it wasn’t as simple as it looked. Resorts were out — we are fourth-generation Northern Wisconsin summer cottage people who like a place with some character where we can settle in. So were beaches, ocean cruises and group tours — we are museum-goers, history lovers, outdoor types and very independent travelers.
In the end, the travel goddesses took over. In a guide to offbeat lodgings, I found a house at French Beach on the south coast of Vancouver Island, 45 minutes from Victoria, British Columbia — “a secluded ocean-front cedar home with 180-degree southwest panoramic views of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the Olympic Mountains, fabulous sunrises and sunsets, sea life and whales.” Perfect.
Since this was the first Sistertrip and I was making up the ground rules, I thought it would be fun to make the destination a surprise. I figured they’d love it.
Wrong. The grumbling started over Montana, and when hostilities threatened to break out on final approach, I spilled the beans about Vancouver Island. Things threatened to heat up again when we were stuck in line at the ferry dock, so I told them about the house on the cliff, prayed it would live up to its billing and counted on the boat ride to work its magic.
It did. The ferry trip from Tsawwassen on the mainland to Swartz Bay on Vancouver Island is one of the best ways on the planet to spend 95 minutes. The vistas are as bold and stylized as a kindergartner’s crayon drawing; the chill waters of the Straits of Georgia roll like a sheet of stainless steel past rockbound islands where tall, triangle-topped trees lean into the wind on the clifftops and march in deep green ranks to the skyline. Pods of orcas — black and white “Free Willy” whales — often swim near the ships.
Standing together on the windy deck, we exchanged grins and high fives. The Sistertrip was going to work.
We all remember our first night at the French Beach house with special pleasure. It was twilight by the time we drove up the steep, twisting drive, past banks of rhododendrons and into a grove of tall old trees. A traditional Pacific Coast native totem guarded the entrance to the angular modern house. Inside, floor-to-ceiling windows framed spectacular views across the strait to the snow-peaked Olympic Mountains of Washington.
We opened a bottle of wine and fell into an easy, familiar division of kitchen labor, eventually producing a good pasta, a big salad and a basket of warm, crusty bread. Candles burned low as we talked of our children and our parents, our jobs and our lives.
Decisions on how to spend the next three days came as easily as the dinner and the conversation. One day we took an early morning walk along the deserted shore at French Beach Provincial Park and then drove down the coast to Port Renfrew, where the road ends.
From there we bushwhacked cross-country on logging roads to Duncan, through forests of towering Douglas fir, hemlock and cedar where streams powerful enough to toss boulders over their shoulders roar down steep gorges toward the sea.
We spent an afternoon wandering the famed Butchart Gardens, a fantasy of tulips, daffodils and other spring delights bursting from every cranny of an abandoned rock quarry on the grounds of a turn-of-the-century country house.
We dined at Sooke Harbour House, a white clapboard inn in a fishing village down the road from French Beach. The menu lived up to its billing as one of Canada’s finest restaurants, with seafood from local waters and interesting dishes named for the island farms and gardens that produced them. Our table overlooked the water and the sunset.
By Sunday afternoon, when we queued up for the ferry and our Monday morning flights home, Debbie, the lawyer, was trying out ideas for next year. We had missed the boat again, so we broke out the last bottle of wine and poured it into the only containers we could scrounge up: black plastic film cartridges.
“Ah,” said Dottie, the land-use planner. “Another Kodak moment.”
A year later, we were booked for Belize and the Mayan Trail, when eight days out the tour company demanded another $500 apiece. Our confidence in the arrangements dissolved, and we scrambled for Plan B: Charleston and Savannah.
In Charleston, our luck held. Our last-minute B&B booking turned out to be an 1818 townhouse in a cobblestoned courtyard a couple of blocks off the Battery, and the hosts introduced us to Ed Grimball.
Grimball is a native Charlestonian whose family landed in South Carolina in 1675, and his two-hour walking tours are a laid-back blend of history, architecture and the latest tidbits from his relentless pursuit of Charleston lore. “The truth is so interesting in this city, you don’t have to make up a thing,” he said.
As if to prove the point, Grimball interrupted his spiel to exchange a bit of banter with a white-haired man headed home with the New York Times under his arm. “You all might recognize that gentleman,” Grimball said. One of us did: Gen. William Westmoreland, commander of American troops in Vietnam.
Savannah is to Charleston as the Grateful Dead is to the Juilliard Quartet — equally classic, but way funkier. We arrived on the day Clint Eastwood started shooting the movie version of “The Book,” as “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” is known in Savannah, so we surrendered.
Every tour outfit in town drives past landmarks from John Berendt’s perpetual best-seller, and ours scored an actual sighting. The real-life Mandy was planting petunias and chatting with book-hugging pilgrims in front of the Hamilton-Turner Mansion, the last address where she and piano player Joe Odom partied away their days. The Lady Chablis was on stage at Club One that night, but I was unable to persuade a sister to go.
It seemed just right to return to the Charleston airport via Beaufort, S.C., so we could pay our respects to Tidalholm, the 1860 house where “The Big Chill” was filmed.
The next year, I became the first Sistertrip no-show, victim of a schedule conflict with a new job. Three sisters went to Spain and reported wonderful hotels in Madrid and Toledo, a great vegetarian paella, and a memorably close encounter between their rented car and a Spanish bus.
For our fourth Sistertrip, Mira, the college development officer, took us aboard the American Queen, sister ship of the legendary Delta Queen, for a five-day “Gardens of the River” cruise on the Mississippi from New Orleans to Natchez and back.
We awoke the first morning to find shreds of mist drifting over the silent river on one side of the boat, and across the levee on the other side, the shimmering pink facade and twin galleries of Oak Alley plantation, framed by an avenue of 28 arching live oak trees.
At neighboring Laura plantation, there are no hoop-skirted guides or sterling silver doorknobs. Laura was rescued in 1993 by a group of investors determined to preserve the story it tells of the Creole culture’s rich blend of French, Spanish, Indian and African influences. Their tours are a passionate mix of history, culture and storytelling, much of it based on the vivid memoirs of Laura Locoul, who was born in the yellow-ochre house in 1861.
Respect is also paid to the West African artisans who designed and built the house and brought with them the tale of “Compair Lapin” — “Br’er Rabbit” — which was first recorded in the slave cabins at Laura.
Our best afternoons on the river were spent in big wooden rocking chairs on a shady deck, books in hand, watching the shoreline roll by and listening to the on-board historian’s explanations of sights along the way. The Mississippi is a hardworking river. Barges as long as several football fields muscle stacks of freight containers against the fierce current. Herons and cypress trees stand in the shallows, cattle graze in wide green fields, and church steeples and gabled rooftops mark the small towns behind the levees. Another good trip.
After four years, the Sistertrip has found its own rhythm. The destination is decided by January, and so far, each of us has chosen to share a place she had loved. It’s like giving our sisters a present.
Except for last year’s riverboat trip, we’ve stayed close to our budget, mostly because we know the dates well in advance and can shop for good airfares. Renting a car allows us to set our own pace and leaves room for serendipity. We handle expenses in the most convenient way and settle up on the plane ride home.
Finding unusual places to stay is half the fun and worth paying a little extra. We decide what to do a day at a time and have had no trouble reaching a consensus. We’ve had mixed success at picking restaurants, but we’ve had at least one memorable meal on each trip, the latest at a Texas-style barbecue joint in Natchez.
As we hoped, the Sistertrip gives us a time to be who we are only when we are all together: sisters. We have found that we still laugh at the same things, read the same books and have amazingly different recollections of the same events. We are stronger and closer.
We are also acquiring a new repertoire of family stories. At brunch at Brennan’s in New Orleans, four women in identical outfits sat down at the next table. Four black jackets with quarter-sized polka dots in lime green, hot pink and neon yellow. Four pairs of black slacks and little black flats. Four straw hats and four black tote bags. We couldn’t decide whether they were garden tour hostesses or clerks at a catalog outlet.
What they turned out to be were fellow passengers on the American Queen, an eighty-something mother and three daughters from Up North who perhaps thought their outfits were just the thing for a holiday Down South.
This year, it’s my turn to plan the trip again. I am thinking about Ireland and our cousin Brian’s whitewashed cottages on the O’Shea farm in County Kerry. But I haven’t been to Tuscany in years, and I’ve never been to Mexico. I do know that we won’t be wearing matching outfits.
IF YOU GO
GETTING THERE
A little planning goes a long way on the Sistertrip. Even though our “long weekend” has stretched to five days, it takes some precision to find flights that allow the Virginians and Vermonters to meet en route and fly the last leg of the trip together, and to manage four accounts. Generally, we use travel guides and, increasingly, the Internet for the fun part: choosing a destination and finding interesting accommodations. The planning sister’s travel agent books flights, hotels and rental cars.
VANCOUVER ISLAND
One of our favorite places — French Beach Retreats — has closed. (“You don’t think it’s us, do you?” one sister joked.) But Vacations West Holiday Home Rentals of Victoria, British Columbia, lists similar Vancouver Island properties, including a 4-bedroom, 2-bath oceanfront house near French Beach that rents for about $1,295 (all prices U.S.) for three nights for four people, including all fees and taxes, plus a fully refundable $240 damage deposit. (888-383-1863; www.vacationswest.ca)
A four-course dinner at Sooke Harbour House, which also has 28 guest rooms, runs about $43 per person, plus tax and tip. (800 889-9688; www.sookeharbourhouse.com)
Butchart Gardens in Brentwood Bay opens at 9 a.m. daily; adults $11 April to October, less in winter. (250-652-4422)
BC Ferries service to Vancouver Island runs hourly from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Summer fares from Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay are $22 per car plus $6 per person. (250-386-3431; www.bcferries.com)
Washington State Ferries provides service on the scenic route from Anacortes, Wash., to Sidney. (250-381-1551)
The Victoria Clipper from Seattle to Victoria is fast but less scenic. (800-888-2535; www.victoriaclipper.com)
The Tourism Association of Vancouver Island’s comprehensive Web site is at www.victoriabc.com.
CHARLESTON/SAVANNAH
Ed Grimball’s two-hour historic walking tours are limited to 12 people and start at 9:30 a.m. and 4 p.m., with seasonal evening tours. Tickets are $13; reservations are required. Write to 306 Yates Ave., Charleston, SC 29412 or call 843-762-0056. Grimball also has a Web site at www.charleston.net./com/egrimball.
Inns and bed-and-breakfasts dot the historic districts of Charleston and Savannah. Historic Charleston Bed & Breakfast dispenses information and reservations from 9 to 5 weekdays. (800-743-3583)
A good visitor center is a boon on a short trip, and Charleston has one, open daily, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., at 375 Meeting St. (800-868-8118)
For Savannah, contact Savannah Historic Reservations (800-791-9393) or the Savannah Tourist Information Line (877-728-2662).
Wakefield House, a two-bedroom cottage on East Congress Street in Savannah’s historic district, rents for $180 double or $225 a night for four, including continental breakfast fixings. For reservations, call its sister property, the Azalea Inn, a funky Victorian B&B on the edge of the historic district. (800-582-3823)
Hospitality Tours of Savannah (912-233-0119) claims to be the originator of “The Book” bus tour, but every tour outfit in town followed suit. Tours last two hours or more, cost $14 or $15, and can be boarded at the Savannah Visitors Center, 301 Martin Luther King Blvd. Gray Line Tours (912-234-8687) features gossipy guides and comfortable mini-buses and winds up at “The Book” gift shop at 127 E. Gordon St.
MISSISSIPPI RIVER CRUISE
This year there are three Gardens of the River sailings, all seven-night round-trip cruises from New Orleans aboard the American Queen. The May 12-19 and May 24-31 cruises go to Vicksburg; the May 31-June 7 cruise goes to Memphis. Fares start at $2,530 per person double, with free airfare from selected cities or a $250 airfare credit. Cruises include four meals a day, nightly entertainment and gardening lectures. Shore tours cost extra. Reservations and information: 800-543-1949, www.deltaqueen.com.
Laura Plantation, built in 1805, is one hour west of New Orleans on Louisiana Highway 18, the Great River Road, at Vacherie, La. (225-265-7690). Tours are from 9 to 5 daily; admission is $7.
French Creole planters considered New Orleans their real home, and Le Monde Creole offers New Orleans courtyard tours based on Laura Locoul’s diary. Tours begin at 10:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m.; tickets are $17.50 and $15 for students. Reservations are required. (504-568-1801)
