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I believe that the summer of 1907, we returned to Selkirk but rented a cottage along the beach east of the hotel. I have only a faint, fuzzy recollection of this to substantiate the idea, and there are no pictures to establish it. Also, somewhere along about this time, Mother and I made a trip of a week or two to Chicago to visit Aunt Lucia and Uncle Ned Strong. Aunt Lucia was the sister of my mother's stepmother and was really a cousin of Mother's because Mother's father's third marriage had been to his first cousin. Uncle Ned was credit manager of a very large shoe manufacturing concern in Chicago and they lived very well. Their home was sort of New York Fifth Avenue type with the house right on the sidewalk and no yard, the adjacent houses being right up against theirs. But their house was beautiful inside and beautifully furnished and they had a Stevens-Duryea car and chauffeur. Their place was only a half block from the Lake Michigan. I remember vaguely living very high there for a week or so and enjoying the visit. They took me to the toy department of Marshall Fields among other things -- the zoo was another impressive spot. Seems to me we had lunch at Marshall Fields overlooking the big center court. I also remember dimly our trip out and back on the sleeper, little realizing that we passed through Erie, Pa., where I was destined to spend the greater part of my life.

I'm quite vague about the sequence and exact timing of trips through this general period but I do know that one summer we took a vacation in the Adirondacks at a place called Mountain View at Indian Lake which I believe was somewhere in the general vicinity of Malone. I remember little or nothing about the place but my impression is that it was a disappointment and we might have left early as a result. Then I recall vaguely a brief trip with my parents to New York City., probably when my father went to a medical convention there. We stayed at the Park Avenue Hotel. But New York evidently failed to impress me very much because the only recollection I have of the trip was that there was a big armory near the hotel -- and, oh, yes, I believe I was taken to Bronx Park and the wonderful zoo there. But as far as absorbing very much for the future, the trip was pretty much of a loss. I can't even remember anything about the trains of Grand Central Station which I think was in operation by that time. But there is one thing that I do remember vaguely about train trips (in other words, [[underline]]all[[/underline]] trips at that time) and that was that my father would order a carriage from a livery stable to come to the house and take us to the depot. I can still smell that horsey smell and the odor of worn leather, and hear the creak of the springs as the carriage negotiated the none-too-smooth streets of the time. These rides were exciting because they always preceeded a trip somewhere and I was always excited about going away even if I can't remember too much about it now. But it must have been in 1909 that I begin to come out of the fog and remember a great deal more about things.