I recommend a cross bike, such as the Surly Cross Check or Specialized Tricross.

Price range on the CC or Tricross should be in the $1500 range. LBS can easily change the CC to a triple; just add another chainring and a slightly different BB.

• Full touring bikes (LHT, Trek 520) are very good but are overkill (and will feel slow) for your purposes.
• Cross bikes can take large tires, skinny tires, racks, fenders etc but are a little zippier than a touring bike.
• You can easily beef up a cross bike to do almost anything a full touring bike can do anyway.
• Endurance bikes (Roubaix, Cervelo RS) are a little too racy, can't take very wide tires, no rack options, kinda spendy. I'd really only choose this option if you will tour very infrequently, but do lots of club rides or centuries.