We took five leisurely days to drive cross country to get to the relaxed state of Vermont. We entered the state from New York on a ferry across Lake Champlain. That was very relaxing. We spent the night in a suburban commercial strip that could have been in Kansas if you didn't notice the mountains.
We wanted to check out the city of Burlington before heading down to Manchester for a wedding the next day. Burlington has a population of 44,000 so it's a little smaller than our "big city" of Grand Forks. We drove close to downtown and after figuring out the online parking meter we hiked to Church Street, the heart of the city.
Church Street has been turned into a brick lined pedestrian mall with interesting boulders sunk in here and there. Vermont is the quintessential New England state and people from big cities wanting a taste of that have moved to Burlington and have transformed the city with their ideas of what is trending hip and cool.
Church Street was just waking up when we arrived at 10:00 am. Waitresses were dragging tables and chairs onto the bricks in front of their restaurants. Trucks were allowed onto the mall to unload libations and provisions. Teresa checked the clothing stores. Nice stuff, but she could wait till she found a thrift store. The galleries had nice stuff too, but again, I can wait for found art.
A group of thinly clad cyclists parked outside a bakery and, after stretching their limbs, headed inside. They were speaking French. Bikers come here from France? Then I remembered that Montreal is only 100 miles to the north. A wicked cold wind was blowing up the side streets from Lake Champlain so we got in the car and headed into the sunny valleys.
The state speed limit is 50 mph. What's your hurry? We were taking our time enjoying the scenery until we passed a sign saying "Welcome to New York State". What?! No wories. Our road had merely wandered into New York for a few miles before returning to Vermont. It was on the NY-VT border that we saw the first Harris-Walz sign since the election. Vermont is as liberal as Roseau County is not.
We arrived at the Brittany Motel in Manchester in mid-afternoon. The mother of the groom, my sister Mary-Jo, had found this place for us and around thirty of her college classmates she's kept in touch with. Mary-Jo's husband Sunny had also been a classmate. The motel was great. I especially liked the snack lounge. The owners had transformed one room into a hang-out room stocked with coffee, treats etc., and delivered a continental breakfast every morning.
There was a get-together that night at the Eagles club. It was a jolly affair, but cacophonous under the hard ceiling and I was happy to retreat to the quiet of the Brittany. The wedding day dawned warm and sunny. Everyone had been telling us that the past thirteen weekends in New England had been rainy so we felt blessed by the sunshine. Wedding days are always hectic for the parties involved, but not for guests like us. We were free to poke around the countryside. We took the kids to a pond where they went swimming and collected newts and tadpoles. Later we found a fine restaurant with tables out back beside a mountain stream. The kids, who had spent the morning in the pond, jumped into the stream.
The wedding party was staying in a big old farmhouse adjacent to the barn which had been transformed into a wedding venue. We all gathered in the barn in the late afternoon in our best clothes for a pre-ceremony drink. After a bit, everyone walked up a gentle hill where the couple exchanged vows. Those with any heart at all shed a tear. Then it was back to the barn where we lined up for dinner served out of a taco truck. Olé!
The bride and groom had asked for musical requests for the wedding dance. The first dance was I'm a Little Teapot, danced balletically by the groom and a guy named Jay. Jay was one of my sister's classmates. Jay had been a wild man back in the day before switching to NA beer. Later in the evening I asked Jay about his musical choice. He told a long story involving a ski trip to Quebec back in his pre-NA days. Jay had driven a busload of his old college buddies and their sons to the mountains north of Montreal. During one memorable night in an Irish pub with a live band, Jay was found dancing on stage to I'm a Little Teapot. The wedding dj said I'm a Little Teapot had never been requested before. "But I love it!" he said.
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Bikers, babes, bricks, boulders books, bakery...Burlington |
Tip me over, pour me out. Ya gotta luv it.
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