Weekend Wedding in Vermont

Beth Farnham is now married to my old roommate Matt Ames! We took the Amtrak train from NYC to White River Junction, VT to attend Matt and Beth’s wedding. Matt was one of my roommates from El Nido while we were at UCSB. Matt claims to have never read an entire book, nor did he take any sort of math class while at UCSB. Yet, of the group of us who lived together for a couple years in Isla Vista, Matt currently has the pimpest job (works at Burton) and owns a home in a pretty nice place – Essex Junction (outside Burlington, VT). Plus, he is now married to a cool Vermonter, Beth.
When we first received the invitation to the wedding, Elizabeth began trying to figure out the transportation, and made the suggestion that we should take the train to White River Junction, and then ride our bikes about 20 miles to the wedding at Lake Morey Resort.
On the train ride to Vermont, we had to work with the train staff to keep our bikes on the train. Apparently, two years ago Amtrak removed the baggage car from the Vermonter trains. The problem for us is that the baggage cars have bike racks wherein a bike can simply be walked into the car and stored until one arrives at their destination.If no baggage car is available, Amtrak’s policy states that bikes need to be boxed otherwise they are not permitted on the train.
Yep, cyclists who have no room to carry boxes whilst riding around, are supposed to make a thin and mobile item cumbersome and difficult to handle prior to boarding the train. The conductors were sympathetic to our dilemma. They let us stay on the train and would allow us to return with our bikes, only if we took off the wheels and covered them with garbage bags. The main reason for covering the bikes was to prevent a “monkey-see, monkey-do” effect with other passengers. The Vermonter conductor, Mike, lamented how nice it used to be when the baggage car was on the train, but now he has to be a bad guy quite often because of Amtrak’s outdated bike policy.

Regardless, after 2 hours of train delays we hopped off the train in White River Junction at about 8:30 Friday night to begin our ride to Lake Morey. We turned on our bike lights and started out on a twilight ride. We had decent light for about another hour, at which point we had to slow down a bit to avoid rough sections of road. The highlight of the ride to Lake Morey was the firefly show. Once the sky began to darken, the sides of the road began to light up disco-style. To date, the fireflies haven’t been too active in Central Park. However, the fireflies along the Connecticut River were in full force and turned, what would otherwise have been an arduous final 10 miles in the dark, into a Star Wars-esque ride on our bikes.
Once at the Lake Morey Resort, Beth and Matt were glad to see us. And after a quick shower and power dinner of Fig Newmans, Clif bars, and mixed nuts, we headed downstairs to talk with the families to be wedded and the small group of Californians. After talking with Mutzy, Ali, Matt, and Morgan at various points late into the night, we retired to our room ready for sleep.
Saturday was filled with kayaking on and riding bikes around Lake Morey until Matt and Beth’s ceremony at 4pm. All the while, one of Matt’s best men was en route to the lake after finally navigating a cancelled flight debacle from the previous evening. The morning drizzle opened up into a glistening and warm ceremony overlooking the lake (with both best men in place). Aside from some asshole in a motor boat who made a couple passes, the ceremony was beautiful, short, and focused on Matt and Beth.

It’s funny, we have been to a handful of weddings over the past two years and have found that the bride and bride-groom love to dance. Regardless of whatever inhibitions they may generally have, the newly married couple always lets loose at their reception. Aside from the gnar-bomb drink that the bartender mixed for Mutzy and I (I believe it was a “Grateful Dead”) the night was a great opportunity to talk with all of the Californians, including Dave who had spent the previous day on call at the hospital and the past 14 hours trying to get from Portland, Oregon to Vermont.

The next morning, we were awakened by the same sound of rain that we had heard the previous morning. With some reluctance, we suited up, donned our bags and moved out onto the road. We ended up declining several offers for rides to White River Junction because we wanted to see the terrain we had ridden through two nights earlier.

Once on th
e road, the rain was steady for about another hour before finally yielding to light whale-spit during our arrival in White River Junction. A few blocks before we reached the train station, we had to stop at the supermarket and stock up on food for the train ride and garbage bags to conceal our bikes. Riding through town to the train station the local bank sign read 56F.So, cold and damp we arrived at the train station where we were able to change into dry clothes, bag our bikes, and warm up prior to boarding the train. Shortly after the train departed, with us and our bikes, we could see the sky open up into a bright sunshine.