East Saint Johnsbury

The whole family took a trip down the hill to the post office today and so I finally got around to taking some few pictures of our little village, as it is a very pleasant day outside.

Here is the village of East St Johnsbury as seen from our road:



Caitlin and Elinor approaching the bridge across the Moose River:



The village from right across the bridge:



The Moose River, viewed from the bridge:



And our house, yet again, as it seems to have more snow on the roof than any other building around:

Slowly rolling

Well, I did my first vermonty drive. In somewhat snowy/slushy roads, I drove the 75 mile roundtrip from E ST J to Montpelier. Though it worked out fine, I probably wouldn't have made the drive if I had know what most of the roads would be like. As in, I did about 30 mph on the return trip. Nice!

The roads were only bad in the sense of I wanted to drive slower that everyone else. But it all worked out, with no honking and little passing (quite a break from driving 20 mph below the speed limit around Portland). But things are still great here. there is so much snow everywhere that I feel like I'm on Mount Hood. I'm still on "vacation", ad I love our little house and our little road. We also have a nice Christmas Tree (something that I've only come around to in the last 5 years) and I'm actually getting excited about the impending white Christmas. Those holidays seem much better with a wife and child, I tell you.

And I'm getting back into the old swing of things. Watching movies and interneting and all of that... And I did more reading today than I have on any day for a long time.

We have been moving Elinor back and forth between our house and mom's with her little red sled. It's actually quite fun, quick and easy to pull her up and down the road in the snow!

The first night

Well, with Caitlin asleep, Steve on his way back west and Elinor spending the night at the in-laws, I am in my first moments of being "home alone" in Vermont. Time for some slight reflection, some of Beethoven's 9th and a bottle of red wine... While the house is warm and all is covered with snow outside. For these last 6 full days here, it has been quite easy. Of course, I haven't even broached the thought of work, and I have done very little of the driving through this wintry stuff (seemingly, we will be snowed continually for the next 4 or more months, and I did slip and fall twice today) but it has been an easy transition. There are some folks back home who I would like to see, but having Steve here for the first 5 days made the transition easier. And I have met (and re-met) some of Caitlin's friends, which has been good. But the cold doesn't bother me, and it is nice to always have snow outside.

Honestly, I can't believe I live here! being outside of the city on a rural road is like some strange dream come true and there is something very soothing about it. I hope to take some pictures of the village tomorrow (maybe when I trot down to the post office to check the mail, which I haven't done since Monday), as there don't seem to be any online and it is a charming little area. Though I am thinking it would be great to settle in North Danville! Now that's a village! but that's a story for a distant future.

But speaking of places, I had to go into Burlington today (the airport, you know). It was my second time actually in the city and, while it does have some boons of convenience as far as shopping and restaurants go, my overall impression was the same as previously. It isn't Vermont. It is just a standard hip little college town with traffic and hipsters and all of that tiring stuff. Honestly, if this move to Vermont had been to Burlington, we would just as well stayed in Portland. It is nothing like the rest of Vermont and the people seem to be nothing like those in the rest of Vermont. To my eyes, Vermont is endless little villages of a few hundred folks, most of whom have always lived where they live, with little in them aside from a church and maybe a general store. Every twenty or so miles is maybe a town of a couple of thousand people, with some more stuff, a hardware store, maybe a cafe or a Duncan Donuts. And between them? Farms. No pretensions, professional baristas, Starbucks, tattoo parlors, traffic lights, irony, rock bands, nightspots, hipsters or any of that tiring stuff. Just real people, quietly living their lives how and where they always have...

People who bring up Burlington when you mention Vermont are thinking of a much different state than I am. Rolling into Burlington you could be in any small college city in the US. People trying so hard to be interesting is so boring. After living in hip and ironic Portland, the national magnet area for anyone who wants to do something cool... Vermont is such a nice relief. And then Burlington brings it all back again and I want to flee screaming back down route 2 to the Northeast Kingdom again. Sure, maybe my values aren't a perfect match for those of the folks here, but at least the values of the folks here are genuine.

When looking around, I will forget about Burlington, except as some place that I need to go to get folks to/from the airport. East Saint Johnsbury is the village I live in, and St Johnsbury is my town.

Now for some more pictures, that may look just like the last ones. In preparation for our 70 mile drive to Burlington it snowed all night (and all morning), leaving East Village Road a wonderful picture of a winter country road...

Here is the road, from our house in down to the bridge across the Moose River...



And here is a picture of Mom's horse pasture right across the road, something that I never get tired of looking at.

The days of our lives

Yes yes yes. So I have been a bit sparse on the old blog. Once the family left, things became busy busy busy for me in the big preparation to move. But it all got done and packed and went away. I got done with work, packed the car, moved out of the apartment and Steve, Lottie and I set off on our journey. There are very few pictures, as the 6 days that we were on the road were primarily: get up, drive for 8-10 hours, find a motel and watch the weather channel. We had to do maneuvering (some successful, some not) to avoid those nasty wet (and freezing) fronts that were stretching from the south to the north.

We are still trying to contend with the raft of possessions that came across in the trailer, but at least Steve and I moved the last of it out of the trailer today. Now just to find somewhere to put it. I must hesitantly admit to an achievement of being the first person I know who moved across country and actually brought their entire record collection with them. Sadly, a lot of it is still sitting on the front porch in the sub-freezing temperatures getting all humidified... But if it's been like that for almost two weeks anyway, another day won't hurt.

For a brief photo essay on the process...


Day 2... This is Wyoming. Hundreds of miles of this... And nothing else. It was really like driving through the old west, complete with tumbleweeds. But the gas was cheap.


Day 3... This is Steve at a rest stop in Nebraska. Same as above. Though it wasn't quite as desolate and so, strangely enough, it wasn't as charming either


Day 3 and 4... This is Iowa. It is in the running as the worst part of the trip. The first snowstorm, the first problems with being unable to see out the windshield (complete with an emergency trip to Autozone in Altoona to get new wipers), and then snow and ice and endless f'n semi's barraging past us and coating the windshield with waves of slush.

No pictures after this. Day five was nice: Illinois was dull but we took a nice sidetrip in Indiana and drove through a small town (Rushville) that we thought was quite nice.

Day 6? Man. Upstate New York was alright, though the turnpike is a big scam, but as soon as I turned the wheel over to Steve it was rain, rain and more rain. Then Massachusetts had way too much rain and then, trying to get it all done in Vermont that night, with snow and ice and darkness and at times no one on I-91 but us (well, and the occasional evil trucker out to kill us), it was a terrific relief to get home.


Home. This is the new pad, the first morning we were there. It had snowed the whole night before.


This is my in-law's house across the street (and our ugly trailer... but it brought everything across basically intact).


Here is our little 2003 Focus. This car performed fantastically on the trip: Rain, loose snow, packed snow, wind, sleet, driving as much as twelve hours a day... none of it caused her any issues. She covered 3350 miles in 6 days without a single issue, and managed almost 32 mpg. And no sliding either (which hopefully had something to do with the terribly expensive Nokian Hakkapeliitta tires that I had put on right before the trip).


Here are Steve and Elinor watching a movie (I think The Emperor's new Groove) in our new living room. The house was perfect and cozy when we arrived... I have the best wife ever.


And a final view, Finally Elinor has her own, full-on room. This is a view of it featuring both her wonderful crib, and the crib for her babies!

Though I am not thinking about looking for work, currently. I love being here! I spent a lot of time outside today (I doubt it got above ten), and it is snowy, sunny, the roads are kept clear. All you have to do is bundle up and it is quite delightful. After 5 years of talking about moving here, it is a great relief to have it done. I just need to figure out how to maintain those dear relationships back in Portland from afar...