No Friday

[Continued from earlier in the day]

Friday afternoon, the day before the wedding, started off with a Valerio (my mom’s side) family bike ride: Uncle Hal & Aunt Marie, Aunt Louise and Uncle Dan, Uncle Carmen, cousins Lauren, Gina, and Colleen, and my brother Brian. And Meagan’s cousin Michael, who had arrived at the Inn shortly before the bike ride kicked off, and, wisely or unwisely, decided to join us for the adventure.

We drove down the hill to East Burke Sports, the local bike and ski shop, to rent a small army of bicycles. Apparently there was a another even larger group in town (Girl Scouts, I think) who had rented most of the bikes, so we pretty much cleaned them out - in fact Louise and Dan had to head down the road to another shop to pick up a few more. The whole assembly operation, including helmet and water bottle procurement, took the better part of an hour. I was surprised that Uncle Hal remained so patient - he sometimes breaks down if there isn’t an “activity” happening, but amazingly he waited by with zen-like tranquility.

The show finally hit the road, or rather a moderately difficult and uphill mountain bike trail. Michael led the way, with the Valerio girls quickly in tow, but the steep and rooted ascent proved to be a bit too much for a mellow family ride. So, we turned back and opted for a more leisurely road ride. This ended up being quite pleasant. The rural Vermont back roads were very beautiful, with a lot of scenic vistas of the Green mountains, including the Burke Mountain ski area. The riding was flat for a while, until we eventually hit a hill, which was the opposite side of Darling Hill Road. Michael, who led the pack early on, had dropped behind a bit, and we soon found out that the big sandwich he had eaten shortly before the ride was causing a few “problems”. Despite the distress, and the continued effects throughout the ride…he carried on.

We headed up another road towards the Inn, running into my friends Nick and JJ, who had just arrived and who were driving around the area. After a mile or two, we reached the Inn, and paused to say hello to some other family who had arrived, and had some beers. I did mention the ride was leisurely. We eventually returned to the road, and did another loop around Burke, passing the old town hall (and rain backup wedding location), a stream, a few bridges, and more rural Vermont.

The loop finished at the bike shop. After the ride, I stopped across the street at Baileys and Burke general store to get a sandwich. When I returned, I was set to get into an argument with the BMW who had honked at me, which I presumed was because my crossing the street delayed his turn by two seconds, but then I realized it was my friends Bill and Steph. Ha.

We returned to the Inn, where more family was continuing to arrive. Meagan had returned from the nail outing (the “dry” run apparently didn’t go so well), and we relaxed on the patio, and eventually got ready for the rehearsal that evening.

Continued…

This entry was posted Sunday, September 7th, 2008 at 11:17 am and is filed under wedding. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.