A Very Vermonty Weekend

Last weekend I had one of those weekends that was so ridiculously Vermonty that I should have just started running tours of traditional Burlington establishments. It started on Friday night when my friend Cinse and I went to the late showing of Inception at the Roxy, which is a great little cinema that specializes in foreign and independent films (and the occasional Hollywood blockbuster, although even those are fairly selective). Now, catching the late show meant that I had to "suffer" through one of the definite problems of living in Burlington - the lack of a first-rate public transportation system. All the buses had long since stopped running for the evening so I had to make the half-hour plus walk from downtown over to Winooski where I live. On Saturday morning I rode my bike back to downtown and met Cinse at Penny Cluse, a restaurant that I had sworn off for the better part of a decade until my friend Trish cajoled me into trying it again last summer. It was one of the first place that I ate in Burlington, and, fresh from the sunny south, I wasn't ready for Vermont food yet. I ordered biscuits and gravy, and the gravy was herb gravy, which led me to tell the waiter "I think you're trying too hard - you can make this with pork products and it is delicious." So, I went on a nine year food strike before trying it again, and, I have to admit, it was very good - so I was happy to meet Cinse for breakfast there last week. After that we walked over to the farmers market that always runs on Saturday morning, and I'll include several pictures, most of which relate to Cinse searching for pennies to buy ever more products. Then I jumped back on my bike and went for a twenty mile ride up on the bike path to Colchester (I was getting prepped for the really big ride this weekend up to the Champlain Islands - more on that later). I'm including a picture of the area on the Colchester bike path where I had my spectacular crash last year and wrapped my face around the metal railing, leaving me with broken teeth and a face full of stitches. When I finally made it back I cleaned up and then walked up the hill to meet my friend Mike at a Vermont Lake Monsters baseball game (more on that later). On Sunday I went for another long bike ride, and then met Cinse downtown for vegan cupcakes and iced mochas, first at Uncommon Ground and then at Muddy Waters. There, for a person who is not very Vermonty, that was a remarkably Vermonty weekend. Oh, and I included a picture of the famous Samosa Man, not only because he has great samosas but also because my son worked for him one summer.