Back from an overnight trip to the Hudson Valley for a family wedding.
Sunday: awake far too early, as often happens on a traveling day. Several hours of packing and putzing around, followed by five hours behind the wheel.
Tooling along winding two-lanes through Vermont landscape so lush and vividly green it almost seemed unreal. Overcast thinning outside of Rutland, hazy sunshine flooding down, green, looming slopes shining beneath suddenly open skies.
Crossing into New York, landscape still lush and rolling (minus green peaks stretching skyward). Traffic increasing, two-lanes leading to the Northway, packed with cars and trucks barreling along at warp speed. And everywhere enormous passenger vehicles -- gashogs on steroids. Vermont has its share of bizarrely oversized pick-ups, but nothing like eastern New York's display of rolling fortresses.
Heading south, Northway leading to Thruway, traffic sailing through bands of driving rainstorms, so intense that road speeds immediately dropped from 70-80 to 30 or less. Off the highway at Kingston, far enough ahead of schedule to allow a pitstop. Found a likely looking diner, parked, stumbled inside, exchanging hey-how-ya-doin's with a wiry, friendly everydude heading to his car, bags of take-out dangling from either hand. Grabbed a booth, gazed around at fellow customers, an impressive array of obese humans, including a family of five stuffed into a nearby booth -- mother, father, grandmother, two boys -- one of the male offsping bearing a startling resemblance to Pugsley from The Addams Family.
Good food, turned out. Friendly waitstaff. Then back outside, sky occasionally glimmering with diffuse sunlight, air mild and soft. Dove into the car's backseat, changed from traveling duds to pants/shirt more suitable for a wedding. Threw a necktie around my throat, pulled on pointy boots. Drove the remaining miles, pulled into the driveway of the house shared by bride and groom. A lovely spot on a winding road, house and drive giving out on a coupla-acres backyard, with stream, a large pond, many towering trees, everything green as could be.
An intimate affair, twenty-five individuals at most -- family and a handful of friends. Ten or twenty minutes of hellos and small talk until the bride appeared, escorted by her brother. A brief, sweet ceremony, officiated by the bride's father (recently elected to local political office), ended by the strewing of wildflower seeds on a large plot of newly-turned earth.
Post-ceremony joy:
A drive through miles of narrow, winding roads to a restored inn (200+ years old) for the reception.
Phase one: an hour at tables outside the inn, wiping out plate after plate of hors d'oeuvres. The initial round or two: platters of seafood sushi, me -- not generally a seafood fan -- searching fruitlessly for something without raw fish, etc. A sad question from me about that apparently gave everyone the impression I'm vegetarian (the truth: here in the States? not exactly veggie, though I tend not to gobble down much meat; in Spain? not vegetarian, will consume just about any plate of non-seafood fare that lands in front of me). For some reason, I said nothing about the vegetarian thing, instead observed how it seemed to become accepted fact, everyone suddenly considering me a non-meat-eater, arranging for me to have a veggie main course when the party moved indoors. Good main course, turned out, arranged prettily on the plate by some wacky artiste back in the kitchen. But consisting of little actual food, leaving me nearly as ravenous post-entree as pre-.
Phase two: the meal indoors -- in a long room, around a common table. A long affair, courses of luscious food coming slowly with vast spans of time between, me mostly watching and listening to the assembled attendees, longing for chow. Noting how the noise level zoomed upward in direct relation to the amount of wine imbibed by everyone. Three seats to my left sat this character, a celebrity in certain specialized circles, and apparently now playing on big screens in this bit of goofiness. (Said not a word to my humble self during either wedding or reception, apart from an expressionless "Excuse me" as he pushed past at one point.)
[continued in next entry]
España, te echo de menos.
rws 2:59 PM [+]
Comments:
That drive sounds so much like when I leave MA to visit Family in PA.. I drive the Taconic Parkway, sounds like a great time
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