FL Rally and Club Ride - 5. Day in White River Junction, VT

5. Day in White River Junction, VT

Getting Ready to Ride

The Hotel Coolidge has an odd breakfast arrangement. You need to ask for a coupon at the Reception Desk and then get a chit to use at a coffee shop next door. Depending on what you eat, there might be an extra charge. Normally, I think the coffee shop can handle the traffic load, but this morning, 11 riders showed up at once. It was a bit much for the help in the shop. 

So what do we do today was our question. We are here in Vermont with the group and like most of the time, the Club, as a group, rides through the nearby towns to explore the area. Are we going to ride with the group?

The Evil Eye Wards Off Evil in Turkey

Nah!  I can still walk, so walking we did, all through the neighborhood. We found a genuine Turkish store with all the spices you can find at a bazaar. They even had Lokum (Turkish Delight), a 

real treat for me. I chose Pomegranate and Pistachios as the filling.

Whirling Dervish Dolls

In fact I love Turkish food and there is a reason for it. For 623 years the Ottoman Empire had its headquarters in Turkey. The Sultans loved to eat well. From all around the Mediterranean world and beyond; the Sultanate collected the best foods. Just imagine what treasures you can collect in over 600 years. Turkish food is amazingly varied, amazingly delicate and trendy. It is a delight for any true foodie, especially the fish and desserts which are out of this world. Right, Turk?

After this store discovery we entered an old bakery building (factory) that a group of investors has repurposed as a conglomerate of various small businesses. Photography studios, pottery places, art galleries, nonprofit organizational offices, etc. were tucked in a seemingly haphazard fashion throughout the building. The charm of the old was kept but was painted over with modern colors.

The Old Bakery Building - Bricks Painted Silver and Red Floors

Have you ever seen a bright red wooden floor?  Well, you get the idea! Historic pictures of White River Junction and the olden days hung in the hallways. It was a cozy place, a cozy building. 

In one corner of this place was a restaurant called Thyme. We had an unusual lunch there. While I had just a Tarragon chicken sandwich, a soup and a salad, it was somehow special. Very well made and delish! The tomato basil bisque and the curried soup were outstanding. We both enjoyed this place.

 While we ate we thought maybe we should bring something memorable of this town home with us. Before our lunch we had visited a unique pottery place in the same building.

Work Area and Selection of Pottery to Paint With Examples of the Finished Product

No, we did not make the actual pottery, we just ‘painted’ each piece that we bought in the ‘raw’. I thought that would be a good ‘Club’ activity for when the other Club

Hans' Creamer and Sugar Bowl

members come back from their ride, but it did not work out that way. It was just Carol and I sitting in this shop, doing our thing. I chose a breakfast milk pitcher and a sugar bowl for the kitchen here in Toronto and Carol painted a butter dish with cover. We were like kids in a candy store. The proprietor was wonderful. He was more than helpful; I think he enjoyed us as much as we enjoyed ourselves. Oh, no, we are no artists, Carol and I, but does it matter? We picked our colors, picked our glaze, picked the brushes, sat for a good 2 plus hours and became ‘inspired’ by our ‘art’. 

Carol's Butter Dish

I first thought of painting tire tracks diagonally across each pot, but Carol asked me to be nice and more conservative. So I painted polka dots!  The arrangement with the shop was that, AFTER we painted our pieces they would hold them and when they had a ‘firing’ going on for their pottery, they would add our pieces to the pile and then ship them to us. 

Sugar Bowl

Top of Creamer

It will take some weeks before it is all done, but so what, we have time. I think we will see our dishes end of October at the earliest. It does not matter when; we had a great ‘fun’ day being ‘artists’. No we did not ride, but is it not important to stop and smell the roses? We certainly did stop for the day; no we did not smell roses but Turkish spices. 

Finished and Glazed. Received Mid-November

Because… for dinner at night we walked to the restaurant next door to the hotel.

You would not know it by the name; the restaurant was called ‘Tuckerbox’. This place had a Turkish kitchen. It was not a touristy place, but genuinely Turkish. Everybody from the Club, all 11 of us, were a bit stunned when we realized we had just arrived in ‘Turkey’. We did not know it was a Turkish place. The menu offered foods we could not pronounce well,

Ride to Eat: Eat to Ride

we read names of foods we had never heard of. I am glad some English translations were available.  I cannot say what others ate, but I had the Meze Platter as an appetizer with Lavash Bread. The main dish for me was Güvec (Köfteli) – a kind of stew – it was just wonderful food. 

Carol had to try the Baklava as dessert and it was good, not as good as hers, but it was very good. 

Lavash Bread

As a special guest, Carol and I invited Muriel Farrington to this dinner, she is a nice lady, former Secretary of the MOA and a delightful woman. Everybody loves Muriel. Thanks for coming, Muriel; I hope you enjoyed yourself, too.

Muriel Also Had the Stew

FL Rally and Club Ride - 4. After the Rally

4. After the Rally

The whole Rally was always ‘threatened’ by ‘rain’, rain which never came.

Lyle Grimes once told me years ago… “If I had listened to the weather reports, I would never have ridden a motorcycle”. Lyle was one of the Million Miles guys on a BMW, RIP Lyle. 

So the forecasts, the internet, the fake news stopped a lot of riders from coming to this great rally spot. It is a shame to ‘hype’ up the news reports just to get a few more clicks on their websites, or their apps.

We Bought Breakfast at the Rally on the Last Morning

Not all ‘new’ things are always better things. The cell phones, the internet, are handy to have but also change the social behavior of many people. Writers, reporters now get paid by the ‘clicks’ they get on their reports, rather than submitting a story and getting paid. If you don’t get clicks, you don’t get paid. So naturally the headlines are hyped up, attention grabbing. The desperate folks, the press folks, writers, reporters want to get paid, so they keep on bombarding us with the latest ‘news’ at all times. A mild storm becomes a hurricane. Hot summers become environmental disasters, etc.; the more sensationalism in the head line, the greater the chance of someone clicking on the ‘news’. 

Passed on the Donuts - But They Looked Good

Case in point was the large exodus yesterday, when the reports of ‘heavy rains’ came over the weather report. Everybody seemed to leave at once.

Ah, I am getting old it seems. I remember times when it did not matter that it rained.

So this Monday morning we had????????????? No rain, but a heavy dew and luckily, the tent was already packed.

We were ready to go to…. NO, not home, we elected to ride a greater round trip that the Motorcycle Club of Ontario (BMW MCO) had planned. Terry, Jane and Jennifer had left already by around 8 AM this Monday morning but we doodled a bit, we said our good-bye’s and then we left around 8.45.

As you know by now, I like to ride alone, not with a group.

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Our meeting point with the Club was White River Junction, VT, specifically the Hotel Coolidge (formerly the Junction House).  

Carol and I arrived at around 3.30 PM. We used, again, mostly back roads but we were the first of our group to arrive. Our ride through NY State and then through Vermont was a lovely ride; very wooded, very rural, very rustic and yet, plenty of towns for gas and food. The total distance ride for this day was around 600 km (380 miles); just about the perfect distance for us. 

Lobby of the Coolidge Hotel

The Hotel Coolidge is an old hotel, first built around 1849, burnt down twice and finally rebuilt in 1924.  I like old hotels, I love their history. The renaming of the Hotel happened after the visit of then U.S. President Calvin Coolidge.  

There is supposed to be a ghost (Ezra) living in the hotel but I never noticed.

Famous silent movie actress Lillian Gish  filmed a movie (Way Down East) in White River Junction.

Body on the Ice From the Film Way Down East

One of our group arrived at 4 pm or so; they had left yesterday from the GTA (Greater Toronto Area). 

The smaller group that left before us at 8 AM from the Rally arrived around 5.30 pm.

Well, we are all here, nobody had problems with their bikes, and all is well. 

Lobby of the Coolidge

Whenever the timing is a bit off I start to worry though. Logically the group that left ‘before’ us should have arrived before us. But then, riding in a larger group is always a bit slower. They need to stop more, each stop takes longer. Imagine a gas station where everybody in the group needs to tank up. It just takes longer if you have 10 people get gas, versus just Carol and I. 

All is well, all are here… nobody is hurt, no accidents, the bikes all run.

Cliff and Dominique Enjoying Themselves

We walked over to ‘Big Fatty’s’ for dinner. It was like going home to Mama. I had the chicken wings… Yummy! Carol had the Catfish sandwich.

Our room at the hotel had 3 smaller rooms, it was like a suite. The bedroom was the largest room, and then came the bathroom, then a smaller sitting room with a sofa, some chairs and a desk.

Waiting For Our Dinner

An odd set up but cozy in a way. Parking the bikes was great, too. We had a parking lot in the backyard almost for ourselves.

Our Sitting Room - Cosy

If you ever come to this town… stay here… it’s an experience.

Bike Parking - Lots of Space

Relaxing After Dinner

More Relaxing

Getting Good At Relaxing - Lots of Practice