This was supposed to be a One Year in Vermont post. C’est la vie!
The Move
I’m mostly going to skip this. It was terrible. Scammers, felons, no mover the day before we had to be out of the house, panic attacks. It got done. It was not cheap or pretty or convenient, and yes, I slept barricaded in my bedroom at least one night. PDX Movers did a solid job. Some damages, but they had to send in some new guys in order to get it done on zero notice. Trying to save a few bucks and find a great deal, we very likely came close to losing our belongings. Stick to a big brand or someone you know for interstate moves. Do not question this.
The First Few Months
Newborn, new job, lived with grandma and grandpa for a month without our things, made it work in a rental for another couple of months with our things mostly in boxes, and then…
The House
We couldn’t have timed things better. Through word of mouth we heard the family living next-door might be looking to move. We contacted them, toured, struck a deal, and it was done. The house was renovated around 2010, but needed paint and a roof in addition to some other big ticket items. The deal was fair for all. Of course as we dig into these bigger projects and struggle to find labor for some of them we’re sinking more money in than we’d hoped, but we’re coming away with a great looking house that we plan to stay in for the long haul.
She was built in 1905ish. Plaster walls, hardwood throughout, enormous, oil heat (ouch! $$), no AC (window units do us well enough), unfinished basement, huge rooms, we’ve painted just about all of the interior, a gym, an office, huge kitchen, garage, great fenced yard, new metal roof, exterior paint being done as I write this. Tons of projects remain, but we’ve checked off the big ones this year. Our bank account is looking forward to 2025.
What I Love
Distance to family
While my family is still a flight or two away (depending on whether you want to drive three hours to another airport), Rebecca’s is literally across the street. This has afforded us some much needed help, great memories, and will make it easier when we one day need to return the help.
Community
For better or worse, but mostly for the better, everyone knows everyone else. I’ve heard a number of quotes along the lines of “Strangers on the West Coast act warm, will wave and say ‘Hello,’ but aren’t likely to take their shirts off their backs for you, whereas in New England folks won’t look you in the eye, but will bend over backwards for you.”
Nobody gets away with crime or is even stupid enough to really attempt it. For a long while we didn’t even have a police department and crime did not run rampant.
Gravel riding
World-class. I can go for hours and count the number of cars encountered on a single hand. Focusing on gravel is extra good for me because it is all about going long at high power output; my forte. I have had to learn how to climb as no matter how hard you try you will encounter 1000ft of elevation per 10 miles, but I don’t need to sprint, and I don’t need tactics when racing.
Six months of the year
Half the year is magical in terms of weather. We rarely exceed the low 80s, always back to the 60s at night. With no central AC it can get a little sticky, but it’s generally quite lovely. Window ACs do just fine. Can we do something about the mosquitos and deer flies though?
Knowing our farmers
Eating locally has always been important to us, but living in a rural area it has become feasible to take it to another level. We get pretty much all of our meats from locals, picking them up at the farm and often meeting the animals. Our CSA is right down the road, and the farmer’s market is about two blocks away.
Spending time with friends
While city life lends itself to a greater number of friends, and they lived relatively closely, it was often a hurdle too high to cross town to see them. Here? We’ve got a core group of a half dozen families that more or less do everything together. I look at my friends who remained in Northern Virginia, who still live fairly close to one another as the crow flies, but rarely get together. I recently joked that one of them sees me more often on my annual visit to DC than he sees the rest. Not entirely accurate, but not far from the truth.
What it means for the kids
Put simply, this is an amazing place to grow up. So much access to outdoors, the ability to run and bike around town with light supervision. The schools don’t rate perfectly well, but in line with what existed in Portland; we’re confident given what we’re able to put into our kids that they’ll come out well.
Starting the day with The Tour
I chose “the day” very carefully. Sports that occur in Europe are perfectly timed for viewing here. I love having the big cycling races on in the workday background for months of the summer.
Close to Europe
We’ve yet to take advantage of this, but dang, so close again.
Trails out the front door
I can walk out the front door and be hiking or biking up a mountain within five minutes. There are a number of other trails in town as well. I can’t wait for the kids to get old enough to go play in these areas with us and friends.
What Hasn’t Changed
Daycare woes
While we’ve been luckier than most, daycare constantly has us on pins and needles. Recently we were without it for a month. When it reopened, hours and offerings were greatly reduced. The only other option in town closed its doors unexpectedly after 30+ years so it could be worse.
Job stability
The job I moved here with was never stable. I’ll skip the details, but I was never able to do what I was hired for and then was told to do something completely different. That proved untenable. Anyway, I’ve had something like five jobs in the past eight years? Too much. I’m hopeful the new gig lasts and I am confident it will because this company is so mature and seemingly wise about hiring – it’s mostly up to me to continue making it work.
What I Miss
Food
There is nowhere to eat here and little variety. Reviews also can’t be trusted be everyone knows each other and nobody is willing to leave a negative review of their neighbor. It’s not atypical for a restaurant to also be closed three days a week. The worst? The pizza place is closed on Sundays. I want pizza with football. Our coffee shop is closed two days a week too… on the days I typically want it. They’re awesome though (and will probably read this) so they get a pass.
Groceries
We do have a proper grocery store, which is more than a lot of small towns can say, but it is terrible. Produce goes bad within days and there’s very little “woke” food available. I jump at the chance to get groceries whenever we’re in a larger town and Costco has also become a major life highlight for which I build entire days around.
Things being open more than half the week
Mentioned above. So frustrating that on Mondays there is pretty much nowhere to get food in town. It’s super frustrating for guests to stay a long weekend and have to settle for Dunkin’ on their way out of town. One newer restaurant actually recognized this problem and set their hours to focus on the times nobody else is open. Very wise, and great food, but I fear this town doesn’t appreciate finer food (this place would fit well into a proper city) and they won’t make it.
Not having to drive everywhere
We have the basics in town, but it is pretty regular that we have to drive 45 minutes to a bigger town for something. On the plus side, every trip feels like it is only 45 minutes. Heck, nothing in Vermont is really more than 1.5 hours away and even Canada is much further. We can bike around town and things are super walkable, but being 2-miles across (limited options) doesn’t mean you can get too much out of that.
Close to Asia
I love Asia and its culture. Unfortunately, I only made it there once while living on the West Coast. I really would have liked to get back to Japan since my first visit 20+ years ago, but it didn’t happen. With Europe so close and with it having so much to explore, it’s a pretty high hurdle to head back that direction. I’ll throw Hawaii in the mix too – so easy from Oregon, but unlikely to ever be visited from here.
Drink
There are a number of very good breweries and good beers, but it feels like Vermont is stuck in 2014. Everything is a hoppy IPA. Portland had finally started moving away from this and I was loving it, but I landed right back into it here.
… And let’s not get started on wine. Yes, there are wineries. I can’t help but laugh.
Winters
I used to be able to select the days I wanted to see snow. Sure, winters were gray, but THEY ARE HERE TOO! And frigid. And we have a blanket of snow most of the time. I’m “stuck” biking inside for half the year. Luckily, I’ve got a good setup and virtual team so I don’t mind that too much.
Cycling scene
A result of a reduced population. I have a very limited number of folks to ride with and it is nearly impossible to align our schedules. 98% of my riding is solo.
Race team? I’m technically on one, but there’s no coordination. Just a bunch of folks who tag our town’s shop when we register for events. Team events don’t really exist anyway. Again, population woes.
There are some weekly races, but they’re over an hour from home. There’s a weekly mountain bike ride in town, but nights are hard with kids. I’ve attempted to establish a couple of regular rides, but nobody shows up so for now I’ve settled on making an email list that is very quiet.
Coworkers
On my recent job search a few things in Burlington did come up, but none came to fruition. Needs for my expertise are pretty much reserved for large tech companies, which are all on the West Coast. By moving here, I’ve pretty much permanently signed up to be a remote worker. I like the option of office life and really getting to know coworkers. That’s over.
Dramatic Earth
Oregon is probably one of the most dramatic collections of landscape on the Earth so perhaps the comparison isn’t too fair, but everything here looks more or less the same. Granted, it’s a much smaller area so again, not a perfectly fair comparison. Regardless, let’s count all of New England to make up that difference and my feelings stand.
The waterfalls are tiny, the mountains aren’t much more than hills, we’re landlocked. It’s beautiful, but a bit boring in comparison.
Sports not keeping me up all night
While European-based sports are on at a reasonable time here, American sports are on well beyond my bedtime. I can’t stay up until midnight to watch a football game, but 9PM? That was perfection. I also loved how football would be on pretty close to the start of the day. I suppose it is nice having half a day before that, but devoting an entire Sunday to being a vegetable? I liked that at times.
Non-gravel riding
The mountain biking here is supremely technical. Any ride is a ton of work. I mountain bike to chill. Flow trails are few and far between. I recently found one, but it was a couple of hours from home.
Road riding? My road bike hasn’t come off the indoor trainer in two years. The gravel is too good, there are no races*, and the population here is far too old for me to trust their driving. There’s rarely a day that goes by that I don’t take note of a driver who no longer be driving.
* there is technically a race or two
Board gaming
A handful of jobs ago, board gaming at lunch was a thing. We did it every day for over a year. The core group of us continued to gather following the company shutdown and we all nurtured friendships beyond games and work. I really miss those guys, but I digress.
The nerd level is pretty high in Vermont, but Dungeons and Dragons and Magic: The Gathering seem to be the rage. We had a gaming store, but that’s all they did. I created a local gaming group, but was the only person ever really trying to make things happen. With kids, that’s extra exhausting.
So I don’t board game. My friends back in Portland always send me photos of them playing the latest and greatest, which I’ve never heard of.
Online board gaming exists and is quite well done, but it just doesn’t feel the same. I want to leave work for the day, bike across town for pizza and a few beers, and bike home in the dark of night. Still perfectly feasible with kids, but the opportunity simply doesn’t exist.
Haircuts
Unbelievably bad and variable. It’s more common I come home after a cut and correct it myself than not. Some of the best cuts I’ve received have come from the same people who have given me some of the best cuts. I really don’t get it. Everyone seems to be rushed and has no care for detail. I do have one place in Burlington that has been reliable, but I don’t often have half a day to devote to a haircut.
In Conclusion
We’re here to stay. We’ve embedded ourselves in the community, love what it has to offer, love our friends, love seeing family every day, love the riding six months of the year, love our home.
With my first return to Oregon a few weeks away (we have a picnic of friends scheduled – get in touch!), I still feel like Portland is home. It’ll be interesting to see how many years it takes for that to change. If I had to guess, 2-3 more, but we’ll get there because I sure as heck am not moving again for a long time.
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