We had a little adventure yesterday. We went to Rose’s Berry Farm in South Glastonbury to pick some strawberries and raspberries.
This is one of those events we like to do every year but consistently screw up the schedule. We have good intentions, but somewhere along the lines, we miss what we are looking for. At times, we have been pleasantly surprised by some available “pick your own” crop and went about our day full of smiles. Well, I think I have fixed the whole scheduling problem.
A few weeks ago, Laura printed out the berry, apple and pumpkin schedule from Rose’s website. The schedule is accurate for basically any pick your own farm around here. Also, after we go picking, I put the event on my Outlook calendar and make it yearly recurring. That way, we won’t miss it next year.
Anyway, the day went well. Rose’s is a pretty enormous farm. It was much bigger than I expected and we actually needed to get a ride in a truck to go out to the strawberry and raspberry fields. I liked the truck ride. Wait until you see the photos below to see what kind of truck it was.
The strawberries were very tasty, but picked over a little bit. We are pretty late in the season for them and unfortunately, many other people got there before us. We did manage to get a bunch of nice ones though. The raspberries were in plentiful supply. I ate a whole bunch of them while picking. There really are only so many you can eat while on the job, but I did my fair share.
Next up is blueberries in early July. Rose’s has tons of blueberry bushes full of blueberries, but I think we are going to try out a different farm in the area, just to see what they are like. It’s nice to experience some variety.
Here are those pics…
Strawberry field at Rose’s Berry Farm in Glastonbury, CT
Truck ride at Rose’s Berry Farm in Glastonbury, CT
When my parents were up visiting a few weeks ago, they brought up the idea of going out to get some ice cream. I thought it was a great idea…I just didn’t know where any ice cream places were. I think there are a few Friendlys around, but that’s not the kind of ice cream place they were talking about.
The other night, after our walk, Laura and I decided to get in the car and drive to the next town over to see if there were any obvious ice cream places. If there were, we were going to pull over to eat some. Unfortunately, there weren’t any. It’s odd, there’s a nice lake and a little bit of a vibe. Strange that there’s no ice cream places.
A few hours later, I decided to hop online and look for a famous ice cream place I heard about at Uconn. I didn’t know the name of it, but after a while, I found the one that my friend had told me about. It’s called the “Uconn Dairy Bar.”
Uconn has a big agricultural school and I guess part of that school is making superb ice cream for their students to enjoy. Well, not just their students…people from all over.
Now, you know that once I found the ice cream place over at Uconn, I put a little visit to just that spot on my agenda. We went over yesterday and enjoyed some ice cream. Laura got the pistachio and I got half vanilla and half strawberry. It was pretty damn good.
The other day, Laura and I were talking while we were walking. It was a full out walk and talk. I was telling her how I was looking at pictures of Naples, Florida online and how there were some pretty good looking beaches there. It’s really hard for me to tell Laura about places I look at online because she always assumes I want to move there. I suppose I have somewhat of a track record in that department.
As we continued our walk, I kept telling her how I just wanted to walk up and down a beach for a good long time and how good of exercise I though that would be. She seemed to agree, once I mentioned the sport of it. If it’s just a regular walk, it’s no good. If there’s something in it for us, I guess so.
I kept on talking about different places and their benefits when I turned to her and said, “I think I just need a vacation.” I instantly thought of Turks and Caicos. For those of you who have never heard of that, Turks and Caicos is a small cluster of islands in the Caribbean. They aren’t all smothered with resorts and hotels yet, that’s why you may not recognize the name. I have been thinking about visiting Turks and Caicos for years.
When we got back to the house, I let Laura loose on the computer. I told her to feel free to find a nice vacation for us. She came back with some options, but nothing really floored me because there weren’t many “all inclusive” options on those islands. Thinking back to Punta Cana, all there was were all inclusive resorts. The biggest resort on Turks and Caicos is Beaches Resort, and it’s all inclusive. It looks great, but it may be a little too “family friendly.” Much (or all) of their marketing is geared towards kids. I’m talking Sesame Street stuff. Although, they do have those big floating tricycles and a water park. Hmmm.
Anyway, for the past few nights, I have been trying to locate an all inclusive resort on a nice beachy island. I want some place that’s not overbuilt and preferably with white sand beaches. I want to walk out into the water really really far, so the shallower and bluer the better. I am getting a little depressed as the search goes on, because there is so much to look through and all the islands have so much to offer. Punta Cana was easy…all the resorts were all inclusive and the beaches were awesome. There was nothing to think about. Fly down, get on a bus to the resort and get drunk. Now, that’s what I’m talking about.
Okay, I’ll get to the point of this post. During my search for the ultimate Caribbean island, I have browsed through many pictures and videos. Just a few minuted ago, I came across a rather unique video offered by Best Destination Travel TV. As I watched it, I started thinking about how well the commercial (or whatever you want to call it) was written and though out. I just had to share it with you. Take a look at it and let me know what you think.
On our way to the restaurant, we passed a little sign that said something like “State Park Campgrounds.” My parents have a long history of camping, so they really wanted to pull in to see what was going on. I was driving down a kind of busy road, so when we saw the next sign that said, “Mashamoquet Brook State Park Entrance,” they were only too happy to pull in there. I am glad we did, because we discovered a neat new state park with an awesome trail system. There are rivers and lakes and trails all over the place. We have to add this park on our growing list of great Connecticut state parks to hike in.
Boy, it’s been a busy few days. My parents landed at the Bradley International Airport, North of Hartford at about 12:30AM, Thursday morning. Laura and I got there at around midnight, so we had a hang around for a few minutes. It wasn’t too bad. Strangely enough, you get to watch some very interesting people while waiting outside an airport.
A few months ago, when my mother and I agreed on this trip, I had a whole itinerary planned out. We were going to go here and we were going to go there. Then, Laura and I went on that little trip to Stonington. It was during that trip that I remembered that I really don’t enjoy driving as much as I used to. I mean, short trips here and there are okay, but the long ones I can do without. Remembering this, I started planning to visit places that were just a tad bit closer than the ones I had previously planned to visit.
On Thursday, we all hopped in the car and drove up to the Red Lion Inn, in Stockbridge, MA. You all know that Laura and I have been there a lot, but my parents never have. I thought I would spare you the photos, since you have seen a million of them already. We had a nice lunch and I even let my father beat me at a game of chess.
On Friday, we had a great time up at the Sharpe Hill Vineyard in Pomfret, CT. None of us had been there before, so we really didn’t know what to expect. Luckily, we were all very pleasantly surprised. I think I heard the phrase, “You know, we could be in Italy right now and you wouldn’t know the difference” more than once.
For those of you who don’t know, Pomfret is up in the “Quiet Corner” of Connecticut. It’s a really cool place that brings you back to the good ol’ days. It’s peaceful, beautiful and best of all, nobody from Hartford tailgates you all the way down the road. Wow.
The Sharpe Hill Vineyard offers two different tastings; they differ based on amount of wine consumed. The first tasting costs $5 and you get to taste five types of wines. Actually, you can taste five of the same wines. They don’t mind. The second tasting offers eleven types of wines for $10. We chose the $5 one because I didn’t want to get tipsy in the middle of the day. Neither did anyone else. We were all very happy with our five choices.
I took a whole bunch of photos, so you can see what the vineyard looks like. It’s really nice and they even had a restaurant. Unfortunately, we were unable to eat there because reservations are taken three weeks ahead of time. Maybe Laura and I will have to make reservations to check out the food.
Here are the photos:
Parking lot of Sharpe Hill Vineyard
Looking past wooden fence up into the vineyard at Sharpe Hill
Purple and yellow Pansies
Purple Pansies with yellow center
Entrance to Sharpe Hill Vineyard
Different view of Sharpe Hill Vineyard parking lot
Up Close photo of purple and yellow Pansies
Tasting room door leading out to the back deck – Sharpe Hill Vineyard
Looking past a table up into the vineyard in mid Spring
Sharpe Hill table area – view 1
Sharpe Hill table area – view 2
Sharpe Hill table area – view 3
Leading off lounge area toward the dining room entrance
Again, looking up towards the vineyard
Sharpe Hill Vineyard dining room entrance
Sharpe Hill Vineyard
Clay frog and a little metal dog sitting on grass
Vines growing very young grapes
Walking up the vineyard
Up close photo of a grape vine at Sharpe Hill Vineyard
Since it was a bit cooler yesterday and the sun was shining, we decided that it was a great day to hop in the car and take a trip down to Stonington, CT.
Lately, I have been wandering around Google Earth checking out the Connecticut shoreline. It’s amazing how much neat stuff is around there. I really never knew that, but then again, how would an out-of-stater know about all of the hidden gems in another state. Right now, the Connecticut”ites” are saying, “Yeah right…hidden.”
There are so many neat little fishing/boat towns in this state. Stonington is definitely one of them. It kind of reminded me of Newport, RI and Salem, MA. There were lots of old houses, boats and some pretty cool streets. I took a whole lot of pictures so you can get a feel of what I am talking about.
Stonington Point looking at Stonington Breakwater and Mystic
Stonington Point looking at scuba divers
Stonington Point looking at Sandy Point
Stonington Point looking at Sandy Point and Napatree Point
Sea Gull at DuBois Beach
DuBois Beach sign
Stonington Lighthouse – Stonington Borough
Old Lighthouse Museum sign
Lily of the valley garden with wrought iron fence
Lily of the valley garden with wrought iron fence – view from sidewalk
Grape Hyacinth in front of stone steps
Nice lawn looking towards Lords Point
Rear of Stonington Harbor Yacht Club parking looking towards Lords Point
Defenders of Stonington sign
Rear of Stonging Yacht Club parking looking down Trumbull Street
Purple Hyacinth in mulch near steps
Stonington Yacht Club sign
The Inn at Stonington sign – Water Street
Looking North on Water Street, Stonington, CT
Looking South on Water Street, Stonington, CT – View 1
Looking South on Water Street, Stonington, CT – View 2
Looking South on Water Street, Stonington, CT – View 3
Hungry Palette Screened Fabrics sign
Pink Tulips in garden on Water Street, Stonington, CT
We had a little adventure today. I decided that it would be a really nice day to go for a short hike at Devil’s Hopyard State Park in East Haddam. After all, we haven’t been there since last year.
We had to run down to Norwich for a little while, so the park wasn’t that far away. I even went as far as stopping off to get some Subway sandwiches. Boy, they really don’t taste that much different from when I used to eat them every day for lunch.
We didn’t do all that much at the park. We hiked down past the waterfall and then stopped off at the picnic area to eat our sandwiches. After that, we walked down to my favorite part of the park, next to the river. There is this area that is just chock full of Hemlock trees and moss that is really cool looking. Since I already exhausted every photo-op in this particular park, I decided to mix things up a little and take some photos of the river.
Looking down the river at Devil’s Hopyard State Park
We went on a little field trip up to West Hartford, CT yesterday.
Laura’s sister and her man are in the area for about a week, so we all thought it would be nice to meet up and have lunch at the Cheesecake Factory in West Hartford. We have never been to this particular restaurant location before, but we knew damn well that the Cheesecake Factory is an awesome place for lunch or dinner.
I didn’t know where I was going, but Laura put the restaurant address in the GPS and off we were. We took the same route we drove on when we visited this area a few years back. When we arrived, we were kind of shocked at all the construction that occurred since the last time we were there. Apparently, someone put up a new little mini-town in West Hartford when we weren’t looking. It’s called Blue Back Square.
I gotta tell ya, it’s pretty cool. The area has been open for about a year and is full of restaurants, stores and even apartments. I took a few photos for you.
Blue Back Square in West Hartford, CT – Looking south
Blue Back Square in West Hartford, CT – Looking east towards the library
Blue Back Square in West Hartford, CT – Looking north
Blue Back Square in West Hartford, CT – Barnes and Noble
Blue Back Square in West Hartford, CT – Cheesecake Factory
Blue Back Square in West Hartford, CT – Whole Foods Market
This was an unexpected little scene that occurred on our way back from Costco this afternoon.
While driving down 91 south, towards Hartford (in the HOV lane – luckily) today, we saw some signs lit up warning us of an accident further south, near Interstate 84. I didn’t really think anything of it, because the signs actually said the accident was on 84 west, not 91. When we rounded a bend in the highway, I asked Laura if she saw smoke. She said yes and this is what we saw when we were forced to stop by a police officer.
Car fire on 91 south, near Hartford, CT – March 25, 2009 – Photo 1
Car fire on 91 south, near Hartford, CT – March 25, 2009 – Photo 2
Car fire on 91 south, near Hartford, CT – March 25, 2009 – Photo 3
Car fire on 91 south, near Hartford, CT – March 25, 2009 – Photo 4
Car fire on 91 south, near Hartford, CT – March 25, 2009 – Photo 5
Car fire on 91 south, near Hartford, CT – March 25, 2009 – Photo 6
It wasn’t bad until the fire department started spraying the car. When they did that, the smoke got all white and came near us. I turned off the car vent, but some smoke still got in to give me a headache. Burning rubber and plastic really smells.
While I was sitting there taking pictures, I noticed the guy in back of us doing the same thing. It was a race to get back to see who could post it on their blog faster.
Today was the day that Laura and I chose to cruise up to Costco to spend hundreds of dollars. We haven’t been there since the beginning of February and knew this one was going to be a whopper. Shopping at Whole Foods and paying $80 for one bag of groceries was getting a little old.
On the way up, I told Laura that I was going to get gas before we went in, because after we do our shopping, I am in no mood to get gas. Luckily, today the weather was beautiful and getting out of the car to pump the fuel turned out to be fun…as the following picture shows.
Jay at Costco gas pump
I think Laura described me as “herbolicious.”
Half way through pumping the gas, I noticed the “Members Only” sign and just had to get a picture of it. Remember those “Members Only” jackets? How cool were they? Not really, I guess. Nevertheless, I felt it was necessary to have my picture taken next to the members only sign.
Also, if you notice, the gas is $2.06. That’s a far cry from the $2.49 I payed at a local station last week. Go Costco.
