Archive for the ‘Travels’ Category
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008
As promised, I am posting some (well all) of the videos we took the other day when we were in Kent, CT.
I would say there are eight videos in all. I am posting them as I upload them, but as you might guess, YouTube takes a while to upload, especially when the videos range from 30MB – 130MB. In the videos, the cool part is how much water is going down the river. We have had a bunch of rain, so that really took its toll. Also, the weather was great, so there was some company during our hike.
Enjoy the videos.
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Monday, March 24th, 2008
I know that I have told you in the past how much Laura and I like to eat lunch at the Fife’n Drum restaurant in Kent, CT every Easter. We have been doing it now for about four years. It usually is a very good time. Well, unfortunately, yesterday was our last visit to this restaurant.
I am going to try to keep this short and sweet and not too much like a restaurant critic. Let’s just say that it seems like there is some new management and a new chef at this place.
The wait was very long during each portion of our two course Easter lunch and the food was amateur at best. It seemed like the dish washing dude was back there cooking too. I swear it seemed like there were parts of my dishes that were from a can. To me, “warm potatoes” does not mean potato salad that tasted like it was straight from Costco. A vegetarian dish does not mean boiled vegetables. Oh well, there’s $80 down the drain. We didn’t even stay for dessert…my favorite part. We just left the money on the table and left. During the last 20 minute wait to have our plates cleared from the table, three different waiters walked by and looked at us at least seven times. We kept wondering if our waiter had gone home. Well, as it turns out, as we were leaving, Laura caught sight of this guy eating at the bar. What the hell? If you can’t tell, I am a little annoyed. To think, I still left a tip…A TIP. I didn’t have the patience to wait for any change. I swear, if we had stayed any longer, they would’ve started vacuuming the floor while people were still eating. Yes, we will have to find a new place to eat on Easter.
To simmer down, we went on our traditional hike at Bull’s Bridge. I have a few posts about our previous hikes. It’s a really neat place.
Since we have been down the same trail so many times, I thought it would be a good idea to check out the top part of the trails. Laura might have been a little disappointed because she wanted to go on a real hike. I will have to make it up to her. We took lots of pictures and video. I will upload the video today and post it here.
This is a photo of the front of the Fife’n Drum restaurant in Kent, CT. I don’t even know why I am showing this. Perhaps someone from the restaurant will read this post and mail me a refund check.
This is the monument in Kent, CT.
These are two shots of Bull’s Bridge itself. We got lucky with very good weather.
These are all shots of the river. The water was rushing very fast, due to all the rain we have been getting. We didn’t see any kayakers like we have in previous years. Maybe the water was going too fast. I sure wouldn’t get in there.
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Tuesday, March 4th, 2008
Laura and I decided to get in the car and visit Washington, CT yesterday. What was the destination? Well, no less than the Mayflower Inn & Spa in Washington, CT.
As I mentioned in one of my previous blog posts, my mother purchased a gift certificate for us a few years ago for the Mayflower Inn. If memory serves me correctly, we used it for a Valentine’s Day dinner, but I may be wrong. It was either that or New Year’s Eve. Anyway, we drove there at night and (even at night) really liked the area. We decided that it needed to be visited during the day.
Now, please let me explain…I am sure we have all heard of New England. Sure, we have heard of it, but have we ever really seen it? What we learned yesterday was that be merely driving through Connecticut and Massachusetts really doesn’t count for visiting New England. There is a little corner of Connecticut that, if visited, you can easily imagine some English dude sitting on a log with one of those white wigs on. That is what Washington, CT is like. You can also throw in Bridgewater too. They are both like that. There are more white houses that are over 100 years old than you know what to do with. Needless to say, they are really cool towns. Pricey towns, I’m sure. What really struck us both yesterday, was the fact that we weren’t able to locate one messy property or piece of junk. The whole entire area was extremely clean, which made us feel very nice inside.
One of the things that really aggravates me is the lack of pictures and videos on the internet. Even on Google Earth, people would rather post videos of their kid’s first birthday party, instead of videos of main st. in the town the video is attached to. When I visit town websites, I expect to see some sort of photo gallery or even a walking tour. You would be amazed at how few websites actually offer these features.
Since we visited the Inn yesterday and I happen to own a regular digital camera and a video camera, we decided to use them. I took all the photos and Laura took half the video. These are all just of the Inn and not the town. We’ll get to that. Enjoy!!!
It may look cold, but it was actually the first time this year that I actually felt a warm breeze. It was about 50 degrees outside. This is a photo of the path up to the bush maze, going towards the spa.
These are both of one of the places you can stay if you decide to check in.
This is a photo of the main building that we ate lunch in.
Here is a photo of the outdoor pool and the pool house. We decided against going for a dip.
These are all photos of the spa building.
This is my favorite part of the whole place. I just love the Rhododendrons and huge trees.
Ok, time for some video…
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Thursday, February 7th, 2008
I took this little video today before we were attacked by the dog. We were in a good mood, but that was ruined by a true idiot. I guess I am still venting.
Anyway, there is a pretty nice little river that runs parallel to the road we walk on. We can hear it for most of the way up the road. It actually keeps the road about five degrees colder than the rest of the area. About a week ago, this stream was totally covered with ice. Not so much anymore.
Here is the video…
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Thursday, January 31st, 2008
I don’t have much time to write this because Lost is on in twenty minutes. This is going to be a crazy episode. If you are interested in theories about the show, click here to read some. This is my favorite one, by far.
Ok, so Laura and I drove up to the store today, but this time, we took a different way than we normally do. We usually drive up Rt.209, but this time we took Rt.44/55 through the ridge towards Kerhonkson. I wanted to drive this way because of my itch to get out of the normal routine. It worked pretty well because I feel good right now. That may be because I just had a beer though.
I did take some video of the trip. There are so many nice things to see…I just wish I was a better videographer. Oh well, I’ll learn. Here are the videos…
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Monday, January 7th, 2008
One of the main reasons I wanted to get this new Sony Handicam Camcorder was to take videos, and videos I am taking.
I am on the internet quite often looking for nice towns throughout the United States. Every so often, I bump into some bright and intelligent genius who takes video while driving through various places in various towns. I really like this because it gives a nice picture of what the towns are like…the main street, the traffic, the types of cars parked on the sides of the roads, etc…When I search YouTube to look at these types of videos, I really like it when I actually find one.
With that in mind, I decided to take some video yesterday while driving through Ellenville and Stone Ridge, NY. These videos aren’t the greatest, because it was kind of cloudy yesterday and there was dirty snow all over the place. That actually might be a good thing because it shows what the town actually looks like at a certain point in time, good or bad.
Anyway, onto the video driving through Stone Ridge…
…and the video driving through Ellenville.
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Friday, December 28th, 2007
I took some videos with my digital camera of the Red Lion Inn, in Stockbridge, MA while we were up there over Christmas. The camera did a pretty good job, but ran out of room for any real video.
For what I got, I think it did a nice job. If you will notice, I am not the best narrator or video taker. Oh well.
This was just a little bit of the Inn. The place is huge, but people would probably think I was a nut, walking around taking video. I tried to get it while no one was around.
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Wednesday, December 26th, 2007
Well, we got back from the Red Lion Inn just a few hours ago. We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas night there. It was a pretty nice little getaway. What was especially nice was actually staying at the inn, at last.
We have been there so many times before for dinner or just stopping by, but never for an actual stay, so that was exciting. After we checked in, we went up to our room on the third floor. There are 101 rooms at the inn, so finding it needed some direction. What caught me immediately after entering the room was the fact that the old inn was showing its age. Let’s just say that things have “settled” over the years. It gives the place its character. I think people like that because the place is always very busy.
Back when I called to make the reservations just a few weeks ago, I asked if the dining room and tavern had dress codes for the nights we would be eating there. The front desk informed me that men didn’t have to wear jackets in the dining room on Christmas Eve, because dinner was for guests only, no outsiders. Also, on Christmas night, I didn’t have to wear a jacket because we were eating in the Tavern and there was no dress code in there. As it turns out, I was supposed to wear a jacket for Christmas dinner, no matter where we were eating. This took me by surprise, because I didn’t bring a jacket.
We got in the car and shot up to “Prime Outlets” in Lee, MA. We went in a few store looking for a sport coat. No one had any…until we saw Brooks Brothers. We went in there to find a bunch of sport coats. I picked one out and bought it on the fly. By the way, I had other (nicer) clothes for dinner, not the ones I was wearing. Whoa, that was close.
So, one of the main reasons we went up to the Red Lion Inn for Christmas was to visit Williamstown, MA. We wanted to check out the town as a potential place to live. We are always doing that. It’s part of me being annoying.
We decided to drive North on Rt.7, through Pittsfield, MA to Rt.9 West and onto Rt.8 North. We drove through Adams, MA and into North Adams, MA. This was a good thing, because I always wanted to visit these towns too. I hear a lot about them while listening to NPR. One big famous thing we saw was Mass MoCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art) (Blog) up in North Adams. We didn’t go in, but we did pass by to grab a few good shots of the place. This one was the best one.
It was a good thing we visited these areas, because we were able to cross them off our list of places to live. I am sure there are a bunch of nice people and some good culture, but it wasn’t for us.
We took Rt.2 West into Williamstown, MA. I have to say, this is a very nice town. Everything was really clean and neat. We drove down Spring Street and around a few roads. I did notice that the whole town was empty. It was Christmas, but we only saw one other person in the whole entire town. This creeped us out a little bit. As we were driving down Rt.7 back into Pittsfield, Laura turned to me and said, “We would really have to like one another to live in that town.” Not that it wasn’t very nice, it just seemed lonely when college wasn’t in session. Take a look at the photos of Spring Street.
There was one last thing I wanted to see on the way back to the inn. It was Pontoosuc Lake. On Google Earth, someone posted a really cool photo of the lake through some pine trees on the south side. There is a little park off Hancock Rd. This is a really pretty lake, so I got a nice shot too.
The Berkshires are a nice backdrop.
We made it back to the inn for another dinner. As usual, it was delicious. I did manage to grab a few nice photos throughout the time we were there. Some of them came out blurry, but others didn’t. Here they are.
At the inn, there is a store called, “Country Curtains.” They have a very nice display in one of the hallways.
This is me sitting in a nice chair near the rear entrance. I thought I looked hot, so I made Laura take a picture.
And that’s it. Overall, it was a very nice vacation.
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Monday, December 10th, 2007
I got my Berkshires Official Visitor’s Guide today. Do you know what that means? I didn’t think so. It means that I went on the Berkshires website and requested one. That wasn’t too hard, now was it?
I requested the guide, because we are planning to spend Christmas Eve through the day after Christmas in the Berkshires. I think it will be very nice. We really like the Berkshires and are actually planning on moving there in two years. It’s where we keep going back to every time we want to get away. Each time we go there, we don’t want to leave.
There are so many nice towns in Western Massachusetts, but this visit is going to be limited to Stockbridge, Pittsfield, North Adams and Williamstown.
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Saturday, November 24th, 2007
Ahhhhh…this is my last one.
I am trying to upload all my old videos and this is it. Thank freaking goodness. Now, I can erase this from my todo list. One of these days, I am going to get rid of that list altogether.
One summer long ago, Laura and I decided to visit the Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz. You know, it’s part of the ridge. Anyway, I took some video in the back part, near the lake. That’s the best part anyway. That’s the part everyone comes to see. One of these days, we are going to paddle around in one of those canoes.
Here is some video…
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