Saturday, May 16th, 2009
Since we weren’t able to eat lunch or dinner at the Sharpe Hill Vineyard, we decided to head out towards the Harvest Restaurant in Pomfret, CT. Laura and I had eaten there before and found it very nice.
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.
I took some photos for you to browse through.
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Man-made pond at Mashamoquet Brook State Park in Pomfret, CT
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Man-made pond at Mashamoquet Brook State Park in Pomfret, CT – view 2
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Looking down the road at Mashamoquet Brook State Park in Pomfret, CT
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This must be Mashamoquet Brook in Pomfret, CT
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Some sort of snake that tried to attack me
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Mashamoquet Brook in Pomfret, CT
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Some wild flowers mixed in with grass
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Sign for hiking trails and Mashamoquet campgrounds
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Brayton Grist Mill and Marcy Blacksmith Museum
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Saturday, May 16th, 2009
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:
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Parking lot of Sharpe Hill Vineyard
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Looking past wooden fence up into the vineyard at Sharpe Hill
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Purple and yellow Pansies
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Purple Pansies with yellow center
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Entrance to Sharpe Hill Vineyard
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Different view of Sharpe Hill Vineyard parking lot
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Up Close photo of purple and yellow Pansies
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Tasting room door leading out to the back deck – Sharpe Hill Vineyard
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Looking past a table up into the vineyard in mid Spring
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Sharpe Hill table area – view 1
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Sharpe Hill table area – view 2
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Sharpe Hill table area – view 3
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Leading off lounge area toward the dining room entrance
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Again, looking up towards the vineyard
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Sharpe Hill Vineyard dining room entrance
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Sharpe Hill Vineyard
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Clay frog and a little metal dog sitting on grass
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Vines growing very young grapes
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Walking up the vineyard
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Up close photo of a grape vine at Sharpe Hill Vineyard
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Looking down towards the main building
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Nice view of vineyard and Pomfret, CT
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Sunday, December 14th, 2008
Today was the day to get in the car to go for a drive up north. We have been planning for this drive ever since we came back from Thanksgiving dinner. We are basically looking for someplace to have a nice Christmas dinner.
The original plan was to drive up to Woodstock, CT to visit and eat at the Inn At Woodstock Hill, but we arrived kind of early. Dinner service started at 5PM and we were standing in the lobby at about 2:30PM. I knew we were early, but we wanted to check it out anyway.
We took a quick look around and decided to we would get back into the car to drive around for a bit. Since dinner didn’t start for a good long while, we had the time. Unfortunately, my stomach was growling. I was very hungry.
We headed back south a bit and stopped by the Mansion At Bald Hill, thinking they offered dinner service a little earlier. I liked the mansion’s website and thought it looked like a great place to visit. This time, we didn’t even see another car in the parking lot. Okay, moving on.
We continued to drive and ended up at the Harvest Restaurant in Pomfret, CT. We walked in and asked what time dinner service started and were pleased to hear that they began serving at 4PM. By this time, it was already 3:30PM. That was good enough for us. We sat in the waiting area, just bickering away.
Finally, the time came to be seated and to start eating.
We ordered our traditional Guinness and browsed the menu. I really hadn’t expected the restaurant to be so charming (how often do I use that word?), but it really is. They sat us next to the fireplace and were very attentive.
We ordered and then talked a bit. The food came out of the kitchen fairly fast and was really good. Towards the end of dinner, I was telling Laura that I had a very nice time. I expressed that I was happy, because we didn’t have to do any work. People just kept coming by asking us questions about what we wanted. It was refreshing.
I took some photos of the restaurant. They are the best I could do without getting caught. Yeah, I’m the guy with the camera.
Oh, and just in case you were wondering, I think I am going to give the Mayflower Inn a call for Christmas dinner. If they have the room, we’ll go over there. If not, we better get up and boogy to see if we can eat at the Mansion At Bald Hill before Christmas. I like to see what I am getting into before we go somewhere for a big occasion.
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