As it turns out, we know a lot of people who've moved back to New England. Combining that with the need to get our boosters, celebrate our anniversary, and also to see the sights meant that we spent a good 10 days making a circle through these three tiny states. We spent our time Visiting Old Friends, Exploring New England, and Just Relaxing.
Visiting Friends
Robie & Levi and the "girls" in NYC: Robie lives in Westport, CT now and has a lake house not far away that she hosted us at. We love Robie's exuberant company, and meeting her beau Levi was a real treat. Then, while she and Joan went to visit more friends in NYC, she very kindly let Randy stay at the lake for the weekend. Three days of solo downtime spent running, yoga, blogging, and eating were blissful for him. While time with the girls in the big city was just as wonderful a break for Joan.
More Meals with Friends!
Over the next 6 days, we got to reconnect with a lot of friends from home who now live in New England.
Our oldest, Matthew, happened to be visiting his girlfriend Aliza so we got to see him as well! Aliza works at McLean hospital and Matt works remotely while he's up there. Their energy is amazing and it was a ton of fun to have them show us around Boston.
We saw our friends from Albany (Kathy & David) again as we all watched their daughter Julia row in the Head of the Charles regatta. Her Georgetown team came in 4th in the women's 8's club race. The HOTC was an amazing event -- over 11,000 athletes were competing!
Joan's sorority sister Polly lives in Connecticut and we got to have lunch with her and her daughter Liz.
Cindy and Tony made us the MOST exquisite New England lunch on Cape Cod -- chowdah, lobstah pie, salad and a boston creme pie. Now we get the attraction! They've retired to the Cape now and really seem to have started a great new chapter.
We had a great lunch in Providence with Randy's former Menlo colleague, Wilson. Sadly, we spaced and didn't get a good picture of Wilson, so we're substituting a really bad foto we found on the internet, to help remember the moment. Sorry!! We were super impressed with Providence though and really psyched that Wilson and his family have found such a wonderful landing spot.
Randy's friend Beth (who also used to work at Menlo) and her husband Tim hosted us in Northampton and gave us a great tour of Historic Deerfield.
Art in New England
Perhaps because New England is so dense with people, we just kept on running in to amazing events, fun art, and uniquely yankee experiences. Highlights included:
Manchester, VT - Loved loved loved the bookstore here. So much so that we got separated and totally lost for an hour (because there was no ATT coverage) and didn't even mind.
Williamstown - Just outside of Williamstown while we were waiting for our tee time we went for a walk up a hill. As we crested it, there was this stunning art installation out in the field. It's called "Counterculture" by an artist named Rose B. Simpson. Each figure is a 9ft tall representation of a woman from a marginalized culture. They're clay and mounted against the fall color backdrop they were spectacular and very moving.
The Yale Art Museum - While lying low after our Covid boosters we got to explore this amazing collection.
Normandy Farms RV "Resort"
It turns out there are RV Campgrounds and there are RV Resorts. By complete accident we booked 4 nights at this amazing RV Resort outside of Boston because it was central enough that we could commute to Boston, Providence, and the Cape easily from there. There were over 400 RV's there for a weekend of Halloween celebrations. We were completely overwhelmed by the energy and the size of the place.
They had softball, tennis, bocce, pickelball, shuffleboard, swimming, horseshoes, BMX riding, basketball, ceramics painting, pumpkin decorating, and much much more. But the campsite decorating was what we really had fun taking pictures of. Apparently people plan for a year in advance to bring their RV's to this particular resort -- which also happens to be 10 minutes from the Patriots stadium in Foxboro. It was really a treat for us to get to see the activity and meet so many people (oh and also to get our laundry done!).
In particular though, we cracked up at the guys from U of Maine who were there camping in a retired ambulance! They were all road tripping down just for the Sunday night so they could attend the Pats game together!
Just relaxing
After getting our next COVID booster, we took it easy for a few days along the Connecticut and Rhode Island coasts -- relaxing in case of a reaction. We toured the Yale Art museum which was great, but the coastline of Rhode Island easily matched it. And on the last night before Boston, we got to camp in the parking lot of a Harley Davidson store. That was a treat!
After that, we finally got to celebrate our anniversary and we did it in style at Neptune Oyster in Boston's North End. The food was delish, but the company was even better and we had yet another great campfire back at Normandy Farms.
The Gloucester Scarecrow Festival
Stumbled on this one in Gloucester, MA. A totally different take on the whole zombie thing. We particularly liked the Yoga Scarecrow. :-)
Other Great New England Scenes
It was a perfect time to visit New England and get all that fall has to offer. Just a really beautiful place. Here's a scattering of some of the other shots we loved. Highlights include:
Visiting to Mount Holyoke College, Randy's Grandmother's Alma Mater (which she entered at age 16!)
Driving by Smith College, Amherst, and Hampshire college. We were like parents on a college, but without the student!
A great tour of Deerfield School and the historic town of Deerfield from Beth and Tim
A stop into the original (huge and STRONGLY scented) Yankee Candle Store
many trips on Boston's rail and subway system!
Thought for the day: Local food & drink
We are growing very very fond of stopping at local butchers or deli's. Although we're eating much more vegetarian these days, when we pause for some meat, you can't beat the local butcher shop. The one above was in Kensington, CT just south of Hartford and the Lasagna was insane.
Below are pics of a stop we made in Staatsberg, NY at a farm that runs both a local brewery, but also sells CSA farm boxes and a variety of other things. It's called Black Snake Brewery after the 6+ foot long semi-harmless snakes they found when they first cleaned out the barn. (side note, my great aunt Mar used to kill black snakes with a hoe whenever she saw them on the farm. They largely don't bother humans, but she still didn't like them AT ALL.). Oh, and as a side bonus, Joan got to hold the bartender's baby and get her tiny grandmother fix for the day!
We've even heard a new term for someone who eats local food -- a Locavore. We're told it originated in San Francisco. :-)
Comments