Last week, my husband and I travelled to New England for a 20th anniversary trip. We flew into the White Plains airport in NY and stayed overnight with Jeri Riggs. Jeri is a dear friend who I met through art, even though she lives just a few blocks from my childhood home in Dobbs Ferry. Here's a picture of us together and Jeri is wearing the hand dyed cotton scarf that she won in my blog contest. This scarf was displayed on the "corkboard" during my recent solo exhibit. She was one of three winners, but the only one who had her prize hand-delivered.
While we were in Dobbs Ferry, we had lunch at Sam's Italian Restaurant and ordered a specialty pizza. It was the best pizza I've ever eaten and even better than what I remembered from eating there as a child. If you are in the area, go try it yourself!
The next day, Tuesday, we travelled north along the Hudson River Valley and had a wine tasting at the Brotherhood Winery in Washingtonville, the oldest winery in America. We stayed overnight at the Minnewaska Lodge at the base of the Shawangunk Mountains and had a spectacular view of the Shawangunk Ridge. Here's a picture of my husband, Steve, on the back porch for our room. As with all our accomodations on this trip, we walked in around 3 pm and asked if there were any rooms available. Most of the time, we were given a discount, often for an extra special room.
Wednesday, we stopped at the Culinary Institute of America, famous for training top chefs. We had a wonderful lunch at one of their restaurants and the mushroom soup will haunt my dreams for a long time to come. We drove over into Connecticut that afternoon, stopped at another winery for a tasting, then stayed overnight at the Tollgate Hill Inn, which dates back to the mid-1700s. This is the view of the inn from our porch.
Thursday, we drove through CT and stopped at the University of Connecticut bookstore. I had attended UConn for 3 semesters of graduate school, but the campus had totally changed since I was there and it was almost disorienting. We ended up on the shore near Mystic Seaport and found a wonderful place to stay at the Inn at Stonington. We ate dinner at a gourmet Mexican restaurant up the street, enjoyed the posh room and the quiet surroundings. Here are pictures of the lobster boats at the dock and the sunset from the back door of the inn.
Friday, we did the tourist thing and toured Mystic Seaport. They were preparing to restore one of the large sailing ships and we had the opportunity to see them dismantling parts of it so they can take it out of the water. A ride on a steam train in Essex completed the day.Our stay that night was at the Griswold Inn, the oldest inn in the country. The room did not have many of the usual hotel amentities, but we had met a wonderful family from England and had a great discussion with them. We even sat with them at breakfast the next morning and they will remain one of the highlights of the trip.
We returned home on Saturday evening and I would be remiss if I didn't include at least one picture of the glorious Fall foliage, which was at its peak during our trip. As an artist who loves color, I couldn't get enough of it. What a fantastic experience!
