Childhood and Family in New England

Even though we originally thought it would be cool to land in Boston for the July 4th weekend, we decided to skip it and make some more personal stops instead. First, we went to Sudbury, MA, where Tom spent a good part of his childhood. Then, we went to Westport, CT, to visit Tom's grandparents and have a cookout with some of his extended family.

We drove into Sudbury in the late morning, and Tom immediately started recognizing things: Cricket Pond, his elementary school, the names of roads, the Friendly's restaurant where his family used to eat. We drove through town to his old street: Blueberry Hill Lane. The house his family lived in looks nearly the same - only the trees and vegetation have grown larger. Here are a few shots (& Tom's reaction to being back here for the first time in nearly 20 years):

Then, we walked up his street (which he remembered as being a giant hill; it's a hill, but far slighter than in his memory) toward the woods & trails behind their neighborhood. He and his brothers had spent countless hours exploring, fishing, and who knows what else back here, and the area was largely unchanged. It was a cool experience for him to see all of this as an adult so many years later, and I enjoyed watching his excitement. This town and neighborhood were a little boy's dream - great place to have a childhood!!

After we wandered through the woods for a while, fending off hoards of mosquitoes, we headed back into town for some lunch at Sudbury Pizza and looked around a bit more at the town. It's absolutely a quintessential New England town, and in fact, it was in Tom's college history textbook as an example of an authentic colonial town! Sudbury was founded in 1639 - only about 30 years after Jamestown, the first successful colonial settlement, and well over a century before the U.S. became a country in its own right. Photos below: Tom's elementary school, Cricket Pond, a historic house, and the town center.

 After spending the morning and afternoon in Sudbury, we headed south toward Westport, CT, our next destination. Since we skipped Boston, things were a bit up in the air for a couple of days, and we weren't always sure where we were going to go and when. We'd booked a hotel for the night in Waterbury, which turned out to be right on the way. We had a lazy few hours watching the hotel TV and then went out for dinner at Bertucci's - a great Italian restaurant that Tom remembered hating as a child. We liked it so much that even though we ate at another location the night before, we didn't hesitate to eat there again!

The next morning, we headed down to Westport for a 4th of July cookout at Tom's grandparents' house. Many of his aunts, uncles, and cousins came as well. It was nice to see his extended family, and we stayed the night with his grandparents. They are unfortunately not doing as well as they've been in the past, so we tried to help out by taking his grandmother to the grocery store and running a few other errands. We enjoyed the time talking with them after the rest of the family had left, too. I wish we'd taken some pictures at the cookout, but we forgot... in lieu of current photos, here's a shot of his wonderful grandparents at our wedding (and I can't add this without mentioning that they won the anniversary dance by being married for the longest of any couple there!):

We'd gotten used to visiting the Griffiths regularly while we were living in New York, but now that we're relocating to NC, we're sad that we might not be able to see them as much. Still, we had to keep to our schedule, so we said our goodbyes and headed to NYC on the afternoon of the 4th.

Up next: spending a few days in our old stomping grounds!

New York's Finger Lakes: Wine, Water, and Gorges

We'd always wanted to take a weekend excursion to the Finger Lakes from NYC, but we never made it while we lived there. While planning our route for this road trip, we realized we'd be driving right by them, so of course we added them into the itinerary. As mentioned in the last post, we got into the region at night and slept in Seneca Falls. The next morning, we got up and drove to Geneva (on Seneca Lake) to look around and shop at the local farmers market. It's a quaint little town, and the market was maybe half a block long, but we found some delicious strawberry rhubarb jam and counted the stop as a success. We continued driving through a more residential area and on toward some wineries. This region is so beautiful, and being right on the water keeps you from feeling landlocked even though you're in the middle of New York state.

We decided to tackle Seneca Lake the first day, so we drove south along the water from Geneva and stopped at two wineries along the way. We instantly loved the wine tasting scene here - it's far less touristy than Napa and Sonoma, and there's not an ounce of pretentiousness. AND - a tasting here is only $2 per person compared to $10-15 in California! Bottles of wine are also much more affordable. In Cali, we'd buy maybe one bottle at each winery, and here, we bought anywhere from 3-6 at each for the same amount of money. Don't get me wrong, we truly loved wine country out west, too. And in fact, the tasting room employees in CA were generally more knowledgeable than those in NY. But for a lot of reasons (proximity, price, level of comfort, water views), we'd come back here first if given the choice.

We hit two wineries on the way to lunch: Ventosa Vineyards Estate and Belhurst. Both were beautiful with gorgeous lake views and friendly people. We bought a few bottles at each, including a sparkling white wine from Belhurst to save for our upcoming anniversary.

Ventosa:

 Belhurst:

After liberal tastings at two wineries and only eating granola bars for breakfast, we were in need of food. We stopped in Watkins Glen at the southern tip of Seneca Lake for lunch at the Wildflower Cafe. Unbelievably delicious food and great local brews... wow. We had the best fried mozzarella ever - hand breaded with marinara and pesto sauce. Then we got a panini and a wrap to split. Everything was so tasty.

After lunch, we walked around Watkins Glen and its marina a bit.

 Next, we headed up the east side of Seneca Lake to Atwater Vineyards. We did another tasting here, bought a few bottles, and sat on their deck for a magnificent water view. This was the last of our Seneca Lake vineyard stops, and we headed east to Cayuga Lake and Ithaca for the evening.

We had dinner in Ithaca at a yummy Spanish tapas place. In the morning, we got an oil change, ran a few errands, and headed over to Cornell to check out the campus and the gorges Ithaca is known for. It's a beautiful campus, and the water running through it adds a lot of character. We spent 45 minutes or so here before driving up Cayuga Lake to our last Finger Lakes winery.

Our last stop was Sheldrake Point, New York state's winery of the year for 2009 and 2010. I said earlier that the staff of NY tasting rooms weren't quite as knowledgeable (or maybe just not as vocal) about their wines, but this one was right on par with those in California. We got great explanations for what everything was, how it was made, what their favorites were, etc. This is a great tasting room with a beautiful winery and delicious wines. We could see why it won winery of the year two years in a row!

By now, our wine selection had grown quite robust, but we decided to complete the case we had going in our trunk and even add a few more bottles. Between the vineyards of California and New York, we bought more than 20 bottles of wine on this trip!

From here, we stopped for a late lunch at another vineyard's outdoor cafe, and then we headed east for Massachusetts.

Up next: some personal stops in New England.

Water and Falls in Niagara

When we said our next stop was Niagara Falls, our Torontonian friends highly recommended a little town on the way called Niagara-on-the-Lake. We decided to check it out and maybe have lunch there. This town is so gorgeous!! There are flowers and gardens everywhere, it is teeming with life, and it has a quaint little main street with boutique hotels, shops and restaurants. It's aptly named - a lush park borders Lake Ontario, and in the residential areas, the water views are available to everyone. Rather than putting mansions right at the water and allowing only the wealthy owners to see the water, they've made pubic greenways and parks the borders. It's so beautiful - even moreso once you get off main street and head down the Niagara Parkway to the falls. Feels like utopia.

We ate some great pizza at a local spot on the main drag. It was my first taste of bbq chicken pizza. It's a new favorite (but as much as Tom and I love pizza, you can put almost anything on it, and we'll love it).

From here, we drove along the U.S. - Canadian border (the border is the river down which the falls flow) and stopped on the Canadian side to see the view of Niagara Falls. Both sides offer great views for different reasons. From Canada, you can get a bigger, more holistic picture of them (below).

It's free to visit Niagara Falls - you just pay a few bucks for parking and then explore on your own. After walking around on the Canadian side for a bit, we went back to our car and crossed the border. Even at a highly-trafficked spot with many people border-hopping, it only took about 5 minutes. We parked again on the U.S. side and headed in. It's still free, but of course on this side there were more attractions enticing you to pay... that being said, both sides have been made somewhat tacky with tourist attractions and big eyesores. And surprisingly, the Canadian side is worse visually (you can see all the buildings that have sprung up on that side in the pics below). If you can look past those and get to the natural wonder, it's breathtaking and absolutely worth the stop on both sides.

On the U.S. side, you're right in the action. You walk along the river and right up to the point where the raging waters plummet over the edge. It's really amazing to be able to stand so close to such a powerful force. The amount of water that goes over every second is unfathomable (in case you were wondering, it's 3,160 TONS per second).

So after spending an hour or so at Niagara Falls, we continued on the day's journey. We'd crossed into the U.S. in western New York state, so we started making our way east to the Finger Lakes. This is somewhere we'd wanted to visit the entire four years we lived in New York, and we never made it. Since we were driving right by, we of course had to stop.

We had dinner at a little '50s diner in Seneca Falls where we could put quarters into miniature tableside  jukeboxes and choose the tunes (all oldies, of course). I got crazy and ordered a chocolate milkshake. The food was decent, but the atmosphere was cool.

Up next: The Finger Lakes Region - Geneva, Ithaca, Seneca Lake, and Cayuga Lake.