Town #54 Woodstock

Friday, October 2, 2009
Cinnamon Tree Bakery * Windy Acres Florist and Gift Shop * Flying Carpet Studio * Java Jive * Scranton Antiques * Scranton Country Store * Roseland Cottage * Sweet Evalina's Stand * Woodstock Thimble Cottage * Woodstock Christmas Barn * Woodstock Orchards

Woodstock’s attractions are largely unique little shops along Route 169. The town web page is one of the better organized, most useful town web sites we’ve seen. We started out near the junction of Routes 169 and 171, at the Cinnamon Tree Bakery, for breakfast, and we both had the French toast made with their cinnamon swirl bread. It was delicious, in spite of the artificial maple syrup ($15). We resisted their yummy-looking baked goods on display. We visited Windy Acres Florist and Gift Shop, in the same building as the bakery, and found a 50% off sale good on almost everything in the shop as they were reorganizing. We bought a large gray-green knobby gourd and a couple kale plants ($26.50). Our next stop, going north on Rt. 169, was the Flying Carpet Studio, a boutique with some clothes, interesting trinkets, and lots of artistic jewelry. They must have moved from up the street because the picture on their website does not show their current location. I got a few things for Bob’s birthday and myself. Bob got tired of watching me browse, so he headed next door to Java Jive for a second cup of coffee and a blueberry scone ($4). Continuing north a bit, we found Scranton’s Shops. We’d never been in Scranton Antiques, but have been by it many times in its 25 years. We each bought something we didn’t tell the other about. Just up the driveway is Mrs. Bridge’s Pantry, a British tea room. I’ve been there before, so we passed on by and went to Scranton Country Store, which sells candy and kitchen novelties. I got a jar of peach and raspberry chutney ($6).

For a change of scenery we headed north to Roseland Cottage. We stopped to read an informative plaque about the town at the Green.

A tour started at noon and we got there just in time. The guide took the four of us on the tour through every room in the house and some of the outbuildings and explained all the details of the Bowen family, the house, and the gardens. It is a beautiful example of a wealthy family’s summer home in the mid-19th century. The Bowens lived in Brooklyn Heights, NYC, where Henry—a Woodstock native—made his fortune in several businesses and authored quite a few books. The house has always been coral pink to match various varieties of roses grown on the grounds, but the shade currently in use is historically accurate. Henry was an active abolitionist, Congregationalist, and Republican. The interior has a great deal of Lincrusta wall covering, a heavily embossed, “paintable” paper, invented in 1877 and frequently used in Victorian hotels and restaurants. At Roseland, much of it was embellished with gold paint, all of which has faded. It is quite amazing. In wikipedia’s article on Lincrusta, a picture of Roseland Cottage is featured. (Admission $14)

The formal boxwood parterre garden has paths between boxwood borders and 21 flower beds with 4000 annuals, the exact varieties that the Bowens had planted.

We were ready for lunch (and a seat!) so we headed north a bit more to Sweet Evalina’s Stand—not a stand but a cute little restaurant with homemade desserts. Friends had recommended it a couple years ago and we’ve been wanting to get there. Menus are on the wall and your choices are given there. We each had clam chowder and clam cakes. I confirmed that it was New England style, but the cook didn’t know what that was. When I said it was creamy, he said that’s what theirs was. Well, it had milk in it but it wasn’t creamy, and there weren’t very many clams, although the taste was very good. The clam cakes were dense, clammy, and excellent. Bob had spied lemon meringue pie (for $2.75!) so he had to get that for dessert; I had a moose tracks ice cream cone (Lunch $27).

North again to the Woodstock Thimble Cottage, a country-style store where I bought a little girls’ purse for our granddaughter for Christmas ($8). Just beyond was the Woodstock Christmas Barn, which has been there for many years. I found a different strawberry ornament for our mini-strawberry Christmas tree and a couple other little things ($15). We asked the shop owners about finding something to do in Thompson as information was hard to come by. They suggested the Thompson Dam and explained how to get there.

We retraced our path and headed to Thompson, first stopping at Woodstock Orchards’ big farm stand. We bought a couple different gourds and squash to sit next to the green one I got this morning ($3). (Jan)

Town #53 Hampton

Thursday, September 17, 2009
Trail Wood, Audubon Society's Edwin Way Teale Memorial Sanctuary

Hampton has an excellent town website but they claim no interesting things to see. We pulled a first and visited the town hall to speak with the Town Clerk. She laughed at the idea that we were looking for “something interesting in her little town of 1900 people” but when we gave her the “Diana’s Pool” idea, she promptly came up with the Connecticut Audubon Society’s Trail Wood, also known as the Edwin Way Teale Memorial Sanctuary. She also mentioned Pine Acres Lake and Hampton Reservoir, but the latter two will have to wait for another day.

We were not familiar with Teale. Here is a Wikipedia excerpt about him:
"Edwin Way Teale (June 2, 1899-October 18, 1980) was an American naturalist, photographer, and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer. Teale's works serve as primary source material documenting environmental conditions across North America from 1930-1980. He is perhaps best known for his series The American Seasons, four books documenting over 75,000 miles (121,000 km) of automobile travel across North America following the changing seasons."

We signed in at the unmanned Visitor’s Center, just past the house in which Teale and his wife Ellie lived, looked over various educational materials, and studied a map and guide of the grounds and tried to find our way to the suggested trail. After a couple of trials and errors, we found the Veery Trail and we were on our way. We found Hidden Pond, which Teale had excavated from a red maple swamp for his enjoyment as well as his nature studies, and a nearby Summer House, basically a 9-foot square screened gazebo. He would sit there and look over his pond and footbridge at the far end of the pond, a nice relaxing place to meditate. We walked around the pond to the footbridge, then to the Writing Cabin. The cabin was built of logs, but was locked. Teale is said to have written some of his books here. Its dimensions are reportedly the same as Thoreau’s on Walden Pond. We made our way back to the Visitor’s Center, replaced the laminated guides we’d borrowed for the trek, and headed back to the parking lot. Jan spotted a monument built many years ago by one of the workers on the grounds of Teale’s estate. The man realized that monuments seemed to be built for various well known people, but none for the common laborer, so he built one to himself in Monument Field using the indigenous stone that he was hired to clear from the field.

The sanctuary was interesting and there are plenty of documented spots to explore. The trails need a little more maintenance, but we suspected they were let go due to perhaps finances, and the fact it was after Labor Day. We’d like to return and walk some more of the trails.

Town #52 Chaplin

Thursday, September 17, 2009
Diana's Pool * Ribbits

A visit to Chaplin’s town website made no mention of anything of significance to see in that small town. Somewhere, however, in our collection of clippings and notes, we recalled Diana’s Pool was a natural pool in the Natchaug River. It’s located off Rt. 198 right near a bridge that crosses over that river.

We parked in a parking lot on a dead end street for a short trek. The water was a little low since we haven’t had much rain recently, but the rock ledge formations are interestingly carved out by the river. Near the bridge, we thought we were looking at the pool, but after exploring a bit and heading a bit north on the rocky shore and woods, we discovered Diana’s Pool upstream a short distance. The noise of the water was loud enough, considering the low volume of water, and we could imagine the sounds of rushing water if there was a full flow. It would be fun to come back after a good rain or a winter snow melt as we know from our own Fenton River.

There are various legends regarding the naming of the pool. One is that a young girl’s heart was broken by her lover and Diana jumped off a high ledge to her death; or she slipped on the tears she cried. Or maybe the pool was just named after the Diana family who owned the pool. Take your pick.

For lunch, we headed for lunch toward Rt. 6. We had four choices from our web search and we spotted Ribbits first (no website, but various reviews on the web). The place was clean and the décor had a neat frog theme. We were there around 1:00 and the place wasn’t at all busy—they do lunch and dinners. The menu is extensive. Jan had a toasted chicken salad sandwich and French fries and I had a special, grilled chicken cordon bleu sandwich with sweet potato fries. ($20) (Bob)

Town #51 Colchester

Saturday, August 29, 2009
Diane's * Gallery Cinema

Being a rainy day with tropical storm Danny off the East Coast, I decided to take us to lunch and a movie, though I kept Jan in the dark about specifics. Since we’d been to Harry’s Place (a very well known and neat place for clams, fries, burgers, ice cream, and more), I had to select somewhere else to eat to qualify as a new place for our CT travels. We had a list of diners where Joe Liebermann had eaten, and Diane’s Restaurant was listed as one. They do not have a web site, and online reviews were sketchy at best. Some reviews, however, provided some very favorable comments. Their hours are 6 a.m. to 1 p.m. and, although one page of their four-page menu was for lunch items—almost as an afterthought, they have an extensive breakfast menu. The only specials on the boards at noon were for breakfast. We took the hint. We found the place in a small strip mall and almost missed it; there is a sign around a corner, but no sign on the building. It’s definitely a mom and pop place, visited mostly by local people. It definitely has a hometown flair. I had a delicious seafood benedict and Jan had stuffed french toast with peaches and strawberries that was not overly sweet as stuffed french toast can be. That and coffee set us back only $18. Afterward, we went to the nearby Gallery Cinema and saw Julie and Julia. It was a cute picture, about Julia Child, and Julie Powell’s blog about cooking all 524 of Julia’s recipes in 365 days. It was a good way to spend a rainy afternoon. ($10, “matinee special.”) (Bob)

Town #49 Brooklyn

Saturday, August 9, 2009
Brooklyn Country Fair

Country fairs are fun but one a year is really enough. We decided to visit the Brooklyn Fair this time. We picked a beautiful, sunny day and headed over (admission $14). We browsed the booths and watched some demonstrations, then got hungry. We'd passed some food booths with bad-for-you but yummy-looking things and started backwards, with dessert. Fried dough with powdered sugar. Hhmmm. A little farther on we saw waffle french fries with ranch dressing and bacon bits, which we shared. Deadly but delicious. The last thing that we got was a maple milkshake, which we also shared. It was only mildly mapley.

Then we headed for the fiber and craft demonstration buildings and I was fascinated with the weaving competition. Two teams of women had four hours to take raw wool from a sheep, clean and spin it, make yarn out of it, and weave it into a table runner.

The women were happy to inform visitors of their experience and the competition. The members of the team I spent most of the time watching were younger than the other team and less experienced; they didn't really expect to win this year but enjoyed the competition. They'll practice and try again next year.

We watched horses get new shoes. That was a fascinating process!

Town #42 Winsted (visit #2)

Saturday, July 25, 2009
Organ Crawl at Church of Christ

This second visit to the Organ Centennial Celebration at the Church of Christ, Baptist-Congrega-tional, consisted of an informative lecture and tour of the George Sherburne Hutchings pipe organ. We had heard about the tour at the March concert but it was announced for church members only. We mentioned we were disappointed that we, as non-members, couldn't enjoy the tour, so Martha Rein, chariman of the music committee, asked for our names. On Juy 12, we got an email "written invitation" to the event.

We were greeted in the church parking lot by Chris King, the organist, who said, before we could say a word, "You must be the Bittners." There were nine of us for the tour, which started in the choir loft with an excellent, basic talk about organs and the pipes that make them work, given by Choir Director Willard Minton. He provided a handout and showed us actual pipes so we could see and hear the open flue pipe and the reed pipe. We learned that it takes about four inches of pressure for their organ pipes to speak, but Mr. Minton said there are some pipes that take over 100 inches of pressure in other organs. Those 64-foot pipes are rare, with about two organs in the world having them, ine in Sydney, Australia. Imagine the deep rumble of a 64-foot organ pipe!

We were shown the organ and console and had an opportunity to get partially inside. The view was limited but interesting. We had seen much more of Mike Foley's Mighty Wurlitzer.

Chris King finished the event with an informal selection of music emphasizing different divisions and ranks of pipes. Refreshments followed. We love all the stained glass windows, especially the Tiffany one. It doesn't have a religious theme but is a lovely garden scene with a waterfall. (Bob)

Town #39 Tolland (visit #3)

Saturday, July 18, 2009
Tolland Garden Tour

Tolland Garden Paths presented Gardens of Visions and Inspira-tion, a self-guided tour of nine private gardens in Tolland. We picked up our “tickets” in the form of a descriptive booklet, with an excellent map. Each involved driving to a well marked property with organized parking. We were handed a site map with notes of highlights for which to search.

We saw five of the nine gardens, all excellent. We saw many plant varieties and creative garden designs, all of which showed a great investment in time. The booklet described each site’s garden in detail, giving a brief history of its beginnings. The hosts were friendly and informative and answered questions readily. We asked about their deer problems which everyone agreed was an issue. Their ways of handling deer destruction varied. Listed are the gardens we enjoyed. Descriptions are in the booklet.

The Leonard gardens
The Shirley gardens
The Ludwig gardens
The Feller gardens
The Couture gardens