Shopping---and Fairfield, Connecticut

Friday, September 22, 2017--The Equinox and we head home to Washington.   

We left Tiverton after a fine few days with friends.  We had a goal of a bit of shopping.  Went to a place in Fall River, Massachusetts, called Portugalia Marketplace.  As one clerk remarked, it's a bit of Portugal in Massachusetts.  Bought some inexpensive wines:  One a rosé turned out to be ordinary.  But a white and a red from the Doura had  the advantage being low price, and quite good.  The range of other products from high priced and good wines to crockery to such foods as linguiça was enormous.  The store is close to I-195. Easy to get to.

Stopped in Providence at Blue State Coffee near Brown and enjoyed our coffees.  Ben's art was OK.  John's latte was fine.   Then to New London to pick up lunch at a supermarket and to the Rocky Neck State Park to eat it.  Arrived at brother Andrew's about 3 and enjoyed an evening with him and nephew David as the sky turned beautiful reds and pinks and enjoyed dinner and an excelldent Aglianico del Vulture to celebrate Rosh Hoshanah.  L'Shana Tova.

Now to Washington.

Mist, Food and Surf

Tiverton Harbor as it grays over

Ben and host Jon at work

Wednesday, September 20, Tiverton, Rhode Island--Tropical Storm José rolled in last night and it rained.  It wasn't enough to stop us from eating in the lee of the house outside under the deck roof.  But it did pummel the roof and this morning we decided to head to the beach to see the surf.

The beaches on the south coast of Rhode Island are stoney with promontories of rocks.  The wind driven surf meant the waves were about five feet high--just fine for the surfers.  We marveled at their fortitude, though the water at 60F wasn't as cold as the Pacific.  

Then, home for lunch--a chicken curry salad with brown bread and a bit of rosé.   A fine way to finish our visit here.  The mist has begun to roll in and we may face fog tonight.  We head out for dinner this evening and then start the two-day trip back to Washington tomorrow.

John, Ben, Jon and John

Providence and Tiverton

Tuesday, September 19, 2107--A quiet day yesterday after we arrived.  An excellent dinner of local clam chowder, peach and tomato salad, fresh bread and rosés.   We also enjoyed Asperol spritzers--white wine with an Italian digestif Asperol.   Similar to Campari. Not so bitter.  Went well with the vinho verde white.

Today it looks like lots of rain.  Hurricane José turns into a tropical storm, but still rains.  Ben went to yoga taught by our host.  John is reading.  

Grandsons and 'Gansett

Monday, September 18, 2017--Tiverton, Rhode Island--We are now visiting friends in Tiverton after spending a fine afternoon and evening with our grandsons in Massachusetts.   Tiverton is a place we love and visit annually.  The view from the deck where John is sitting as he writes is a perfect New England vista, despite the clouds from the imminent rains left over from Hurricane José.

We had coffee yesterday morning at LL Bean in Freeport, where the barista, with some encouragement made Ben a fine XXDry skim cap with art.  We decided it was a maple tree.  Very abstract.

Traffic was abominable driving to Boston, but the evening, a meal of Indian food, and our rapidly growing up grandsons (one is five, one is two-and-a-half) as well as lovely chats with their parents made for a good time.  We left this morning and drove here to Tiverton, stopping in Providence for coffee near the Brown campus at Blue State, and then at Hartley's Pies in Fall River for excellent traditional English meat pies.  

It's good to be with old friends and we look forward to a pleasant few days, even though it is going to rain.  The outdoor shower will be natural and piped.

Tiverton, Rhode Island, Harbor

Weddings and Water

Saturday, September16, 2017--Our first stop was Ogunquit for coffee.  The barista at the Back Yard made Ben's cappuccino, but without an attempt at art.  Too bad, the coffee was excellent.

We slowly made our way up Route 1 to Portland after that, past antique shop after antique shop after barns full of antiques.  We decided to enjoy clam chowder and fried clams waterside in Portland, so for the first time for both of us, we explored this smaller version of Boston.  

We had clam chowder at Portland Lobster Company, a deck over the water on the harbor on Commercial Street.  A crowd but the chowder was creamy and rich, full of clams, and the fried clams were excellent, with the taste of clams evident and a well done tartar sauce to go with it.

From there we found coffee, again, for Ben at the Bam Bam Bakery, just up the street.  Good coffee.  The barista did the art reluctantly.  

Freeport, the site of the wedding, is LL Bean paradise.  We haven't shopped but the place is loaded with LL Bean stores.  We checked into the Hilton and then headed out to Wolf's Point to a huge turn-of-the last-century house overlooking part of Casco Bay.   

About 40 of us enjoyed the ceremony of John's nephew Matt to his wife Renee.  Afterwards we fully enjoyed a dinner and lots of good conversation.   Casco Bay was mostly covered with fog during our time on the point so we only saw the vista of Maine's coast for a few minutes when the sun came out about 5 PM.  

Casco Bay in the Fog

The old mansion

Renee and her Dad

The Ceremony

Andrew and B

Matt and John

MassMOCA, Mountains and Mike's Clam Shack

Not Terrell, an outdoor installation

Friday, September 14, 2017   We left Craryville quite early in the day for a very full day of activities.  Our first stop was the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams (MassMOCA).  It's an old Sprague Electrical Plant that has been turned into a huge modern art museum, without its own collection, that provides a site for huge installations.   We went specifically to see the light exhibit of James Terrell.  He's an artist whose installations we had seen at a Seattle art museum years ago and we wanted another glimpse of his abilities to affect the perception of space and light.   

The main installation we saw, Perfectly Clear, we had seen in an earlier version.  This one is bigger and better.  A huge room that appears without end as the lights change and the brain perceives each change differently.  With a strobe light show involved, it is quite a moving experience.  

The museum also gave Ben a chance to explore the perceptions of the barista at Tunnel Coffee on the museum grounds.  A successful coffee. He clearly got his art.   

From North Adams we headed north into Vermont to see more of the Fall colors.   We found them, though are not yet at their peak.  The reds have developed in the five days we have been in New England and the golds and oranges are beginning.  The Green Mountains of Vermont have changed with the season.   We drove across Vermont, into New Hampshire and then to the Maine Seacoast where we spent last night at the Mariner's resort about five miles north of Ogunquit.

Vermont

 

There is the Atlantic in the fog

 A pleasant motel, lots of kids and Quebecois.  We found a huge eatery on the recommendation of the motel desk called Mike's Clam Shack---a multi-room eating extravaganza, where we managed to finish to 2 lb (1 kg +/-) lobster each.   We rolled out, but it was worth all the work to enjoy the claws, tails and bodies of the beasts.  

Hudson--Antiques and Architecture

Thursday, September 14, 2017

Hudson loves whales

We headed into Hudson this morning to visit a town we have become quite familiar with.  It's an antique mecca, though this time we were not antiquing.  Instead we headed down side streets to examine the architecture and the regeneration of this old whaling town.  Even though it is far up the Hudson River, during the War of 1812 it became a major whaling port out of reach to the Royal Navy.

The old streets are fascinating with their variety of architecture from early 19th century Federalist to late high Victorian gingerbread and Queen Anne with a few 20th century structures casually built among them.  

Moto Machine Coffee--lunch is great.
Avoid the coffee shop

Moto Kate's egg sandwich with goat
cheese and salad with panies,
cucumber soup with cheese waffles.

Cascades does fine coffee.

We had lunch at a place called a Moto Machine Coffee, although we ate from a breakfast and lunch bar that operates as a co-tenant in the building along with a motorcycle dealer, motorcycle-related clothes shop and coffee shop.   We fully recommend the excellent and lovely cuisine from the lunch bar, shown as Moto Kate on the sales slip, but found the coffee bar unfriendly and unwilling to even try to produce Ben's XXdry skim cappuccino. "The owner says we should only do what we know how to do," said the barista.  How sad!  We walked out without coffee and then found exactly what Ben wanted at the Cascades just up Warren Street.  We wish Kate well with her lunch bar--the soup and sandwiches are excellent and pretty.  Perhaps the coffee bar will become more open to innovation?

The Blue Plate does have specials

Brook trout for Ben

After our long walk through Hudson, we came back to our friends, read and rested and then headed to the Blue Plate (yes, we had a special) in Chatham, NY.  The Blue Plate is in an old hotel building and serves simple but very well done American food, with an excellent (affordable) wine list and beer and ale from the local craft brewery around the corner.  John and friend Andy had hamburgers, Ben had a superb broiled trout.  We all started with an excellent shrimp and corn chowder, slightly sweet from the corn, but full of shrimpy bits, bacon and the taste of fresh corn.

Tomorrow, Friday, we head to the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (Mass MOCA) in North Adams, then across Vermont and New Hampshire to the Maine coast.  We look forward to seeing the change of colors of the local trees, which has been very evident in our four days here.

  

The Clark in Williamstown

Wednesday, September 13, 2017.  We spent the day enjoying the colors of the Berkshires as we drove north to Williamstownt, Massachusetts, to the Clark museum.  Of course, we enjoyed a late afternoon respite on the front veranda enjoying the distant mountains and listening to Cooper, our friend's Springer Spaniel, chase away the verminous deer.



The Clark Art Institute is an excellent museum with a fine collection of John Singer Sargent, Winslow Homer and a vast collection of Auguste Renoir.  Several paintings caught our eyes including the Smoke of Ambergris Sargent did in 1880.  We were also taken by a picture, the Snake Charmer, done by Jean-Léon Gérôme in 1879.  We enjoyed many of the Renoirs and several of the other American artists for which the museum is famous.  Lunch in the cafe of beef vegetable soup, lettuce cups with rice and spiced beef.

We enjoyed spending time with our hosts Andy and David and their Springer, Cooper.  A relatively early night since David had gone to NYC for a photo shoot and Andy is finding time to prepare for a concert in about ten days.

Dinner of heirloom chicken, baked potatoes and chive-soured cream, haricots verts.  A few drops of excellent Sancerre.  

Delaware Water Gap and the Beginnings of Fall

Cafe Duet, Stroudsburg PA

Tuesday, September 12, 2017--Off from Allentown by 10 AM heading for our morning coffee, the Delaware Water Gap and Craryville, NY.  First stop, Stroudsburg, PA where we left the Interstate for coffee.  Cafe Duet on one of the town's 19th century squares provided good coffee, though the barista was not up to making the art for Ben's XXdry.  She had just started two weeks ago and remarked "that's too much pressure!"  The coffee was good and you could say the swirl on the top was the beginnings of a cloud.

A small Indian head, but there are those who love it.

From there we decided to visit the Delaware Water Gap, a 19th century tourist destination that appears much less impressive now than it probably did in 1877.  It's physically the gap where the Delaware River cuts through the mountains leaving interesting stressed rock formations and a supposed Indian head in the formation.  The head is visible,(see picture) but it is not as large nor as impressive as the now fallen Old Man of the Mountains in New Hampshire.

We headed north through the Gap area National Park and then into NY.  We found going through two toll booths that our EZPass wasn't working, so a stop at Walmart (worrying about the hives we might get) procured a new one.  This time not Maryland's, but Pennsylvania's,   And no monthly service charge!  We will turn in the Maryland one after we return home with its dead battery.  Now we are safe from dealing with EZPass bureaucracy from a failed pass!

The deer are faintly visible to the right.

Lovely dinner with our friends David and Andy at their place in Craryville on its mountainside.  Our evening wine outside gave us a good view of the invading pests of the local deer herd on the other side of the meadows.  But otherwise the evening was just perfect with the setting sun and the start of the Fall colors,.

Roast heritage pork chops, sautéed zucchini, local heirloom tomato and mozzarella salad, and a pleasant sancerre.  Youghurt and fresh fruit for dessert.

Off to Allentown and points in between.

Monday, September 11, 2017--We left Washington a bit later than we had hoped, but the delay wasn't serious.  Fortunately.  

We stopped along the way a couple of times, once for coffee--nothing special to report there in Ben's XXdry skim cappuccino.  The drive was quite easy, though traffic was very heavy by the time we reached our destination in the middle of suburban rush hour.  Much of our trip crossed the countryside and the roads were not so full of truck traffic as I-95.

Along the way we passed a sign for Ephrata Cloister, so we decided to take a look.  It''s an 18th century settlement of religious types who dressed as monks, were celibate if they were Solitaries living in the settlement itself.  Sort of like Shakers, or a special type of monkhood or sisterhood.   Anyway, the buildings looked interesting and we had a short walk around this part of Pennsylvania history.  

We enjoyed our evening with family immensely, much catching up to do.  Dinner of Chinese, very nice, and went with our relaxed state after the day of driving and dealing with the car.  Cousins Jack, Amy and Abby were lots of fun to see.  Off today to the Hudson Valley through the Delaware Water Gap

Off North for 10 days...with a little problem

Off to New England, Hudson Valley and Pennsylvania, but not as quickly as we'd like.   Turns out the Vandals paid a visit to our alley over the weekend.  We found a busted passenger side window last night.  Fortunately, a local auto glass place says it can be fixed today
--Acura couldn't manage it till tomorrow--and we should be on our way with only a slight delay.  Nothing was taken, fortunately. Never a dull moment.

Our first stop is cousins near Allentown, Pennsylvania then north to Columbia County, New York.   With luck we should see some Fall colors, although it may be a bit early for brilliance.