Troy, Saratoga Springs and Upstate New York

Aug 28, 2006
Current mood:calm

Upstate New York

Travers

I knew I was forgetting something when the plane left Denver at 4:30am and I was a walking zombie( and a good looking one at that, jk).....my journal!!  This place is the opposite of every preconceived image my mind had dreamed up for the last 40 years.

My contorted thoughts of "New Yorkers" were of obnoxious, fast talking and fork tounged clones of humans that lived their lives on top of each other since there were so many people in these tiny New England states and so little land that they all have to fit on  somehow. Nothing like the vast expanses of spaces equal to the Midwest and West Coast.

Just when I thought I was the least hypocritical, non-judgmental, most openminded person I knew, reality opened a new door. What I have found is the exact opposite. This place bursts with old family values, boasts sincere pride in it's history altering revolutionary battles, flaunts the distinguished tastes of the Roaring 40's with black tie at the Travers Horse Derby in Saratoga Springs, to the "almost Canadian" brew pubs that are dark and heavy with Irish and Italian accents and enthusiasm. This is where generations are born and die on the same street and the corner butcher is the one that was cutting tenderloins and pork chops off your neighbors farm for your grandfather. Where, when you ask the cashier at the local cheese stand in Vermont why Vermont cheese is better than any other, and he answers because it is made with love from generation to generation. And when that piece of Truck Drivers Aged White Cheddar melts in your mouth.......and you innately realize that you will never ever have a piece of cheese that feels that good, tastes that flavorful on your tongue again. 

John, a friend I haven't seen in 25 years with his drop dead
gorgeous wife. It was as if no time had passed.

We are staying with Brett's college roommate who doesn't even own a set of keys to his 100 year old house with the wrap around screened porches and mahogony mouldings. They never lock their doors. Their families, extended families and relatives are the only ones who live in the neighborhood and 85 year old "dad" just hotwired the riding lawnmower to mow the neighbors lawn while the rain subsided for an hour.

This place is amazing!! I can't wait for the opportunity to show my children this little piece of heartland to learn in two days what  years of high school history doesn't teach you about the foundation of our country. It's a place rich in religion, rich in beliefs, rich in values, rich in tradition!! 

New York City!

Sep 1, 2006
Current mood:distressed

The Big Apple

New York City!! It's the first time, the last time and probably the shortest amount of time that anyone has actually arrived  and left within 45 minutes.  

I'm not a city girl!!

We left on the 11:00 train out of New Haven, Connecticut. (and now I know why it's called a Haven) to arrive at Grand Central Station at 1:00. Took a taxi to the New Yorker Hotel across from Penn Station in some type of square, ie: Madison, Time, who knows..... Got up to our postage stamp sized hotel room where the door hit the bed when I opened it and then I had to crawl over the corner of the bed to get to the bathroom because the dresser took up the rest of the room. We were there 10 minutes, back down the elevator, out the front door, in the taxi, back to Grand Central and on the 2:20 train back to the Haven and to the peacefulness of Guillford by 4:27!! No Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, no Statue of Liberty, no Twin Towers, no stroll in Central Park.

I don't like New York, except in photographs......even after a valium,  a Mike's Hard Lemonade, some much needed red wine, my soul was still not settled.

Connecticut

Sep 2, 2006
Current mood:amused

Guilford, Connecticut



Downtown Guilford



If you ever wanted the feeling of white picket fences, apple pie, summer parades, family reunions in city park and the local bar that everyone knows your name(and everyone elses), this is the place!

Guillford was founded by Henry Whitfield who was the leader of a band of English Puritans escaping from the religious persecutions in Boston. He led them here in 1639 to 1000 of acres of creeks, rocky mountain shoreline, fertile soils and rich thick green forests. The houses around town sit on a miniumum 4 acres, the houses in town all surround the  rectangular green city park strip. The monument that is erected in the center of gigantic maple trees represents the fallen soldiers of the civil war, and Yankee magazine lies on the coffee tables and barbershops of the local buisnesses.


We are staying with yet more of Brett's friends that he knew in Hawaii, JP and Cindy. They have a 1928 brick red house on the beach of West Lake which is completely stocked with bass, lilypads, cattails, canoes and a floating dock for the kids. The house, like most in the area, has a carriage house that was built about 10 years after the home and is now used to park the cars and the fishing poles.


JP's roots start on the Magna Carta of Guillford with his ancestors, the Dudley's. His paternal ancestors are the Sullivans and the Sullivan and Dudley's arch rivals that extend as deep as the Hatfield's and McCoy's, are the Bishop's. Now to give you a little background on this one. The Dudley's established a very fine processing Dairy on the north end of the town called Hillcrest Dairy. It sits on acres and acres of rolling hills with a 70 ft. red  maple outside the main house that Grammy Dudley patched together with bubble gum when it broke in half as a sapling in the early 20's. They operated out of one room stone building with the main house built back in the 1800's.

One of the buildings at Dudley's Dairy on the north side of town.

The Bishop's were on the south side of town and just a stone's throw the from where JP now lives.  The Bishop's  livlihood relied on the fruitfulness of their orchards, mainly apple. Now you would think that these two families would have a great thing going. A little Bishop's Apple Pie along with the Dudley's fresh homemade vanilla ice cream and cheddar cheese. However, as we passed The Bishop's grocery store on the way to town, Cindy claimed that the Bishops had the best apple pie on the East Coast but they were banned from going in there because of a tale old argument that no one seems to remember how it started or what it was about. JP has never been into Bishop's, Cindy has snuck in there one time because she is originally from a town 20 miles north of here, so no one knew that she was dating a Sullivan. So, instead of stopping at the grocery store 2 miles from the house, we drove 10 miles to the Food Market in the middle of town surrounding City Park and back 12 miles to the house that we were having dinner at. :)

Bishop's Orchard and Winery on the south side of town. 

This is how the spirit of small towns work. We arrived back from NYC , me, traumatized and ready for another Valium and a swing on the porch so I could be completely catotonic from the big city overload until Cindy announced that they had dinner plans over at Matty's house. Matty's claim to smal town fame was being a bachelor and the next Naked Chef to all the single girls in town. The dinner menu consisted of grilled Filet Mignon wrapped in bacon, home grown garden green beans with almonds, shrimp, tomato, feta and basil crudites. Since Cindy had already extended the invitation to Brett and I when we had returned on the train from NYC, we decided to go. As soon as we walked through the sliding glass doors, Matt referred to the experience of New York not going well and offered a glass of wine. I wanted the entire bottle, but as they were new friends, I decided to pace myself . Dinner was incredible and we finished it off with Apple Pie straight from Bishop's apple orchard. Yes, that's right, BISHOP's apple pie! JP had broke the 350 years of fueding to walk into his rivals' store to finally taste the east coast infamous homegrown, tart and juicy apple pie. The stories started and versions of the old riff began within hours of elaboration with no clarification at the end of the night.


The next morning as JP is giving us the grand historical tour of the town in the midst of Hurricane Ernesto's belting rains and winds, we stop by the Dudley Dairy to see Grammy. As soon as we sit down in her living room, she says she heard that the trip to NYC was brief and overwhelming and offered her condolescences as she does not like the city either. Of course, there was no mention of JP buying the pie at Bishop's, because, of course, he would have disowned.  Yet, all of were aware that on some deep, neandrathal level that word has already traveled to her 90 year ears. After touring the dairy, still intact from it's last milking in 1946 and stocked full of antiques that Grammy doesn't realize are antiques, we headed to the downtown Irish Bar, Kayley's, for some real Shepard's Pie.


Of course, it's only 1:00 in the afternoon, so we are the first ones to pull up a chair at the bar to watch the Red Sox game, when 3 guys that looked like they just got off a month long stint on a fishing boat, came in to grab the chairs next to us. One of them being Sean Dessesaire, yet another tie back to the establishment of Guillford. Rumor had already reached the locals about JP buying Bishop's pie and Sean was the first to dig in to JP. Together they rehatched and swore about the story of "Grampy" and Keith Bishop going at it way back when. The more beer Sean and JP drank, the more Sean swore on the "true story" of the most rumored and talked about family riff of Guillford. And at the end of the day, still no one could recall what the original tiff was all about almost 400 years before, yet still going strong because of family loyalty and passions.


It was absolutely intriguing and mind blowing to witness first hand a situation so engrained into the generations of a community that warrants hours of passionate debate. Coming from the west coast, where families are barely 150 years old and maybe 4 generations, this historical tie to apples and milk has me in love with the east coast mentality. I loved every minute of it!

Boston~my most favorite BIG city

Sept 6, 2006
Current mood:refreshed

Boston

Hull on Nantasket

It's only been five days since our airplane touched down and I swear I've been to every state in the thirteen colonies! :) We arrived in Boston just in time for the 2:00 rush hour on the Pike so we diverted to an out of the way Thai Restaurant on the outlying boundaries of Cambridge before heading into the sea of never-ending vehicles.   The beef satay had the most interesting texture and flavor of any red meat I've ever had the opportunity of putting in my mouth. After the first few bites, I did notice that there didn't seem to be any neighborhood pets running loose. Nonetheless, it did not deter my appetite. After passing Fenway Park, Bunker Hill, the North Church, the harbor where all the men dumped their tea, we headed out to the southeast corner of the Boston Harbor to a 7 mile strip of land called the Nantasket Peninusla and a little tiny town called Hull.

We pulled into the driveway of a beautiful home along the shores of the ocean. I knew this was heaven. The house was only 10 feet from the breaking waves to the east, and Gunney's Irish Pub, 10 feet to the west!! This was already looking way too good. And, it only got better!

Jeff, a college buddy of Brett's, had bought this house as a remodel, and had been working on it for the last three years. The front deck could be a home of it's own spanning an easy 60 feet across the beach, complete with boardwalk, bonfire pit on the sand, and lobster boats up the wazoo(which we took complete advantage of). It's a slow, sleepy kind of a town, and after pretending I was princess for a day(because Jeff was in Boston until late the first night, and Brett was sound asleep, I was left to my own accord), with a raging fire in the floor to ceiling rock fireplace, Vermont cheese, a bottle of Zin, the Ernesto storm front kicking up the sea, and an exercise ball, I watched the city of Boston backlight the horizon across the inlet and wondered what it would have been like 300 years before.

Waterfront property and 10 steps to the local tavern!

That night, after a dinner of steamers and lobsters, we made our way to Gunney's. It was a Tuesday night so there was only us, the bartender, two lobster fish men, a local couple, two of Jeff's friends, along with Lizzie Borden's very intoxicated, very vocal,  great, great niece. Needless to say..........it runs in the family, if you know what I mean.

Wednesday morning I woke up to fresh lobster for breakfast and a very sunny day! We decided to venture into Boston for some real Italian, drip down to your elbow, greasy pizza. We never made it to the pizza, instead finding ourselves immersed in the Downtown Duck Tours. I couldn't even begin to explain it to you, except for the fact that we took a World War ll amphibious vehicle and went all over North Boston then straight into the St. Charles River, and, yes, I got to drive the vehicle once it was a boat. Apparently, the driver is partial to the Blonde Irish! :)

After two hours of Boston's full history being narrated by Col. Duck Tape, we battled back to the serenity of the shores of Hull gorging on eight, fat and happy, freshly caught lobster from one of the men in Gully's that we had met the night before. Jeff and I ate two each and by the time we got to the "KING of the Sea"(I have pictures to prove how ginormous this thing was), Brett, who has an aversion to seafood, had turned green from watching and had to lay down before he lost his grilled chicken. However, Jeff and I were on a quest, as his 15 yr old, vegetarian son looked on in disgust. We dropped the King into the pot, he squealed and tried to back out tail first to no avail. Ten minutes later he was perched in the middle of the dining table, his claws twice the size of my hand. We only devoured the claws, saving the rest for lobster rolls the next day. 
After dinner we strolled down onto the beach to light up the fire pit, sitting underneath the blanket of stars listening to the soothing sound of the waves roll in. When the last smouldering ember ceased to exist,  we headed back over to the Gunney for a night of Karaoke led by a hearty group of drunk fishermen that have decided to start the sailor bar version of American Idol. It would definitely be more entertaining than any reality show. 

Colonel Duck Tape kicking back on the St. Charles River. 

After another morning sleeping until God knows when(but I do know that I was the last one up, again :)), we made our way back to Boston to a place called Santarpio's. Its claim to fame, besides being in Little Italy and having the best pizza reputation in Massachusettes, is that they served one of the pilot's from 9/11 his last meal. 

Yummmmmmmmm!!!!

Santarpio's is located on a block where you can put your wife out with the garbage. Where the pay phone on the corner has a sign above it that reads, "Phone Not In  Service between 11am and 6pm". As we walked through the front door we stepped back in time to another world, an Italian world. Every walk of life was there from the suits of the city, to the eighty year old Italian guys that were dressed in their button down Arrow shirts and friends since childhood, to the guy you know had saved a week's pay just to buy a slice of pie. Since we all couldn't agree on one type of pizza we ordered three. I died and went to heaven with that first bite, and.......the grease DID drip all the way down to my elbow!

After two hours of ordering, waiting and eating our infamous pizza, we left to Jeff's mother's house who happens to live in the same neighborhood as Matt Damon's mother. She was ALL Boston, complete with the hospitality and thick accent. We then rushed across the street to the Harvard Bookstore before it closed to experience piece of the oldest college in the US. What an incredible campus!!

Through these two days, Boston became the most favorite place I've ever visited, pulling a close second to Calgary! The culture of the Italians and Irish consumed me. I felt the soul of the city emanating from every street corner. The value placed on family, extended family, nationality and the passion that Bostonians do everything with only begins to show the passions that America was founded on. I love Boston! And I hated to leave..........

Boston Harbor