Tuesday 10/14/08

The Berkshires

David and Evelyn are back at it again. This morning we have an outstanding apple bread and a quiche lorraine, oatmeal bread and perfect bacon. Evelyn is the baker and says she has been making the apple bread for thirty years and now has it nailed. David was at the desk when we checked out but Evelyn came running into the parking lot to say goodbye. These people are good at the business.

We start west on Rt. 4 to Rutland and a little beyond before turning south. We take a pokey little side road that had a lot of dots (scenic) heading through the hills. We find a little coffee shop in the middle of nowhere for a cup to go and a bathroom break. Like some of our previous drives (Western Ireland, Hawaii, New Zealand, North Wales, Bavaria, Tuscany) our heads keep pivoting and each new vista seems better than the last. After a while each perfect scene starts to become the norm. It is like the second 15 minutes of a fireworks show when you just need more and more until only the grand finale will get one last ooooh-aaaaah.

It is 70 degrees and sunny today which adds to the visuals. We break for lunch in Manchester, VT and find a little café with outdoor dining. With the weather today all the outside tables are full and the servers are scrambling to keep up. John had a half meatloaf sandwich with cheese and bacon and a cup of chili on the side, and Mary the usual tuna sandwich (the usual). We took a little walk around town before getting back on the road.

A short drive south of Manchester we cross the Massachusetts line at Williamstown. We're not sure where the dividing line is but in western Mass the mountains are now the Berkshires. All of these mountains are part of the eastern spine of the country that travels down from the Canadian border into Maine and New Hampshire to north Georgia. The Appalachian trail follows along through the Catskills, Poconos, Blue Ridge and Smokeys and maybe they're all Appalachians. This is real Indian Summer now and the weather is balmy.

We check into our next B&B in Lenox, MA and we know we have left David and Evelyn far behind. The house is pretty impressive and our room is in the Carriage House across the yard in back. When we walk into the entry room of the Carriage House the carpet is painfully soiled and the room is a bit cluttered. Our room isn't much cleaner with a stained and unravelling carpet and mildewy tile grout in the bathroom. The Princess is not pleased.

We stake a stroll around Lenox and find it to be much lower key than Woodstock. Our hostess, Susan, told us the the best restaurants are all on Church Street and we find three or four that look pretty good. Unfortunately they are all interchangeable in price and menu options and we really would like very low key for tonight. After a break in our room we drive back up Rt. 7 a couple miles to the Arizona Pizza Company. This is a franchise place with a Southwestern theme that seems very out of place with Kokopelli paintings and cactus touches, but we have a meaty pizza with good beer that hits the spot. Mary is sleeping with her socks on because of the iffy carpet.

Monday 10/13/08

Woodstock

It’s another village day for us today. It gets off to a rolling start with a terrific breakfast cooked by David and served by Evelyn. A baked apple oozing with butter, cinnamon and raisins, a cranberry sweetbread that was only perfect, and a stack of blueberry pancakes with pure Vermont maple syrup and locally made sausage. Fresh squeezed orange juice and an always full coffee cup completed the picture. When folks know how to run one of these businesses it can be really good and this one is. The town is going to be busy for the Columbus Day holiday (bigger in the Northeast than at home) so Evelyn gets on the phone and makes a dinner reservation for us for tonight.

We start with a walk around town to walk off breakfast. These little New England towns are almost Colonial/Victorian theme parks that have blended the real with the touristy. This place is laid out along a river running through town complete with a covered bridge and village green surrounded by stunning stone buildings from the early 1800’s. We spend a couple hours poking around in the little shops and snapping pictures of the stuff we find interesting.

It is a short hop in the car out to Sugarbush Farm which is a Maple Syrup/cheese producing family farm. They have a very interesting setup with videos, tours of the production facility and tasting rooms for all of their products. They have 500 acres and 6000 maple trees available for tapping from late February to early April. The nights must be below freezing and the days above to get the sap flowing. In this part of the world there might be several feet of snow on the ground when they start so they use teams of horses to get to and from the sap gathering areas. Instead of buckets hanging from the trees they now have a simple system of tubing that runs from the taps into gathering barrels. This season they made 1060 gallons of syrup and at 40 gallons of sap per gallon of syrup it adds up to over 42,000 gallons of sap. After the short syrup season they settle into the cheese making operation and that results in several tons of cheese. It all adds up to a pretty profitable little operation.

After making a few purchases we take a short walk through their maple forest where they have carved out some paths to help give the feel of the sap gathering operation. And, by the way, those 6000 maple trees are now all yellow, orange and red and cover the surrounding hillsides. We need a late lunch and stop at a little deli in the town of Quechee. John had a Gobbler (turkey, cranberries and stuffing on wheat) and Mary has a Rachel, both very good. We eat sitting on folding chairs in the gazebo in the town green.

Route 4 is the main east-west road through these parts and we take that west heading back towards Woodstock. There are a million little shops and oddities along the way and we stop at a few. At Quechee Gorge we get out for a hike up to the dam and take a few pictures of the river ripping downhill under the road and beyond. It is late afternoon when we get back to the Inn for a break.

In the early evening we had a beer at the bar in the Inn and heard the David and Evelyn story. They are from outside Philadelphia, he in sales and she in finance. They finally found this beat up business and bought it because it was the only one that made sense financially. In the seven years since, they have poured all of their cash back into fixing it up and building a successful operation. We all decided that they are exactly 10 years behind us, and they are looking forward to being the guests at some time in the future.

Dinner tonight is at the Prince and Pauper, a short walk into town. Mary orders a parmesan coated chicken with red pepper coulis off the "Bistro" menu and John orders a sort of lamb Wellington off the three course menu. That way we share John’s pate and lingonberry appetizer and we each have the perfect amount. Our waiter sounds eastern European, and is efficient if not bubbly. It was very good.

After the largest ever surge in the market today we sleep better tonight.