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THURSDAY
TOMS BROOK - Left Thursday morning early and arrived early enough to eat dinner at my favorite Pizza Place (so far) - Tolle's Pizza in East Haven, CT.
The pizza was very good - as usual - and the waitress was fantastic. We ordered "Il Poggio," an inexpensive Italian wine. We went to the huge Branford liquor store and bought 6 bottles of Il Poggio after dinner to take home. The other brand which she recommended and let us taste (for free) was not at the liquor store - Umberto Cesari - Sangiovese di Romagna. (We had a glass on arrival home to celebrate our return home. - it rained and SNOWED all the way home - driving not too pleasant.)
We checked in at a hotel in Clinton which is about 20 miles away from Branford. A small hotel run by (West) Indians. We made several complaints during our three-night stay regarding bath tub not draining, etc. Will not stay there again. We went the next day searching hotels in the vicinity the next day, but came up with nothing we were enthused about. All three hotels in the area we looked at are run by Indians and smelled mostly of Indian food. Our sheets smelled of Indian soap -- tee hee! But much better than the perfumed sheets (Bounty!) that we are accustomed to - yuk! They were very clean and changed regularly - unlike the sheets at Motel 6 not being changed when you stay 2-3 nights. It was the first hotel I've ever stayed that didn't have coffee available before 8 a.m., and then in a small thermos with no cream or sugar available for it.
FRIDAY
Friday morning we were up and off to the Casino at Mohegan, CT for a buffet breakfast. We ate for one hour. Egg stromboli and pan et chocolat (bread and chocolate) were my particular favorites. What service we had was good and coffee was OK. I had to laugh that the French toast was the type you see in the fast food restaurants and the waffles were the type you see packaged up in the grocery stores. The roast beef was excellent -- I am a vegetarian -- so I have excellent credentials (ha!) -- the corn pudding was different and tasty. The fruit was fresh. Over-all, it was pretty darned good.
John's father, as usual, left the table early and went to gamble. We wandered the halls with Ermah in her wheel-chair. We looked again at the beautiful water falls, the small, but beautiful acquarium at the entrance of one of the stores, and the fantastic wolf stationed on a mountain overlooking a pond. I did enter a small Indian store and saw a pair of inexpensive turquoise earrings, but didn't buy as I have decided to find a pair that I like at the Monican powwow next month.
We stopped a heath food store in Guilford - a nice historic town nearby (on our own). We have been there many times before -- buying a wheat grass machine -- you know, that kind of wonderful place! I was looking for my brand of Italian Alps honey -- but couldn't find it , so we bought some Tupelo honey (after seeing a couple of months' ago "Ulee's Gold") not remembering what was so special about Tupelo honey. I think the special thing is the price -- tee hee! (We had it on pita bread this morning and it was pretty good.)
We returned to Branford at John and Ermah's house, but it was too cold and breezy to sit outside. While John fixed the a/c system in the back rental house, I waited in the car studying some French (enjoying the time to myself) and Ermah waited in the house.
We took a walk to the beach and Branford Park on the beach. As we were looking at a particular house - 65 Harbor Street - and wondering if it was one of John's ancestor's homes, the neighbor asked us if it interested us. The house was his, as well as the modern house next door where he lived. He told us the story of the house which had been built by Frank Parker around 1880. It was called the Edgewater Inn and was a "speakeasy." He took us into the house and showed us where the rooms (or cubicles) were for the beds used for entertaining the customers. He said that Parker had owned all of the beach and had put a floating-type restaurant there that had speed-boats that ran liquor to the restaurant. The liquor had come from Cuba, he said. This was all enlightening to us, as John had never heard of this, nor had his parents.
We then went to Paul's, another Pizza restaurant, East Haven, which we had been to before. They always burn their pizzas, and I saw on a table of 5 people, there were 3 large pizzas on it, all looking like they were 3 large pans of brownies. I kid you not! We asked for ours to be "not burnt." but the coal-fired pizza oven is so hot that it is impossible not to burn some and get the dough cooked. The flavor of the sauce was good, but not as good as Tolle's. I noticed that our pizza took an overly long time, and we saw them running into the restaurant with the same Costco garlic that I use for our pizzas. John had a bad case of GERD both nights from pizza OR wine. Thank heavens for my Aciphex!
We went straight to the motel -- (early) watching WAR news on FOX-news.
SATURDAY
Saturday morning we left our motel in Clinton for a trip we were dreading because we thought there might be hold-ups in the highway. But we sailed right through to Hartford, CT to the Wadsworth Anthenium Museum of Art. We arrived a little before the 10:00 a.m. opening time.
The exhibit was a retrospective of MARSDEN HARTLEY. The works were stunning. At 11:00 there was a lecture by the biographer of the artist which lasted until 12:30 p.m. What a lecture! Fantastic. Here is one particular painting that I like (although not partcularly representative of his work)
http://www.ncmoa.org/collections/highlights/20thcentury/20th/1910-1950/037_lrg.shtml
We left the museum for coffee as the cafe seating was to close for comfort and too expensive for us. We came back and looked at the permanent collections of the museum which are quite good. Then we went thru the Hartley exhibit again, seeing it in a different light.
Coming home, we stopped at Tommy K's Video hoping to find a used foreign film for purchase, but came home with only one - Jacko & Lise - Belgium/France 1979. Looking it up, I found that she is playing the mother to my favorite actress, Isabelle Huppert, in the yet-to-be-seen "The Piano Teacher."
We called John's parents and they were ready to eat at 4:30 p.m, so we went to the local pizza parlor that just opened up recently that we hadn't been to. It is usually crowded. So we had pizza for the third night in a row. All right by me as there is no better pizza in the world than New Haven pizza. I decided to order Ziti and Broccoli with a salad and "taste" John's pizza. The salad was typically head-lettuce with a bottled dressing. The Ziti was overcooked, the broccoli was overcooked and there was some type of margarine flooding both which was terrible tasting, plus the garlic was burnt! The pizza sauce was voluminous topping the pizza and the crust was limp. I'd NEVER return here. I mentioned to John's dad that we would have to go without him to Salle's Pizza -- most famous for good pizza -- if he would not go. I've been begging to go, but he won't wait lines. He PROMISED to go next time, but I don't think he will. We'll have to go earlier in the evening, as we did here, as by 5:00 they were waiting in line for this AWFUL pizza here.
We decided to go back to our motel and have some wine and chat with them, it was still before 6 p.m. But we stopped at McDonald's for after-dinner coffee (We don't go to my favorite coffee shop anymore.) The coffee and desserts are fantastic there -- on Main Street downtown Branford. It is too crowded to take Ermah to and besides she is always ready to go too soon for me. I like to enjoy my coffee and deserts with time. They seem uncomfortable, so we just don't suggest it. While at McDonald's, Ermah decided to leave on her own because she couldn't sit there listening to us talk the way we did because she would become just like us. (Dementia!) So we were back to the motel by 6:30 p.m. by ourselves listening to FOX War News (again) the rest of the evening. As I was ready to fall asleep, the rooms on either side of us filled up and left their TV's blaring until the wee hours. Earlier on we had a long downpour of rain -- so that was a nice plus hearing the beautiful rain -- through John's snoring -- tee hee!
SUNDAY
We were to meet the folks at 9:00 for breakfast, but thankfully we changed it to 8:00 a.m. so as to get an early start -- there was rain and snow all the way despite our early departure. We stopped at BJ's at the Palisades Mall after we crossed Tappen See Bridge to get some wonderful purchases - (Nona's biscotti, bruschetti, Giradelli Double Chocolate Coffee, Kona Coffee, a Polder kitchen sink strainer for pasta, etc.) I was getting back to feeling normal.
We arrived home about 6 p.m. happy to see our driveway was free of snow. We later saw on the news that the President had to return by car instead of air from Camp David, MD. It was really snowing and had about 2-3" of snow. We were thankful. The weather channel had shown that no snow would be falling thru the Shenandoah Valley where we live; however, they were mistaken.
So happy to be home!
Created Monday
March 31, 2003