The Red Chair Diaries at the Tidewater Inn - III

Dear Diary,

Thursday, October 11, 2012:

    Oh what a beautiful morning! Oh what a beautiful day! ... just want to start out singing today. It's all blue skies and sunshine!

    Here I am at the Tidewater Inn for another fun day of adventures and surprises along the CT shoreline. It's so nice here that I sometimes have to pinch myself to be sure I'm not dreaming ... it's all real.


Cousin Scarlet and Me

    And here's my first surprise of the day - my cousin Scarlet's here too! She came out front here for some morning sunshine before breakfast too. We have lots to share and catch up on. I haven't seen her in who knows how long. We decided to have a nice long chat. I invited her to join us for today's touring, but she already had plans for the day. She and I will have stories to tell each other this evening over wine and cheese.


Barrels and Barrels of Wine

    Before coming to the Tidewater Inn I had enjoyed a few days at the Fitch Claremont Vineyard BandB in Bozrah CT. It's a working vineyard, and it was time to bring in the harvest and crush the grapes. It was hard work but lots of fun too. So, Victoria thought I might like to see the end result of such labor. To do this we visited the nearby Chamard Vineyards, less than 10 minutes drive from the Tidewater Inn, in Clinton CT.

Wine Cellar

      Chamard Vineyards grow several white and red varieties of grapes and produce fine white and red varietal and blended wines. So delicious that they are served daily at the Tidewater Inn for wine and cheese time. At the vineyards we were able to go into the barrels rooms where the wine was lovingly cared for and watched over by the wine maker until it was just the right time to bottle it and release it for us all to enjoy.  The bottled wine was carefully stored in their wine cellar. Here's a photo of me taking it all in. I wanted to taste some, but they wouldn't let me ... no I.D. handy to prove I was of age. Can you imagine! They said I looked far too young to be drinking wine.    

     We returned to the inn for a light lunch and then went in search of dessert. This girl knows her way around the foodies scene on the shoreline and she drove us straight to Sugar Bakery in East Haven - winners of the Food Network's Cupcake Wars!


Cupcake Champs!

     Wow! I never saw so many delicious looking treats in one place at one time! I had a tough time choosing and finally settled on three: Red Velvet, of course (need I say more?), Toasted Almond, and Chocolate Fudge (I asked for the cupcake that tasted the chocolatiest. This is supposed to be it.). I couldn't wait to take my first bites of these wonderful confections. Going to have to take a few long walks after this to burn off the calories, but it's all worth it.

    I found out that they even have a cupcake truck, so you don't have to go to the bakery to buy your favorite treat. If you follow them on facebook you can just check to see where the truck will be on any day. Now isn't that so nice of them to bring the treats out to us?


Bird Houses at Meigs Point

     OK, I said we had to walk some of those calories off, so now we're at Hammonasset Beach State Park, and specifically at the Meigs Point Nature Center. I'm especially interested in why this is such a popular spot for birding. It turns out that this part of the CT shoreline is on the North Atlantic migration path, and the park is an ideal location and stopping point for migrating birds. Including the migrating birds and those that make this spot their home there are hundreds of species that can be seen and identified here throughout the year, and Spring and Fall are the most popular times with new species coming and going every day.

     Walking past the Butterfly Garden, behind the nature center, we saw bird houses mounted way up high on poles. Hospitality for feathered friends, they could be called B and B's for birds!

Seashells Sculpture

     Around the corner I spied the biggest Conch shell I had ever seen. I wandered over to look and realized I'd been fooled. It wasn't real. It was part of an outdoor sea shell sculpture exhibit. Don't I look nice standing there among the shells?


Amazing Driftwood Tree

     We're by the sea, at the beach . How can we not go and take a walk along the shore? It's an irresistible draw, walking on the beach, and at this state park there are over 2 miles of seashore to enjoy.

     Over here at the East end, by Meigs Point, there is a huge piece of driftwood. Look! It's almost twice as tall as I am. I am fascinated. It was the better part of a whole tree, and I am at the roots end. It's got lots of character. Victoria showed me her photos of it from last Spring. It was much more whole and has weathered and deteriorated much over the summer. I wonder if the nature center would ever take it inside to preserve it for future generations to see and appreciate?


Hugs from my Apple Tree

      Autumn is happening along the shoreline. Trees won't be turning to their finest colors here until the end of the month, and that's when the leaf peeping will be best, but right now the apple trees are heavy laden with ripe fruit ready for picking. We went to Bishops Orchards in Guilford and right away I found this tree that was almost more red than green with all the hundreds (had to be hundreds at least) of apples on its branches. Look at the photo and you'll see that those apples were jumping right into my lap, begging to be picked and later enjoyed.

These particular apples are the Stayman variety. We asked about them and found out that they have a thick skin, are sweet-tart and crisp, and great for baking. When we returned to the inn we peeled and cut one for a taste. Delicious! I'd never heard of them before, but now I like these just as much as my favorites, the Macoun's.


Hiding in the Hay

    There's lots of fun to get ourselves into at Bishops, and I couldn't resist playing hide and go seek among the hay bales. Problem: with my bright red color I stick out like a sore thumb!


Can you see me now?

     Ok, so then I thought I'd hide among all the crazy, colorful, bumpy gourds - the pumpkin's exotic cousins.  Seems that now I'm too tall and still easy to find. Oh well. I should have tried to hide in the Corn Maze. Next time, just you wait! I think I'll just go to the pumpkin patch and wait for the Great Pumpkin.



The perfect pumpkin patch

    Wow! I made it. I found the perfect pumpkin patch. Surely this is where the Great Pumpkin will rise this year!  Look at all of those pumpkins! Big, little, round, short, tall, but all of them a bright and deep orange. I wonder how they tell each other apart. Maybe the Great Pumpkin is already here ... Hmmm. I'd better look more closely.



A closer look

      The late afternoon sunshine was gilding everything with a warm, golden glow. Even me! And then the shadows came softly. It was time to move on, but not before taking a moment to stop by a "picture spot" to create a memory.

Apple of her eye



        I tried to put my face in the opening. I sure did look funny. In the end I decided it would make a better memory with the pumpkins in the face opening and me by its side.  Victoria says I'm still the Apple of her eye.

     As we were in Guilford, we decided to make one last stop before going home. We didn't want to miss The Old Stone House -- The Henry Whitfield State Museum. 



Henry Whitfield House

      The Rev. Henry Whitfield's family home, built in 1639, is Connecticut's oldest house and New England's oldest stone house. Built with a steeply pitched roof, casement windows and thick and sturdy stone walls, it served as a fort for the community. All this, and more details and history are on their web site, just saying. In case you want to know more.

 

     Of course, there's nothing like being there to see for yourself. We arrived just after the museum had closed for the day but enjoyed looking at the Old Stone House and the beautiful grounds.

 

Getting Acquainted

     I stepped up to the door and stayed awhile to get acquainted. This Old Stone House has stories to tell, and I wanted to hear them all. And what a great contrast between this, the oldest stone house in New England, and Gillette Castle, built three centuries later, that we saw yesterday. Both were built from the stones of their land, but look how they are so entirely different from each other - like night and day. I find it fascinating to have seen them both within 24 hours.

Intimate Chat

     Speaking of architectural contrasts, just down the street from the Old Stone House, right in the same historic neighborhood, is a condominium structure that looks like it could be part of the fleet of the Starship Enterprise. (Who of you reading this can remember that?) Perched high on a hill, designed and built in the late 1980's by an architect known for his Modernist style, to take full advantage of shore, salt marsh, and ocean views (now partially blocked by grown trees, alas), it looks like a space station about to take off.  "Everyone asks me about that," the Old Stone House told me quietly. "What is it? Who allowed it? It sticks out like a sore thumb. ... These are the comments we hear all the time."

   "Yes, it's clearly a different architectural style than the rest of the neighborhood," the Old Stone House reflected, but reminded me that when the Rev. Henry Whitfield's house was built in 1639 it too was the odd structure in the neighborhood. Both buildings have stood the test of time, along with many others of various architectural styles that also call this historic neighborhood and shoreline town home.

There's something about a New
England Stone Wall

     Stone walls are iconic to New England, and Connecticut has more than its share of them. There is a certain romance and attraction connected with these old dry-built stone walls. They, too, have stood the test of time.  I find the ones at the Old Stone House property absolutely irresistable.  Warmed by the rays of the late afternoon sunshine, I sat in the elongated shadows by the side of this wall and listened to see if I could hear it tell its tales of all who jumped over it, sat by it, climbed it, built it, shaped it, walked along it ...



A peaceful ending to
a perfect day



     As the sunlight became more golden and the shadows grew long and tall under the wide-spread branches of this majestic tree it was time to turn toward home after another delightful and inciteful day along the CT shoreline.  It's amazing how much we've covered, how much we've experienced, and how much we've seen.

   I'm told that tomorrow we'll explore the center of Madison itself, home of my host, the Tidewater Inn. I may be tired now, but already I'm anticipating another exciting day. I wonder what the dinner plans are for tonight? .... Hmmmm ...