New England: Lexington and Concord, Sudbury, and Hartford

We left North Conway by 830 a.m. on October 16, 2020, and drove south by the quickest route.  We savored the bright trees along the roads on our way to the freeway.  

David wanted to stop at the North Bridge, where the first shots of the Revolutionary War had been fired.  The area was covered in vibrant leaves.  It was not only northern New England that was gorgeous this fall. 

We also stopped for an ice cream at “Ranco,” a top-rated Lexington ice cream store.  I ordered “Mexican chocolate,” flavored with cinnamon, and “Bombay,” a variation of kulfi which was flavored with cardamom and filled with cashews.  I love to make homemade ice cream, and this shop gave me new ideas.

We stopped by Camille’s old house at 34 Abbotswood Drive in Sudbury.  We texted her a photo.  Camille responded, “Oh, wow. We definitely miss it.”  David and I talked about how much we also miss visiting Camille in Massachusetts.  “There’s where I used to run,” David said to me, pointing to a footpath leading into the forest across from Camille’s house.  It was a bittersweet visit.

We stopped by Honey Pot Hill Orchards, which we visited many times with Camille.  David remembered arriving from Salt Lake City one time, worried about problems, and feeling the problems melt away as he picked apples in the orchard.  We shot a photo of the masses of pumpkins in the Honey Pot Hill Orchards yard and a photo of the sign to the store, advertising “cider donuts.”  Inside were five and ten lb. bags of many varieties of apples.  I wished I could take 20 or 30 lbs. home with me and make them into applesauce!  I bought a donut and a bottle of cider, which was the best cider I have ever drunk—better, even, than the Red Barn cider from Payson, Utah.  The cider tasted distinctly of fresh apples.

 

We drove on to Hartford.  David stayed in the car, doing “church stuff,” while I spent 1 ½ hours exploring the fabulous Wadsworth Athaeneum.  It was almost in the league of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, with whole rooms of Baroque and Impressionist paintings.  There were also great displays of European porcelain from the Sevres and Meissen factories.  I didn’t have time to explore the collection of American paintings, but I assume it was even more spectacular

David and I finished the day with one last seafood dinner at the Chowder Pot.  I ordered a cup of lobster bisque, a lobster roll, and a slice of carrot cake.  “Now it’s back to austerity,” I assured David.