New England 'Marmite' Flydrive - Day7 - Farms

[roonlou]

Day 6 - Birthday Fun

Friday 21st August 2009, Day 7
Publick House Historic Inn, Sturbridge MA
Distance 240 miles
Farms, Candles and Thunderstorms

Awoke lots of times during the wee small hours, but fully awake at just after 6am to have a bash on this trip report. Roo kindly gathered our belongings and repacked ready for the next leg of our journey, today we had our biggest drive of 240miles to the town of Sturbridge Massachusetts, it would take about 4 ½ hours on these American roads and American speed limits, so we planned a stop at an historical farm about 70 miles from our origin to break up the journey. Thunder storms were promised later, but so far it was just hot and muggy.



After checking out of the Club, we headed off to our next destination keeping our eyes peeled for some where to grab a quick breakfast. As soon as we spotted a decent sized garage we pulled in to grab some chow. Pots of cereal, yoghurt, fruit, coffee and pastries were selected as we did hungry laps of the store. There was a small dining area inside, so we sat in the cool air con and enjoyed our morning meal.

The first part of our journey was on small twisting roads travelling through the Green Mountain Park, and we spotted a sign for some Water Falls, and decided to visit. Unfortunately, the paths and bridges had suffered damage during a flood last summer, and were in the process of being repaired so nothing much to see, fortunately though, there were toilets to visit instead.



We soon arrived at Billings Historical Farm, and so far the skies were still blue above. We parked up and paid our entrance fee to visit the centre. First up, was helping a lady hang a quilt in the cart barn ready for a demonstration later that morning, then off to see the Jersey Cows in the milking shed. Also in the shed they had a selection of calf's aged between 2 weeks and 1 year, and if you used the medical hand stuff, you were allowed to prod them and give them a little fussing. We had a chat to one of the staff members at a “get close to the cow” demo, but it was more like the cow getting close to him than anything else!







There were a couple of dray horses, and more cows, sheep and bulls in the fields outside, and lots and lots of flies! We then visited the 1900's house, to receive a very date orientated guide of the property. It was very advanced for it's time apparently, but as it had more recently been apartments rather than a farm house, there had been a lot of guess work on the interior décor to restore it to times of past. After visiting downstairs where the butter was made, perhaps, the man of numbers directed us upstairs, to another less informative guide.





The house was very grandly decorated with lots of pictures of the time, apparently only one of the photo's were of the original family that lived there, the rest were brought because of nice frames and right age. We then followed the smells to the kitchen, where a slightly confused lady was cooking fare of the times. The smell of fried onions in butter was very tempting, but the wood fed stove was very hot in an already warm day. We chatted to her for a while, as she struggled with “complex” recipes of no more than 3 ingredients, before deciding to head out of the hot kitchen and back on the road.



Back to the car with a couple of spots of rain dropping from above, and Roo and me at the front of the car. The roads were now going to be mainly interstates, so we were looking forward to getting some distance under our belts. This would have been better if the torrential rain and thunderstorms hadn't of come into play, the local drivers don't seem to have problems with low visibility, still driving at high speeds, inches apart and on mobile phones – scary stuff. Needless to say, we saw a couple of bent cars on the side of the road on route.

[roonlou]

At around about 2pm, we stopped at a local town to grab some lunch – decided to treat the folks to a posh grilled chicken dinner at KFC! We all had the breast meal with two sides and a biscuit, cheap and tasty eats for our road trip. After this stop, Pa took over the driving and we again headed onwards, this time stopping at the visitors centre in Massachusetts, to grab a local map.

This was a handy stop, as Roo found a leaflet for the nearby Yankee Candle Shop, the biggest candle store in the world – so we programmed Tom Tom for a visit. Unfortunately, we managed to drive straight past it, but after a few u-turns found the giant store. We headed inside to receive a map of the store, and wandered around admiring all the wares on sales. There is of course a candle section, selling over 200 different smelling candles in many different sizes and types, a general store selling local New England products, a food mall, Halloween section, toys, Christmas section, divided into even more Christmas related bit – even Santa Claus resides there, gardening section, card shop, place to make your own candles, place to make hand dipped sculptures, candle museum, home ware, coffee shops, cafés, car air freshener section and so on and so on. Some section are themed very beautifully, and it even snowed in the night time Christmas areas, and most areas had model train tracks suspended from the ceilings with small trains travelling round. Needless to say we spent a good couple of hours in there to come out $75 lighter - did get a free candle though - to very black ominous skies above – we were informed we'd just missed another giant thunderstorm, and it wasn't to be the last of the day.











It was only just over an hours journey to our lodgings for the night, but due to the weather took much longer, as we travelled through the still quite mountainous backdrop, we had bolts of silver bright lightening shooting through the black clouds 360 degrees round our car. The rain again was very heavy, and still the locals drove like they were late for a very important event, but we managed to safely arrive at the town of Sturbridge just after 6pm. As we pulled up outside the Dickens's style reception building, there was a break in the rain, and we just managed to get into the Inn nice and dry – then it started heavily raining again.



The nice man on reception on hearing it was Pa's Birthday yesterday immediately upgraded all our rooms from the Motor Lodge to the main building, and as a special treat, a suite for Ma and Pa. And as this Inn was built in 1771 known to have spectral activities, and even though the receptionist denied being a believer he confirmed that guests had experienced strange stuff.

Roo bravely unloaded the car, getting soaking wet before disappearing into the car to put it in the car park round back. The folk’s room was just at the top of the stairs by the reception, so they helped me up with our bags whilst Roo was away - their room was amazing. Duel aspect with separate sitting room, large bathroom, walk-in closet and a big bedroom with a king sized four poster bed. Very impressive. Pa and I travelled further along, turning right, up a step, left down a step, right again, right again, up some more and down some more before finally arriving at our room, number 11. It was very similar to theirs but on a much smaller scale and only one room with a 4 poster double bed. The décor was charming, almost like putting a bed in the middle of your great Nan’s living room.



After a quick shower, we met at Ebenezer's Tavern for our evening meal. It was very busy and smelt and looked like a proper British Inn. We were seated by a window next to a family celebrating a Birthday. Our orders were taken by the young waiter, and a basket of breads were brought over with the drinks. They have their own bakery here, and the selections of breads were delicious, it even had the special of the Hotel – warm maple pecan bread – very sweet and sticky for a bread course!





Roo and I had the 100 year old famous Lobster Pie, filled to the brim with fresh lobster in a cheesy herb sauce, served with crushed new potato mash and butter-nut squash. Ma had chicken pot pie, and Pa had Prime Rib Roast served rare with fresh horseradish and the same sides as us. I had wine to wash it down, iced tea for Ma, and a beer for the boys. The food was amazing, and very reasonable.





We shared an Indian Pudding for desert, kind of soft pie filling served bubbling hot made with corn meal, molasses and ginger with a dollop of ice-cream on top, sweet and moorish – coffee's and bourbons to finish the meal. Good eats in a friendly tavern. We then attempted to explore the huge Inn, travelling through twisty uneven corridors passed the pub and the bakery and by large conference rooms, only to realise when we looked at the map of the site in our room later that we'd missed a massive chunk out. Little bit of Food Network TV before passing out for a nights sleep.

Day 8 - The Village and Seafood

[DisneyMadAng]

Pity you didn't get the the waterfalls and shame about the rain during your drive.

the candle store...you need a map?!

Great upgrade on the room .

[Mickeyetta]

So that's where santa goes for his summmer hols... Yankee Candle land makes sense now!

Onto read day 8...

H

[Guest]

Another great report with lovely photos.

[Strommie]

Another great day. The candle store sounds amazing!

[ethanjosh]

Good day again, the Inn you stayed at looks lovely

[orlandosgr8]

A long journey for you all. Lol at needing a map at the Candle store. The Lobster pie sounds heavenly.

[DIBBadmin]

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