~ Weekend in New England ~

After nearly one entire decade of not taking a vacation of any kind, hubs and I finally made a little time for ourselves and took a 3-day trip up to New England this past weekend! We drove out Friday morning and got through DC ok but encountered a horrid traffic jam in New Jersey that delayed us about an hour and a half, yuck!...then one of the things on our agenda was to drive through Times Square in NYC, crazy right? RIGHT...we encountered the biggest, craziest, most insane traffic jam coming out of the toll booth that leads into the Lincoln Tunnel...I have never even imagined such a thing could occur!!...well we lived to tell about it is all I can say!!...we did manage to drive through Times Square on a Friday night, I was driving, and let me tell you THAT was an experience in and of itself!!...we have never been to NYC and it is at the very top of hubs' list of want-to-do things...we need to go back on the train and do one of those sightseeing bus tours...anyway, after another couple of hours sitting in traffic getting out of the area, we continued on our journey...the main problem was that we were supposed to be at my friend Connie's house around 6PM for dinner and it was now WAY WAY past that!...we felt SO BAD!!...we didn't arrive to her place in CT until 10PM!!!...this is when they normally go to bed and she was serving us dinner!...and what a delicious dinner it was!...Connie and her husband Paul live in a 4000 sq. ft. log home that they built many years ago and Connie has it completely and totally decorated in the 1700-1800 period...every single room is full of the most fabulous furnishings...she has candles lit all over the place with minimal lighting and the ambiance is stunning!...there really are no words to describe their home...I could have spent many more hours just gazing at each and every room...she's got big cupboards and gorgeous antiques everywhere and nothing looks cluttered as she has the perfect touch in placing her smalls here and there...I could go on and on!...there are no pictures that would even come close to doing it justice so I didn't even try...we spent the night in one of her upstairs rooms and got a good night's sleep...in the morning we had coffee and bagels and a very nice visit...she's got an adorable little shoppe right on their property and I did a wee bit of shopping!...here's a pic of my goodies:
...the dried gourd was a gift from Connie, and she made those cute little balls in the tin cup herself, they look like miniature cloved oranges!...here's a link to her Picture Trail: Log Cabin Primitives ...Thank you again Connie and Paul for your generous hospitality!!!

Saturday, shortly after noon, we continued on up to MA to attend the antique show going on at Walker Homestead...I was disappointed in general...it may have been because of all the rain the previous day and the muddy conditions, but the mosquitoes were outta hand!, it was just horrible!...we had to hurry our way through and I really didn't enjoy it at all...I now wish we had opted to just visit the nearby Sturbridge area and go in a few shoppes there...although I did run into a couple of fellow bloggers I recognized, Bonnie and Sarah, that was nice!...and I did make a purchase at the show...this sweet little redware jug made by Pied Potter Hamelin:
...it won't be difficult finding a spot for this little gem!

After a whirlwind tour of the antique show, we drove about a half an hour to my friend Linda's house...she was having a gathering of friends who were in the area attending the show too...we have been blog buds for a few years now and I have seen many pictures of her lovely home which is furnished beautifully and if you have seen her pictures, you know her decorating is just perfect!...here's a link to her Picture Trail...it was such fun to finally be there in person and of course the best part was meeting Linda!...she is just the absolutely sweetest person!!...she had prepared a wonderful spread of goodies, oh my everything was SO DELICIOUS!...and she sent us home with so many goodies, we had yummies in our hotel room that night and all the way home!...Thank you Linda!!

We had originally planned to have dinner at a nearby restaurant but were just too exhausted and decided to cancel the dinner reservations. We checked into our hotel room, ordered a pizza, and went to bed early!...I was so paranoid about the possibility of bedbugs that I barely slept a wink...I am not comfortable spending the night away from home anyway...so at about 3:30AM, I finally gave up on sleeping...hubs woke up at about 5AM and we decided to skip the free breakfast and get on the road since we had quite a long drive ahead of us!...since we were getting an early start, hubs wanted to drive back through NYC again...oh joy! LOL...so this time we drove past the World Trade Center site and saw the beautiful new skyscraper they're building...traffic in the city was a little less chaotic since it was Sunday and we managed to get outta there without too much trouble...just a few horn honks and a couple close calls, LOL...we really want to get back there and see the sights the proper way...we knew driving through was not the way to do it, it's just that our route was taking us so close, we just had to do it!

We arrived back home in Central Virginia at about 5PM and it feels good to be home...I immediately had to get to work packing orders before I could even rest but I am now caught up and getting back to normal...I may be getting too old to do this sort of thing again but I'm glad we did it!...have a great week!