New England Fall

We had a great weekend in New England and I'm already ready to go back! At the last minute, our friend Jackie ended up being able to join us so it was Joy, Jackie and I. Our adventure started with a terrible drive out of the city on Friday night. It took us about 3 hours to go 70 miles. We finally arrived to Conway, NH at 2am...not exactly what we'd hoped for.

After a quick night's sleep, we were up and out by 10am. We found a cute little cafe in Conway where we grabbed breakfast. I had a goat cheese/spinach omelet that could compete with the best omelets in NYC. Conway is right on the edge of the Kancamagus Highway, one of the most scenic drives in America. The road goes through the White Mountain National Forest and we had a lot of fun driving through the mountains and making a few stops to do some hiking. We even saw our first covered bridge and a waterfall! I love to hike in beautiful places, so this was very fun for me and possibly motivated me to do some more hiking in NY this fall. We were a little disappointed in the colors of the trees. This weekend, they were supposed to be at almost-to-peak, but we still saw quite a bit of green. Not that we didn't see some really brilliant colors as well, it just wasn't quite what we'd thought it would be.

After our drive, we ended up in the town of Lincoln, NH where we found the perfect lunch spot. I had a piece of the most amazing pumpkin/cornmeal bread! From there, we headed on into Vermont. We drove through several cute little towns in Vermont, stopping at various places to shop. There were lots of markets/food shops selling Vermont cheeses and wines and they had tons of samples so that was fun. Our favorite town was Woodstock- it was so cute with great little shops, pretty houses, and even a covered bridge.

Saturday night brought dinner at Simon Pearce in Quechee, Vermont. I had found it online as being a restaurant that used Vermont cheeses and wines. It was a very nice, pretty restaurant. I got the Gorgonzola/Apple/Walnut Ravioli and it was absolutely amazing!

We turned in early Saturday night was we were exhausted. Our hotel was in White River Junction - a very small town with not much in it, but everything up there is so close together - it was a short drive from dinner.

Sunday morning, we got up and drove to a restaurant we had seen the night before for breakfast. Jackie and I got delicious pancakes - an apple/cinnamon, a Maine blueberry, and a blueberry/cranberry. They were great!

From breakfast, we headed on to the Riverview Farm in Plainfield, NH to do some apple picking. It was a blast! This farm had so many things you could pick...raspberries, blueberries, all different kinds of apples, fresh flowers that were beautiful, and a big pumpkin patch. People were there picking all sorts of things! We stuck with just apple picking, but I did pick up some pumpkins/corn/gourds so I could do some fall decorating at home. I had so much fun at this place and it was so nice to enjoy the outdoors.

After apple picking, we got in the car for the drive back home, which was much, much nicer than our drive away from NYC. We had a bit of traffic near the city, but it was not bad at all. We even got to stop in Massachusetts on the way home and grab some Panera for a late lunch, one of my favorite Missouri restaurants!

See pictures from the weekend HERE! These pictures don't do it justice, of course. Although there was still a lot of green, it was more colorful than the pictures show!