Farmington Canal Heritage Trail Hopmeadow Street, Simsbury to Red Oak Hill Road, Farmington (~11 miles) July 2020 If you'd like to check out section 1, here you are. You can also learn a bit about the history of the failed Farmington Canal and how it became the failed rail line there as well. We'll pick up … [Read more...]
Farmington Canal Heritage Trail Intro
Farmington Canal Heritage Trail Massachusetts border (Suffield) to New Haven The summer of 2020 - the pandemic summer of 2020 - sort of forced my son Calvin and I to begin riding Connecticut's rails-to-trails in earnest. Nothing was open for visits in any normal way, so why not ride our bikes. Unfortunately, Calvin … [Read more...]
Chrissie D’Esopo’s Flower House
D'EsoPow! Chrissie D'Esopo's Flower House Avon I view this page two ways. One, it's ridiculous. I can't be driving around the state every June taking drive-by pictures of every house with nice landscaping. C'mon now. Or... it's awesome. Surely I'm highlighting the immense labor and cost put into this place on … [Read more...]
Book Review: The Night Country
Ghosted The Night Country by Stewart O’Nan (2004) Even if this book was terrible, I'd still kind of love it. Stewart O'Nan has a thing for setting his stories in the very real places that he knows best. I'd previously read Last Night at the Lobster which is set, more or less, at the mall nearest my house. … [Read more...]
James MacDonald Monument
Old MacDonald Had a Firm... Grasp of Impending Realities James MacDonald Monument, Avon You've all seen it. Many of you have passed it 100's of times. I know I sure have. The strangely placed, impossible to read, tall, black monument on route 44 on the Avon side of "the mountain." "The mountain" being … [Read more...]
Talcott Mountain State Park Intro
Talcott Mountain State Park Avon, Bloomfield, & Simsbury Ah, yes. My backyard. Almost literally. Nearly everyone in north central Connecticut can see Talcott Mountain's Heublein Tower on their daily commute if they try. It is the pillar that stands sentry over both the Farmington River and Connecticut River … [Read more...]
Avon: Complete!
Avon: Complete! The North House Here is the CTMQ Guide to Avon with my list and stories about everything I’ve done there! After a decade of writing CTMQ, I decided to try to “complete” towns. In that decade of traveling and writing, I had already done a lot of stuff in many of our towns already. However, I … [Read more...]
Farmington Valley Arts Center
Fusing Art and History Farmington Valley Arts Center, Avon (Location) May 2019 Connecticut museum visit #419. When I wrote about Avon's nearby Climax Road, it reminded me about the Farmington Valley Arts Center. I had poked my head in a few times over the years for various reasons, one being my friend Eina … [Read more...]
Horseguard State Park Scenic Reserve
Horsing Around Horseguard State Park Scenic Reserve, Avon November 2016 In October of 2016, The Hartford Courant's Peter Marteka wrote, Horse Guard State Park Scenic Reserve is one of those [astericked, as in overlooked] places. But after what I saw on my visit, it easily moved into my "Top 10 list of … [Read more...]
J. Foster Ice Cream
Fostering Larger Waistlines J. Foster Ice Cream, Avon May 2019 The Simsbury location closed in October 2020. It’s a bit weird to me to write about something I’ve been to a dozen times already over the course of the last decade. Such is the case with J. Foster Ice Cream in Avon. They have a satellite location in … [Read more...]