Hill-Stead, Not Hill Farmstead Hill-Stead Trails, Farmington January 21, 2018 Hill-Stead is a great museum. Top notch. One of the best. It appears on several CTMQ/state sanctioned cultural trails: The CT Art Trail, CT Women’s Heritage Trail, CT Historic Gardens Trail, and it’s a National Historic Landmark. It’s a … [Read more...]
CTMQ’s Guide to Farmington
Everything Farmington I’ve been exploring and writing about Connecticut since 2006. After a decade, I began compiling CTMQ guides for each town in the state. I plan on “completing” Farmington CTMQ-style... as well as the other 168 towns, cities, and boroughs in Connecticut. That is the ultimate goal of CTMQ. … [Read more...]
Farmington Reservoir Trails
Officially Petitioning for Elephant Shrews Everywhere Farmington: Reservoir Trails ~.75 miles, January 2018 We have a lot of little reservoirs in central Connecticut. As you can imagine, they are hugely important to us residents of central Connecticut. A secondary bonus function of them, besides sustaining our … [Read more...]
Farmington’s Town Seal
Icy Church Daggers of Spite Farmington's Town Seal I am not familiar with all 169 Connecticut town seals. Nor do I ever intend to be. So I can't say with 100% confidence which one is my favorite or the coolest or the worst... though I have my suspicions. For instance, I'm going to guess that no town seal will … [Read more...]
Farmington Land Trust
Farmington Land Trust Farmington I live very close to Farmington, relatively speaking. So it would make sense that I'm well-versed in Farmington hiking opportunities. Alas, weirdly, I am not. Even more weirdly, there are a decent number of trailed properties in the town; many of which I've driven past innumerable … [Read more...]
Pinnacle Rock
Acme Missiles Along the Metacomet Trail, Plainville/Farmington October 6, 2007 My title is a stretch, sure... but “acme” is defined as “the highest point” and Wile E. Coyote was always sourcing his weaponry from Acme and this outcropping, above Plainville and Farmington, used to be a Nike Missile base. Ahem. … [Read more...]
Farmington’s Town Trails
Farmington's Town Trails I spend far too much time on these "town trail intro" pages. They really don't serve much purpose for anyone other than me. After all, who understands the vagaries of "town trails" vs. similar introduction pages for the local land trust trails (among others)? But the real issue is the … [Read more...]
NHL: Stanley-Whitman House
Stanley-Whitman House CT National Historic Landmark 37 High Street, Farmington This is nice - an opportunity to "revisit," in a way, a historic house museum that I was rushed though by Damian on one of his "off" days. (CTMQ Visit here) I had no idea that this old house warranted National Historic status, but … [Read more...]
Shade Swamp Sanctuary
Rage in a Cage Shade Swamp Nature Trails, Farmington September 10, 2009 As I poke around the state and find more trailed properties that aren't part of the CFPA Blue Trail network, I'm finding lots of cool hikes. And then there are others that are cool AND historically interesting AND perhaps just a little weird. … [Read more...]
NHL: First Church of Christ
First Church of Christ, Congregational of Farmington CT National Historic Landmark 75 Main St., Farmington (Operational Church) This church is also on the Amistad Trail My appreciation for the historic district of Farmington is well documented over in the Amistad Trail section where I checked out a bunch of … [Read more...]