We were so excited to get a few days off while in New England and headed to the family farm in Pennsylvania. Our happy place 🙂 . This was our first time at the Farm when there was still snow and Beausarge’s first visit. He loved being able to run free in the snow and had a blast with our cousin Judy’s beagle Cooper (see video of them smash mouthing below). Thanks Judy for the warm hospitality! Having a few days to escape from the world is a great refresh and is so good for the soul.
Food fave @ The Farm: Judy’s homemade gnocchi and meatballs. SOOOO GOOD!! But really, thank you Judy! My great Aunt Norma, Judy’s mom and an amazing Italian woman, was a great cook and Judy has kept that tradition going. <insert drool here>
Stop #6 Upstate New York
The food in Upstate New York was awesome. The Finger Lake wineries had some surprisingly good wines. Their ice-cream game was on the weaker side since they are more of a custard place. Still delicious, it scores lower than the New England goodness. Our Faves:
Poutine & Paté: Kindred Fare in Geneva, NY. We found this place on the way back to Rochester from wine tasting along Lake Seneca, and it was a true gem! The poutine and the paté are absolutely devine. We ended up returning for round 2 before we left because they were just too good to pass up. 😋 DELICIOUS!
Bloody Mary: The Craft in Niagara Falls, NY. They make their own horseradish and it is the bomb! A meal in a glass with the perfect kick.
Almond Croissant: Soul Coffee and Jazz in Rochester, NY. We would have bought them all if they had more than one left. Perfect filling flavor and texture.
Our home in Upstate New York was Rochester. We arrived at the end of Winter so it was not horribly cold but still very chilly. The Finger Lakes area was beautiful to drive through and the winery tastings were awesome. Many of them were dog friendly so the pups got to have an adventure as well. Neither of us had tasted dry Rieslings before and ended up enjoying them quite a bit. Niagara Falls was beautiful and the pups loved walking around the park. The Craft was the perfect afternoon spot to enjoy a Bloody Mary after walking around the Falls. Upstate New York, thank you for a wonderful time!
The first part of the year flew by and I did a horrible job at updating our blog! Here is a quick recap of our adventures from the first half of the year. One of our favorite parts of traveling is the food, so I will include our faves list for each location plus a slideshow following the trip overview.
Stop #1 Long Island/NYC
One of our favorite parts of Long Island / NYC was the amazing food! Absolute Faves:
Gluten Free Pasta: Cafe Formaggio in Carl Place, NY. It was out of this world good. You would never guess it was gluten free.
Tapas, in particular Octopus Salad: Tia Pol in NYC . This place won our hearts for best tapas, but their octopus salad was the best octopus either one of us had eaten. Outstanding.
Papusas & Maduros (sweet fried plantains): Mi Pequeno El Salvador Restaurant in Jackson Heights, NY. We are now obsessed with Salvadoran food thanks to this little spot. SO good!!
Pizza (regular and GF): Keste Pizza & Vino in NYC. I literally had to ask if my pizza was actually gluten free because it was so dang good. Benjamin got the regular pizza and this was the first time EVER that my gf pizza crust was just as good. Well done Keste, well done.
Speakeasy: Please Don’t Tell (PDT) in NYC. This place was SO cool! You enter through a phone booth in hot dog joint (which btw has delicious bacon wrapped hot dogs). Reservations are recommended because they only let a select number of individuals in per night, which is awesome because it is not overcrowded. The mixologists (in this case I will refer to the bartenders as such because they were beyond bartenders), were fantastic and we had some of the best drinks ever. My new fave drink is Corpse Reviver #3 thanks to this great place 🙂 .
Beausarge loved his first trip to Central Park while Coco had been before and was not as thrilled due to the rain, so she stayed in-purse. We had a great time walking and driving around the city checking out the sites. Our cousin Kelli happened to be in the area for a conference and came over for an evening so she and I could meet for the first time and she could catch up with Benjamin. It was a great visit and we immediately hit it off with our love of travel and similar world views. ❤ We love that family time!
The most impactful part of our visit to NYC was to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. It is remarkably well done and is extremely moving. We barely spoke through out the visit and both had tears in our eyes by the end. In particular the room with the photos and audio from the families and the timeline with audio makes you truly realize the terror and loss from that day. The fountains outside of it capture the bottomless grief and leave you with a feeling of emptiness, which we felt was just what the designers were going for. I highly encourage anyone who can to visit, and take a few hours to go through the museum. Beyond just that day it reminds us how small we are and how brief our time is here on our earthly home… how everything can change in one moment. Our many thanks to all those who sacrificed their lives that day trying to save others, and our condolences to all who lost loved ones. They will never be forgotten.
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Stop #2 Connecticut
The food in Connecticut was good… but the ice cream was amazing! Faves:
Ice Cream: I didn’t know New England ice cream was any better than the rest of the States, but HOLY COW IT IS AMAZING!!! The texture is prefect, more dense than your traditional scoop but less dense than gelato. Local is the key here – the smaller batch creameries are all outstanding, you can’t go wrong with any of them that are not mass produced. Ginger is the best flavor ever. period.
Cuban Food: Soul de Cuba, New Haven was a wonderful surprise so far from the south. Their food was delicious and the family history was very cool. I could eat their Maduros ALL DAY LONG.
I am sure there were other places we ate that were awesome, but all I remember is the ice cream and the cuban food.
The scenery was beautiful in Connecticut. It was my first New England winter experience, but with the right layers it was still very enjoyable. New Haven was our favorite city in Connecticut. The entire state is beautiful and had incredible architecture, but New Haven took 1st place. Between the cool shops downtown, the history, nice people and the Yale campus, there was something neat to see no matter where you looked.
Looking out over New Haven, CT
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Stop #3 Massachusetts
The amazing ice cream tour continued in Massachusetts. I made it my goal to look up the best ice cream places everywhere we went, and was not disappointed! The ginger ice cream goes strong in Mass, just as good as Connecticut. Our food faves:
Ice Cream: Ice Cream Smuggler in Dennis, MA & Bart’s Ice cream in Amherst, MA (Bart’s is also available in Whole Foods stores in CT & MA). The ginger flavor is what it is all about up here!
Lobster Roll: Luke’s Lobster Back Bay, Boston MA. Holy Lobster Roll!! Once again a spot that had me asking twice if mine was really gluten free. Best GF roll available! Benjamin had the regular and mine was every but as good as his. SCORE!
Massachusetts was lovely. The history and architecture left us in awe as we explored the grounds of the early US. We were based out of Worcester but took a trip to Cape Cod and Boston, stopping to see Plymouth Rock along the way. Since we are from the south which is so much newer than New England we really enjoyed spotting buildings from the late 1700s and refreshing our early US history.
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Don’t forget to comment and feel free to ask questions! ❤
We spent the past 3 weeks in Arizona and it was absolutely beautiful, but also ridiculously HOT. I can’t lie, Arizona was not high on my list of places to visit, but it proved to be super awesome. Neither one of us had spent any time there so I was super excited for the opportunity when Benjamin was assigned to go. I am always excited to go to a new place! We did not take Stella with us since the daily temps were projected over 110*, so we stayed @ the Residence Inn to beat the heat. The worst part of the extreme heat is that it makes taking the dogs places more tricky – as in the pavement is too hot to trot on after 11am. Beausarge ended up getting booties so he could still get out and about. 🙂
The scenery in Arizona was breathtaking. The saguaros are incredible, especially after reading about old they have to be before growing arms. Around 100 years of age they grow their first arm and can be 15-16 feet tall. By 200 years old they have reached full maturity and can be 45 feet tall. So cool! The desert has a beauty all it’s own, even when a haboob rolls in.Dobbins Lokout on South Mountain provided a lovely view of the Phoenix area.
Dobbins Lokout on South Mountain provided a lovely view of the Phoenix area.
Floating down the Salt River was a great way to take in the beauty while keeping cool and seeing some wild horses. It was a super popular activity and the river was poppin’ with people. Weirdest part – there were several groups that brought marshmallows with them and were having marshmallow fights as they floated down the river. Not my thing… soggy marshmallows flying in the air and bumping into your tube is just gross. Besides that we had a great time 🙂 .
Our next adventure was driving the Apache Trail Scenic Byway. It truly is one of the most beautiful drives we have done. From the enormous saguaros to the contrast of the lakes and rock, there was a picture perfect scene everywhere we looked.
Beausarge was loving the views and had a blast when we stopped at Canyon Lake for a swim.It was super hot the day we went (113*), so after a swim we stopped at Tortilla Flat Saloon for a couple of drinks and a snack. Apache Lake was definitely the most beautiful of the Salt River Lakes.
It is extremely long and has incredible rock cliffs and mountains on most sides. It is only accessible by a couple of roads, unpaved, so it is not as busy as the other lakes and is truly awe inspiring. You can’t look around without knowing that God perfectly created this amazing earth.
On the drive out we drove through Sedona and the Painted Desert. We will definitely have to go back to Sedona since we didn’t have time to stop, but our quick stop at Painted Desert was definitely worth it. The pictures do not do it justice, the colors are so beautiful it absolutely looks painted – so cool! Arizona did not disappoint, however next time we go hopefully it is fall or winter.
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