Fairs & Festivals

 We woke to rain and no place to park at Sift. It’s a really good thing we don’t live here or I would gain 100 lbs. in nothing flat. 

Jo Anne’s taking shortbread home. 

Breakfast of champions 🙄

The plan is to visit Christmas fairs and festivals as we make our way back to the Hartford airport area where we will spend tonight in anticipation of an early flight. Praying all goes well with that. 

We’ve selected 5 fairs but have narrowed it down to two and possibly three depending on how our time goes. 

When we came out of Sift the leaves were falling on the car. The rain left the newly fallen leaves so vibrant on the ground. 

Last glimpses of color 

The first market we went to was the Norwich Juried Artisan Craft Show at the Slater Memorial Museum. It was small but all the merchandise was of the highest quality and all handmade by the vendor. Jo Anne bought some essential oil soaps. 

Ginkgo biloba leaf

Ginkgo biloba tree

New England Christmas festival at Uncasville, CT

These photos are not indicative of how crowded it was. You could  literally only move when the crowd moved. Picture the most crowded place you’ve ever been and multiply it by 3 or 4 at least. We had to look at the sign at the top of each booth to know what was in the booth. We stayed about 45 minutes and that was enough for us. One lady was throwing a fit and asking for her money back because she said the line to get in was two hours. It wasn’t. It was moving pretty fast but it was about 1/2 mile long at that point. 

There were over 400 vendors selling handmade goods, specialty foods and holiday decor. Quite a difference from the 60 vendors in the first fair. We bought some natural gluten free granola. 

The reason it looks like there is space to walk in this photo is because it was the only place I could raise my arm up over my head to take a photo. It was the aisle with foods like granola and candies and all sorts of other things pkg’d to eat. It was the least busy aisle of all. 

Mushrooms on the hill outside the convention center. 

We drove 10 miles out of the way to eat at Captain Scott’s Lobster Dock in New London, CT only to find them closed for the season. Kim and I were here several years ago and it was the very best lobster roll I have ever eaten. My mouth was watering as we got closer. What a disappointment! 

We looked online to find something similar and ended up at “On the Waterfront”. 

The scenery was outstanding!

They brought out hot bread with garlic butter. 

We both ordered the crab cake appetizers. Our final seafood in Connecticut. 

After lunch, we were off to the airport north of Hartford, turned in the rental car and called the hotel for the shuttle. We are spending the night at the Days Inn by Wyndom. I DON’T recommend it. In fact, I highly discourage anyone from ever staying here. I would post photos but they are just too disgusting. 

Our fall trip is at an end so I thought how appropriate to end with Nat King Cole’s “Autumn Leaves”.