Going to Maryland was no small ordeal. We’d started our travels at 2AM the night before and arrived at the airport to pick up our newest travel companion only after getting into the world’s dumbest car accident only 5 minutes away at the toll booths. Apparently they’d changed the entire system to EZPass which confused cash payers so much they were stopping when they shouldn’t have been…. hence I slammed into a stopped car ahead of me and the gentleman behind me slammed into me. Fun stuff!
So I was already loopy tired, high on adrenaline, and hungry enough to eat a horse when we decided to go in search of food. Miss Shirley’s came up as a suggestion and when we found out it’d been featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, & Dives we had to check it out. Whether you like the show or not you have to acknowledge it showcases a lot of diners, all of which look food coma amazing, and I had wondered if I’d ever end up at one of these joints seeing as diners are my kinda food.
Even at this weird hour there was a wait but after getting in we were served quickly. I ended up drinking their strawberry lemonade which had such a delightful light flavor – it didn’t taste like pure sugar like lemonade usually does. I ended up getting the coconut stuffed French toast for $17. Never in my life did I expect to pay $17 for what is essentially peasant food but when in Rome… I was not disappointed! When they came out with my meal I couldn’t even tell what it was. It wasn’t a few identifiable slices it was the whole damn loaf of bread! Dipped in egg, settled on a nest of fresh strawberries and slices of banana foster, cut, and glued back together with two inches of coconut filling which came spewing out like lava when I hit it. Clearly I didn’t know how to eat this monstrosity. My companions both laughed at how huge it was knowing I’d never come close to eating it all. That was like four meals worth of toast for me! And it was GOOD. I ate far too much. It was so sweet it didn’t even need maple syrup. I am definitely adding coconut to my future breakfast endeavors.
Meanwhile everyone else was super happy with their choices of chocolate chip pancakes and a mixed egg breakfast of some sort. Their proportions were also very large although maybe not as excessive as my French toast. We all left stuffed silly and I would highly recommend this stop if you happen to be in Baltimore.
We decided to eat dinner at Wright’s Chicken Farm after our adventures in the Douglas State Forest. It was not terribly far from where I used to live so I was once again surprised to learn about something I have never heard of – although maybe I shouldn’t be. By the time I moved into the area my narcissistic ex had gotten what he needed out of me and had long forgone the love-bombing process, instead coyly making sure I was isolated and car-free at home while he ignored me to pursue other romantic prospects behind my back. This included date nights and going out to eat so yeah… how was I to know there was a great chicken shack down the road?
I had been to Wright’s Dairy Farm already (they have AMAZING buttercream frosted cakes there.) Wright’s Chicken Farm however is in a different location and it is a large venue hall and restaurant that only serves one dinner so it’s great for anyone who has trouble picking something off a menu. Dinner consisted of baked chicken (both white and dark meat), pasta with tomato sauce, french fries, salad, and buns. All served family style so you could pick and chose whatever you pleased.
The ambiance of this place was… weird. I thought it looked like a hole in the wall casino, the kind you’d find out in the sticks somewhere. My companions thought it looked like the visitors/community room in a nursing home. Eventually we all agreed it had big bingo hall energy. The vast majority of the other people here were old, 100% of them were white, and they all looked respectable. Even I was a little uneasy – and I’m whiter than Wonder Bread! But not terribly respectable. Adding to the weird vibe it had a big gift shop attached with the most random of things in it – including but not limited to tacky glitter covered Christmas ornaments. They know their target audience. That being said they also had fudge and truffles in all flavors and that made up for a little bit of the oddness. As did our bombastic waiter whose rough NYC/Jersey Shore accent was woefully out of place and whose energy was just as loud. Made my brain itch a bit.
Anyway. The place was simple and cheap and had good food so I am not complaining in any way. I particularly liked the dark meat and french fries which I ate far too many of. They offered ice cream after this but YIKES who has room for ice cream after an all-you-can-eat styled meal?! Afterwards I hung out in the parking lot a little bit talking while waiting for the others. We noted how quaint the motel across the street looked and the duck pond in between. Eventually a complete stranger, a woman, came up to me and complemented my laugh out of nowhere. Well that’s a new one! But I’ll take it.
All and all it’s a decent enough place to go to if you happen to be in the area and have a craving for baked chicken and a family style meal.
*Image taken from Wright’s Farm website (sorry, I didn’t bring my camera in with me.)
After thoroughly enjoying B F Clyde’s Cider Mill we decided to continue the day by going into the more populous side of the city for a little shopping. I’m not really one who normally enjoys shopping for the sake of shopping but I am starting to see this might just be because of the places I end up and the people I go with. I say this because on this day I had a great time!
I guess I was intrigued by the description of the shops there including an Alice in Wonderland themed tea shop and a storefront promising an assortment of sharp stabby things (seriously… who has even heard of a sword shop?! Sounds so medieval.) And all of it was situated in the Old Mystik Village which sounds sooo… witchy. I guess this is what made it all the less surprising when we walked into a series of mystic and magic type shops that had everything a Wiccan or Pagan could possibly want. We spent a good few hours picking shops that seemed interesting and wandering in to poke at things like an enthusiastic tourist. I am going to try and remember all of them and list them below but we’ll see how this goes!
Ice Imports: This was the promised stabby things store but it didn’t look like it when we first walked in. In fact it looked like a rock shop with all sorts of geodes and shiny rocks. Some were natural others were in bracelets and rings. The whole middle of the store was dedicated to magic bracelets – made with rock beads of your choice – each listing what magical purpose they were good for. None of the labels said anything about their more utilitarian use – they were GREAT fidgets! Especially if you buy two or more and play with them together. My companion was happy to find more hematite rings… to replace the ones he bought in Salem… I am absolutely perplexed how he keeps breaking them but I guess that’s part of their charm. Their sellers claim they break when they have absorbed all the negative energy they can. Convenient… I can’t say I am convinced but I respect the beliefs of others. There were also a bunch of ADORABLE knickknacks and a counter full of shiny stabby things!! So basically you could buy a baby dragon and a sword to slay it all the same shop!
Dharma Jewels: From there we walked into Dharma Jewels which describes itself as a gift shop full of handmade Tibetan and Himalayan goods. I couldn’t help but see the parallels between this and the witch shops as they also had a lot of space dedicated to things like lucky coins but also an assortment of colorful clothes, weird bags, and more recognizable religious artifacts like prayer flags and posters of Krishna. The women working the counter seemed very happy and the place had a uniquely pleasant smell, not sure what it was.
Alice in the Village: I just had to go to this little Alice in Wonderland inspired tea shop. I mean come on, it’s obvious I love the story – I draw a weekly comic based on the hookah smoking caterpillar’s ill-begotten grandchild. ANYWAY, the place was adorable. It had Alice in Wonderland mugs, knickknacks, and decorations lining the walls. The decorations to the place added to the sheer whimsy of it. It was a small place with a tiny seating area and a counter full of colorful macaroons…. which I had to try because I’ve never eaten a proper French macaroon. They’re crunchy and filled with goo. I was not expecting that but they were good! And they went well with the magic disappearing Cheshire Cat mug that ended up going home with me.
Alice in the Village
Bestamors: This shop was HUGE and weird. It was a shrine to everything Nordic/Northern European. Warm clothes, creepy trolls up the wazoo, gnomey gnomes, swarms of nesting dolls, and another counter full of stabby things listed by country! It just went on and on with no lack of things to poke at. I was thoroughly amused.
Extra Virgin: This place was another bizarre niche store that I couldn’t help but adore. As you walk in there is a row of dispensers for their flavored olive oils and vinaigrettes. And the other side of the store is dedicated to their flavored honeys – all of which you can try and we did! I ended up coming home with a bottle of blackberry bramble vinaigrette which is going to up my salad game hardcore.
Kitch: Kitch was another shockingly enormous store that really didn’t look big from the outside. Inside it was full to the brim with all the latest in kitchen gadgetry as well as a counter dedicated to a line of hot sauces. They had everything you could want here… pots, pans, tea kettles, cooking gadgets, unidentifiable tools, the whole lot! “I could lose several paychecks in here.” My companion lamented with plate-sized eyes. “I could too…”
Angel Haven: Once you’ve already been through several shops dedicated to lucky charms going into one dedicated to personal angels didn’t seem so weird. Lots of shiny pricey jewelry and some $600 steam punky clocks that opened up and showed all their gears once every hour while singing a different tune for each hour of the day. It was quite a display! And hey, someday if I ever become rich enough to dump $600 on a wall clock who knows, maybe I’ll be back. Never did figure out who my personal angel was – though if there’s an angel of anxiety and pointless distraction it’s probably that one.
Raining Cats and Dogs: I’m not going to lie – I find it pretty depressing I am currently not owned by any pets but seeing as both my travel companions had cats we all went in to see what damage we could do in that department. This place was mostly for dogs, small dogs at that, with all sorts of little coats and toys and whatnot but there was one corner dedicated to cats. And let me tell you the catnip toy that ended up coming home must have been some strong shit because the kitten just about went rabid when it was given to her.
Franklin’s General Store: I loved this place. It smelled kinda weird as general stores frequently do and it had everything from a fudge counter to a pile of zombie rubber ducks. It was a maze of eccentric old timey items and always fun to rifle through. I ended up buying a little encyclopedia of oddities because why not, might give me some inspiration.
Irish Eyes: Finally we went into an Irish themed store that was totally mental. I don’t know why I didn’t take any photos – maybe because it was a tiny cramped shop. Anyway, it had EVERYTHING you could possibly want Irishwise – funny T-shirts, cribbage boards, sheep galore, and even a music kit for starting your own Irish folk band that included several Irish instruments. It was weird and kind of sweet.
And that was our day shopping… from here we’d make our way to an escape room in Warwick RI because why not end our adventures there?
After getting our share of apple picking at Wittle Willow’s Spring Farm we continued our apple-centric adventures by driving a few minutes down the road to B F Clyde’s Cider Mill. It’s claim to fame is that it is the US’s only steam powered cider mill still running today. And it sometimes gives tours – although it appears only on the weekend and we were there on a Thursday so I apologize for my complete and utter lack of photos.
What I can say is this place was hoppin’! SO MANY PEOPLE had gathered here and it was pretty clear why. They had everything here. Regular cider, hard cider in more varieties than I could easily count, all sorts of old timey county store type things (like the pumpkin pancake mix and pumpkin butter we ended up bringing home) and I was thrilled they had apple cider doughnuts too which I gluttonously ate while sipping a cup of hot cider. It was then as we were all sitting around just enjoying ourselves that the jig was finally up. My companion looked up from his phone.
“It’s your birthday?!”
“Yeah…”
He looked around at where we were, where we had come from, and what we were eating. “This is kinda an awesome birthday.”
“It is!” I laughed.
After this we ambled around some more. There was another little shop there with more touristy things and I bought a magnet figuring it was high time to replace the ones on my fridge currently. Outside this there was a tasting station for all the various hard ciders (and wines? Champaign is a wine I think. Fuck if I know, I’m a teetotaler. ANYWAY…) Across from this they were setting up a hard cider slushee station which our friend gave a go. Sounds like some fresh hell to me but he was impressed and that’s all that matters.
This place was amazing and I left stuffed to the gills but we weren’t done. From here we’d walk off those doughnuts at the Old Mystic Village.
Thursday was my birthday but I really didn’t feel like celebrating. I have been in a stress-induced haze for a year and didn’t make my goal of publishing another book on my birthday as is the tradition I set for myself. As such I was feeling less like my birthday was about celebrating surviving another year of life and more about marking down I was another year closer to death which seemed a bit grim. And because of this I didn’t give anyone any warning it was my birthday.
I did try to figure out something cool to do but I was coming up short so I did what I always do in these situations – I left it up to the Universe – “If you want me to celebrate my birthday, you figure something out.” And it did! Sort of out of nowhere we ended up getting together with another friend who suggested we go apple picking. I haven’t been apple picking since I was just a wee one so the thought of it definitely tickled my brain. Yes, this would be the perfect way to spend my birthday – and was it ever!
We ended up going to the Wittle Willow’s Spring Farm in Mystic Connecticut. They had a lovely little farm stand set up and both an apple orchard and a pumpkin patch to pick from. They handed us some brown paper bags and off we wandered into the vague direction they were pointing. We were told there were lots of McIntosh, some Granny Smiths, some Red Delicious, and a few Golden Delicious somewhere out there. And so we wandered out into the orchard which was… not marked in any way and the trees didn’t even grow in proper rows but seemed to be dotted at random. We found some Granny Smiths but they too were not in a cluster but rather smattered about in between all the McIntosh. It was pure chaos and only about to get more chaotic.
For here in the middle of the orchard was a neatly groomed stone wall with a tiny old family cemetery within it. There was even a sign dating it to the 1700’s. How ironic is that that we went to probably the only orchard with a cemetery in it?! Obviously I was charmed. Meanwhile my companion was charmed with a singular pair tree just hanging out and chilling.
“They’re just funny looking apples.” My dry sense of humor is sometimes lost on those who have to endure it.
When we all had our paper sack loaded up we headed back to weigh and buy them. It was $1.50 a pound and we all made out like bandits. I’ll be making apple butter and probably apple sauce. There was talk of apple juice, pancakes, and pies.
And then we finished our little adventure playing with some pigs sleeping in a wallow. There were three big sows and maybe a couple dozen piglets and the farm stand was selling lettuce and corn to feed them as treats. The second they heard the first lettuce leaf being plucked off they all woke up and ran to the fence. From there it was just a feeding frenzy with the big mamas grunting in disapproval whenever the treats ran dry. The largest one seemed most insistent nuzzling the fence and grunting. She reminded me of a dog with weirdly human looking eyes. The whole scene reminded me of the happy days I lived on a farm throwing one grape at a time into the chicken pen and watching 50 or so hens all make a mad dash for it. Someday I will return to this life but for now I found it very cathartic to just visit.
Our adventures were just starting for the day because after this we wanted to go to nearby B F Clyde’s Cider Mill where I was hoping to score an apple cider doughnut in lieu of a birthday cake.
Mind you, it’d been a harrowing journey and I had been suffering from heat stroke for hours so I wasn’t exactly in the best of shape when I showed up. Add to that the fact that just prior to going into the tavern I’d made the mistake of trying a sip of sarsaparilla which did not go down well!
I showed up at the tavern red as a lobster and unable to string together a cohesive thought (which is probably why I somehow managed to wear a mask on my face and another around my neck at the same time without noticing.) ANYWAY… we had come here because we heard the place was supposed to be haunted and who doesn’t love a good haunted bar? The place was very old looking. They had decked it out in rustic 1800’s style. I was surprised the menu however was decidedly not rustic in any way shape or form. In fact it was downright worldly for a place like this.
I ended up ordering the Pecan Chicken which came on a bed of butternut squash ravioli. My companion got steak tenderloins which came out in a massive dish. I would have loved to have eaten my chicken but my stomach was violently angry at the abuses I put it through earlier in the day so I spent much of the next forty five minutes just sighing and looking at my food longingly. That being said I did bring it home and eat it later and it was fantastic!
I am sure we will be back. Probably whenever we get to find the nearby ghost village in the woods which we didn’t get to that day. Either way it was a lovely experience with polite staff and delicious food. With or without ghosts I’d still recommend this place.
By the end of our first day in Maine we’d already been to WAY too many destinations looking for shoes, got distracted by a record shop, and finally ended up with grumbling bellies around dinnertime.
My travel companion was actually more of a romantic interest who I’d “met” just before the Covid plague hit and in the convening months I had allowed for in-person meet and greets and gone on dates of sorts out in the woods (hiking) but I had stayed well away from restaurants. I’d been a good quarantine subject – avoiding these luxuries and only going to peopled places when I had to. But I did mention if he wanted to keep me happy all he had to do was keep me fed and we’d already been goddamn everywhere. I relented, telling him Maine restaurants are usually…. intensely underwhelming. I mean I’ve been served sliced Wonder bread before the meal before. Sliced Wonder bread. This shit just doesn’t fly anywhere near actual civilization.
He seemed fine with this potential failure and picked the Silver Street Tavern at random. A tavern? Oh lord, I thought to myself. I don’t drink so even before the plague came to town I avoided places like these. I also wasn’t one to eat out very often. I’d been food poisoned by large chains one too many times.
It seemed a nice enough place. There was seating outside but it was directly under the blazing sun at this time of day so we went in where a few parties were sitting, all quite far from each other. The waitress had a mask on and so did we as we ordered.
“What do you want for an appetizer?”
“Appetizer…? You already know I don’t eat much. Order what you want.”
“Quesadillas?”
“Well that is a really hard thing to fuck up. Will be interesting to see how they can fuck it up. Go for it.” I smiled.
Despite my cynicism I was enjoying the overly cheerful waitress and the gorgeous tin ceilings. My date was enamored with the black and white photos and little historical timelines littering the place. Apparently this insanely common decorating style hasn’t hit Rhode Island? I shrugged. Enthusiasm does endear me.
At one point he got up to use the restrooms and left me seated suddenly in full view of an old couple across the room. The old man saw my flamboyantly orange, red, and yellow hair and matching dress code and gave me the meanest stink eye I have seen in a LONG time. But I couldn’t help but laugh because in that same second his wife also spotted me and her whole face just lit right up with this big beautiful smile. WOW, I couldn’t have seen a more different reaction from a couple if I tried!
When the quesadillas came out I was shocked. Not only were they good they were really good, perhaps the best I’ve ever eaten, which is weird because quesadillas are one of those foods that are more or less the same everywhere. Like corn muffins. OK, I’m slowly being won over.
The main course was even better. I ordered pasta – again thinking this is something that’s really hard to fuck up – and they knocked it out of the goddamn park! The chicken was moist and delicious, the alfredo sauce the linguine swam in seemed to actually be made from scratch, this was AWESOME. And my date thought his meal of some sort of meat dish was just as great.
Dammit, now I am going to have to put this on the list of places to come back to.
