Barn Wall of Shutters

What a journey!  If you haven’t been to the Finger Lakes Region of New York State, it is time to plan a trip!  Miles of hills and barns and fields of corn with the scattering of sunflowers in between. Folks committed to their land  along Rt. 20 with farm stands…. most holding veggies fresh that day…and many stands with the tin Folgers coffee can, a bit dented, with a slit cut in the lid where you can deposit monies for goods taken.  An honor system that only the rural merchant farmer believes in!  I bought jam made from  the flowers of Queen Anne’s Lace, which grows wild in the fields, and I bought Bread and Butter pickles, which reminded me of my own mother’s B&B pickles.  (What I would give for a canning session with her once again!)  Besides the buying,  it was the experience of it all…chatting it up with the farmer and his wife, the pickle maker, and meeting the wife’s 84 year-old mother who sat roadside under a shade umbrella with nary a line on her wonderful face.  For the truth of who we are as a country, you must go to the rural world, sit under the shade umbrella, eat a local peach whose  juice drips down your elbow, and talk canning with an 84 year-old!

Inn on the Main

Times past, I have avoided a bed and breakfast stay like one might avoid the plague!  This  amazing place (photo does it no justice), owned by the innkeepers Jaynee and Guy Straw, opened a whole new world to me!  Give me this bed and breakfast anytime!  For starters the innkeepers were beyond delightful.  The interior was lovely…my room (with a fire place), well…I could have moved right in-just me and two little pugs!  Jaynee and Guy gave us directions for an evening meal at, of all places, a Mexican restaurant!  This in the heart of Canandaigua, New York!  I took them up on the challenge…after all, I am from the West.  I know my Mexican food…last best Mexican meal was in Nevada, and I truly doubted it could have topped that!  Before I go into overdrive on the evening meal at said restaurant, let me just say the breakfast served the morning of our departure was jaw dropping!  Try homemade French toast with toasted macadamia nuts and New York maple syrup, perfect cups of coffee (my friend Diane tells me I like “party coffee”…I add heaps of half and half and sugar…bring on the party!) and on the plate lovely slices of fruit.  Is it no wonder I could have moved in!

The Wall of Rio Tomatlan...About the Best Ever Mexican Restaurant!

This is it!  I would happily drive there, right now, for dinner!  I adore  Mexican food and was over-the-moon with this place…in fact, I had lunch there the next day before heading East…yep, a Mexican lunch shortly after the French toast breakfast!  Somehow I managed to find a little space for Queso Fundido (grilled mini tacos with melted Oaxaca cheese, fresh pico de gallo and a tomatillo chile de arbol sauce)!

Bounty from Roadtrip

Victorian Feather Basket in Shadowbox and Old Canvas

This whole adventure was taken to find more antiques for the store…I did find some real treasures though fewer items than I expected.  They will all be in the store, yes! for sale, when we reopen on September 7th.  I can’t wait to see you all again!  Next adventure will be the Gift Show…more dining, big decisions on what to bring into the store next, late nights in New York City with fellow shop owners.  Though I will love every minute of it, I can’t say I would rather be there than sitting under a shade umbrella with an 84 year-old jelly maker in upstate New York!