Starting Location: Kennebunkport, ME
Destination: Tarrytown, NY
Dining Locations: Merriland Farms, Wells, ME; The Striped Bass, Tarrytown, NY
Travel Time: 4 very quiet hours
We awoke to a very strange sight outside our hotel window, the sun. That’s right, it started out and ended up being a beautiful day today. We awoke to the beautiful sound of our Hunter alarm clock at 5:30 am. Since we had nothing better to do, like sleep, we decided to get up and embrace the day. We enjoyed the delicious muffins that we had purchased at the grocery store yesterday. Emily would probably go on record saying that Dad and Hunter were pretty crabby this morning. Might have been due to lack of sleep.
After breakfast, getting ready, and packing the car, we decided to take a few fun pictures on one of the decks near our hotel. The idea was born from a photo of Emily as a child drinking a carton of milk near the Kennebunk Book Port. Well for those of you who have not been to KBP in a few years, the Book Port is a thing of the past. Not to worry though, you can now get flip flops in the same place. The exact location of the original picture was not apparent, but we found another spot that we thought we could use. Emily got dressed similarly to the original photo and we captured a bunch of cute pictures of both Emily and Hunter. It was a fun photo shoot. (Emily’s note: That pose makes me look like I am nine months pregnant… it was just the dress. One baby is plenty for now!!!)
After the photo shoot we finished up the shopping, which I was informed that we had not yet completed. A couple laps around the downtown area later, and we were ready to check out and be on our way. We said goodbye to Kennebunkport and headed to grab some lunch at the berry farm in Wells. This is a place that we stop at every time we are in the area because there is nothing like it back home. The restaurant is on a beautifully manicured par 3 golf course. The weather was perfect as was the food. The best part was after lunch Hunter was in a very playful mood so we ran around the grounds getting some fun photos. Because we had a long drive ahead and dinner plans with my cousin Paul, we needed to wrap up the photo shoot and be on our way. We enjoyed our time in Kennebunkport and look forward to a return in the future.
The drive to White Plains, NY, was one of the quietest of the trip so far. Hunter took a solid 2.5 hour nap and Emily joined him for about 45 minutes of it so it was just me and the open road. Gave me some time to get my thoughts straight and to not listen to the wonderful DVD music from Hunter’s new favorite video. I also have this thought every time I travel at just how amazing it was that people crossed this country in a covered wagon back in the day. We are traveling at 75 miles per hour with a McDonald’s and gas stations every 5 miles, and we feel inconvenienced when they are out of hash browns. We live in a different time. But I digress.
We arrived in Tarrytown, NY, at about 5:00 and got ready faster than we ever have so we could meet Paul and Sheri Langlois and their kids at the Striped Bass restaurant. We probably won’t remember this in 15 years, but we had to get ready so fast to be at the restaurant for post time of the Belmont Stakes horse race where Big Brown was going for the first Triple Crown in 30 years. As I said in the previous sentence, we won’t remember this because he did not win the race, and we all went on with our lives. We enjoyed a very nice dinner on the Hudson River overlooking the Tappan Zee Bridge. The dinner and company were both very enjoyable.
We wrapped up dinner around 8:00, said our goodbyes, and headed back to the room. As I mentioned in a previous post, Hunter has checked out of this vacation and made another plea this evening, sitting in the suitcase begging to be sent home to Grandma and Grandpa Griffin and his comfy crib. In all truthfulness, Hunter has handled this trip like an absolute champ. Now that we know the magic DVD to watch in the car and what his travel schedule is, we have found some common ground to meet upon. Stay tuned tomorrow for our trip to Hershey, PA!
