I Thought I Ordered the Big Salad… and Hot Days on the Farmington
The Log House Restaurant on Route 44 in Barkhamsted, is a place I’ve driven by probably 200+ times in my 20 years in Connecticut. Each time I passed it I would think, I should stop someday for a sandwich or something. I never did because I had a single purpose in mind as I drove by. Getting to, or coming from the Farmington River, Connecticut’s premier blue ribbon trout stream.
This past week was our 2nd annual week on the Farmington at Austin F. Hawes Campground, with my Candlewood Valley TU buddies and their wives. It’s a great campground in American Legion State Park. Large, level sites, heavily wooded, with plenty of space to set up a full camp with all our stuff: Pop-up, Dutch oven equipment, multiple camp chairs and tables, and other gear we can’t normally take in the Vienna. We loaded up my Forester with all the extras, and that gave us an extra car to get out and about the Winsted/New Hartford area.
BLT Salad at Log House Restaurant
On Tuesday before the nightly festivities got going, Terri and I decided to venture out and explore the Barkhamsted area. We soon found out that most businesses and points-of-interest are closed on Tuesday. The Quilted Ewe, Legitimus Brewery, Jerram Winery, Parrott Delany Tavern, all closed. Nothing was open… except the Log House Restaurant. What the heck. For 20 years I’d driven by it and never stopped in. Why not today. Inside it’s more of a diner than a log house. The menu is basic diner food and it’s only open for breakfast and lunch. We looked the menu over and I decided to try and stay healthy and order a salad. What’s this… a BLT Salad? Bacon, lettuce and tomato with hard-boiled eggs and my choice of dressing. Why not? Fairly healthy choice, right? Then it was delivered. Good Lord, the bacon. The picture here doesn’t do it justice. It was the biggest salad I’d ever seen. The server just gave me a grin and two small containers of Parmesan Peppercorn dressing. The thing was delicious but I couldn’t finish it (except the bacon). Terri’s Tuna Melt was of equal heft with what looked like more than a can of tuna included. It came back to camp with us to serve as lunch for another day. I left the remainder of the salad. Log House shoots and scores and I’ll have to stop in again next summer.
For the week our group members pick their own campsites and then we agree that each site will host a pot-luck dinner one night of the stay. A spreadsheet is shared so that we can pick our night and our main dish. Then columns are set for Appetizer, Salad, Side 1, 2 and 3, dessert, cocktail, and misc. (as if we need more food). The resulting pot-lucks are over-the-top gastro extravaganza’s. Mark’s “Capital Punishment” Chili & Hot Dogs started the week on Tuesday, with Smoked Street Corn Dip & Tortilla Chips provided by the Hildenbrands. Wednesday at the Huie’s site saw Sausage and Peppers on grilled Portuguese rolls with fresh mozzarella, accompanied with Caprese Salad Skewers, Tortellini Caesar Salad (Cheryl McBeth’s original), Salt Potatoes and Ice Cream & Hungarian Nut/Poppy seed Rolls for desert. For Thursday at the Hildenbrand’s the party grew in size to a royal feast with Grilled Chicken Sandwiches, Lime Nachos, Corn Salad, Baked Beans, Dutch Oven Roasted Veggies, Cheescake for desert, all washed down with wine & beer.
We managed to get in plenty of fly fishing on the river all week. Early mornings and late evenings were the best bets given the heat during mid-day. We encountered rising fish everyday, and though they were a bit picky, a good cast with proper presentation often resulted in an eat. Thursday evening I arrived at Hawes Pool around 7:30 followed by six other pot-luck attendees. There were few rising fish. However, within 15 minutes there were dozens of risers. Sometimes the river appears to have only a few trout, then all of a sudden you realize there are probably 50 to 100 right in front of you all throughout the pool.
The early mornings were productive as well. I would get up at my typical 5:15 am, have two cups of coffee, then throw on my waders and boots and take the one minute walk to the head of campground pool. I was greeted by a river empty of fisherman, with rising fish. The larger group would gather together at 7:00 to head out for one of the other pools upstream from the campground. The morning fog would lie heavy on the river. In the low light it was tough to see the rise forms, but you could hear the trout sipping bugs. It was absolutely beautiful.
I didn’t get many trout to the net. Certainly not as many as John, who might the fishiest dude on the planet. I did get the satisfaction of a ton of eats on patterns that I tie. I also got the frustration of a lot of misses and lost fish due to bad knots. I wish I could tie knots as well as I tie flies. Oh well… practice.
We left the river Friday morning after four nights of boondocking in the Vienna. We’ve learned a lot about how to manage our rig for a boondocking trip like this, and had no problems with battery levels, water levels, or tank levels. Four to five days might be our maximum for comfortable boondocking before needing to dump tanks. That might be our limit on off-grid camping as well. We love our connectivity and the T-Mobile signal in American Legion State Park is sketchy. The Winegard did manage to keep connected at about 200 Mbps. Good enough for the basics but I couldn’t stream the all-star game on Tuesday night like I wanted to. I know… first-world-problems.
We’ll definitely be returning next July for the 3rd annual. I have to up my Pot-luck game and come up with a great main and some great sides. It’s tough to compete with Hungarian Nut/Poppy seed Rolls and Smoked Street Corn Dip.
