"I'm on Vacation!"

I had a great three day weekend in New Hampshire visiting my brother.  He's almost finished with his senior year at Dartmouth.  I'll be going back for his graduation, but because hockey season ends in March, I wanted to see a couple more of his games.  I left Dallas at the crack of dawn on Friday and met my Mom, who flew in from Michigan. I'll be posting a couple different times with pictures from my trip, but thought I would start out with the food.  I didn't take pictures of every meal I had, mainly because I was too busy enjoying!  I did get some highlights for you though. 

Dartmouth is right on the boarder of New Hampshire and Vermont.  My parents visit often, and have found a couple really neat places to visit that are a short, but scenic, drive from the campus.  One of my favorite places is Simon Pearce.  It's a glass blowing and pottery making plant and store.  They also have a restaurant attached that uses all of their dishes, glasses, table decorations that are made in house.  It's really cool, and the food has been amazing every time I've been there.  Above is a glass table center piece in the restaurant.  It's gorgeous!

I was coming down with a bit of a cold, so ordered some tea. I know tea isn't the most exciting food picture, but the glass and dish it's sitting on were so pretty.  We saw guys making those exact dishes below the restaurant, so it was cool to be drinking out of one! 

What a great lunch!  Vermont Cheddar soup, and a mixed green salad with their house lemon vinaigrette dressing and bleu cheese crumbles.   The salad dressing was perfect; light, but just enough so that you could taste it.  I'm starting to like bleu cheese on more things, and I must say, it was perfect on the salad.

Best part of the meal = dessert.  This was apple crisp with cinnamon ice cream.  It was sooooooo (the extra o's are needed) good!  Cinnamon ice cream was a little different than the normal vanilla that's served with apple crisps, and it was a great addition.  

Before we left on Sunday we had a chance to meet up for breakfast at the Norwich Inn.  They have a restaurant on the main floor that serves great breakfasts.  I've been here a couple times, and always been impressed with what they come up with.  They have the regular breakfast dishes, but also seem to always have a couple innovative dishes.  This time my brother and I both ordered stuffed croissant french toast.  It was stuffed with cream cheese and strawberries, and man, it was good.

I ate it all, shocking I know; but I'm on vacation!!  I also dipped a couple pieces in the Vermont maple syrup that was on the table, delicious. 

I had such a fun trip, and loved being around my family for a few days (besides my Dad, we missed him!) My brother's hockey team did really well.  Tied the game on Friday night, and won on Saturday.  Plus, he scored a goal on Saturday night, which was so awesome to see!  I'll be posting more pictures of the scenery (and snow) in the next couple of days.  It was 73 degrees when I got back to Dallas, talk about going from one world to another. 

My brother in all his glory :) 

Happy Monday everyone!