Spring Break Road Trip (Part 2)

About 10 minutes away from the Homestead, right across from the Jefferson Pools, in the town of Warm Springs, is the nice Milk House Market that carries lots of Virginia products (above), and makes nice sandwiches.

Our next stop was Staunton, VA, a cute little town with some good antiquing, a great chocolate shop, a nice health food store that served food as well, and a camera museum. Worth pulling off the highway for, for sure.

Delicious chocolates from Cocoa Mill, above, and the Camera Heritage Museum, below. 

In the health food store, we noticed they carried Polyface products, which is a renowned "beyond organic" farm, that we wished we had known we were driving past. It is in Swoope, in the Shenandoah Valley. After our hour in Staunton, we hightailed it for Richmond, and checked in to the amazing Jefferson Hotel.

It's very grand, and the rooms are nice and comfy with great beds and huge tubs. It has an indoor pool, and a great gym. And they gave a sweet welcome basket to Clara--that had a stuffed version of their mascot, an alligator, which harks back to the days when they actually had real alligators in their fountain.

Blooming Hill Farm

Just an hour from NYC is one of my favorite farms ever—Blooming Hill. It's about 5 miles off or Highway 17, just past the Woodbury Commons Outlets. Besides growing the most beautiful organic produce, they also serve a nice breakfast and lunch. You can eat indoors or outdoors, weather depending, and there's a nice creek that all the kids gravitate towards. While you're waiting for lunch, they grill up whatever is in season and offer endless amounts of samples.

Kinnikinnick Farm, Illinois

I can't say enough good things about the Kinnikinnick Farm, which is about an hour and a half outside of Chicago, on the border of Wisconsin. We were there to check it out for Martha Stewart Living, and got to stay over for one night, on our way to do a shoot in Wisconsin. It's a part of the Featherdown Farms network—in a nutshell, very cool tents that are completely styled out by a Dutch company, in lovely farm settings. Farms in the Netherlands and the UK, and now in the US, buy into this network, and the agreement that comes along with it (basically that they have to offer a number of amenities, which all vary depending on the location). Guests are guaranteed that the style is of a high standard, and if they go to more than one Featherdown, they'll recognize the look is the same in each tent.  But beyond the lovely tents, what we loved about Kinnikinnick was meeting the owners, David and Susan, who immediately made us feel a part of the family. We had pizza night with their kids and grandkids, and then bagels the next morning. Goats were fed, eggs were gathered, hay bales were jumped on, and even a homemade rocket was launched. 

I Love: Hotels With Organic Gardens, Part 3

I wrote about Mar Vista last March, as a spring break idea, and am reminding you of it now, since I'm in this 'hotel with organic garden' mode. We went to Mar Vista a couple of years ago, and it was such a great trip.  We had our own little cottage, with a fully equipped kitchen, and a porch, and plenty of space around it so we never felt like our neighbors would be inconvenienced if Clara was having a meltdown (or if we were). All of the cottages are all situated around a large grassy meadow and garden, with tons of room for kids to run, a rope swing, animals to look at, and a fantastic soaking tub. Then there are the chickens to gather eggs from, and the organic edible garden to harvest whatever is in season. (It's also where Clara pulled her first food out of the ground.) Across the road is the Pacific Ocean, so you have views of it from the property, and in five minutes walk, you are on the beach. Yes, it's a schlep from San Francisco (close to three hours), but it's so worth it, as long as you build in plenty of time to get there, and some stops along the way in Point Reyes to pick up some provisions for your kitchen at Mar Vista at Tomales Bay Foods and Toby's Feed Barn. After all, this is the kind of place you won't want to leave--you'll probably eat breakfast and dinner at the property, and go out for lunch and a little adventure.