We stayed at the Birchwood Inn and were placed in two supposed haunted rooms before settling on a less eventful but oddly colored (think velveeta cheese) room. Our original room was said to have a phantom cat that mews and pounces on guests while the second room was said to have a resident poltergeist who enjoys moving objects about the room. While I'm not one prone to believing in the supernatural, Jeannie and I were glad to stay in room number seven whose only remarkable features were the hue of the walls and several locked and inaccessible attic doors. Actually, we requested a room change so that we could have a king sized bed instead of the queen sized bed we were originally assigned and read of the unusual happenings in the other two rooms afterward. The assistant innkeeper corroborated the claim by saying she herself had experienced oddities in the aforementioned two rooms.
That evening, we enjoyed a nice dinner at Prime and, on the recommendation of the innkeeper, went to Chocolate Springs for dessert and cocoa.
The next morning, Jeannie and I enjoyed a remarkable breakfast and set out to pick up our picnic lunch from Nejaime's Wine Cellar where we were told that we were the first picnickers of the season! We visited Ventfort Hall, a gilded age mansion once inhabited by a branch of the J.P. Morgan family, where we perused an exhibit featuring mannequins adorned with exquisitely crafted period costumes. Lunch in hand, we drove to a Shaker Village in Pittsfield but were disappointed when we learned admission was exorbitant. To add insult to injury, Edith Wharton's home, The Mount, was not yet open for the season which was hardly mirthful.
Undaunted, we drove to Austerlitz where we hiked the [Edna St. Vincent] Millay Poetry Trail, picnicked, and made our way to Steepletop, Millay's home, where we were under surveillance by colony artists: the home is not available to the public, but my interest was too piqued to abide by the 'Keep Out' signs posted every five feet around the home's roadside perimeter.
All in all, a restful and enjoyable weekend with Jeannie, who flew back to Atlanta much too soon.
Jeannie!
Our picnic spot on the poetry trail and near to Millay's simple stone-marked grave
Birchwood Inn
Ventfort Hall
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