The day started out cool, dry and sunny...and it ended that way. A perfect day to get out the motorcycles. A good thing too, having dragged them all the way up here.
We decided to do a nice loop, first up north and east to Bethel, then down along the White River to West Hartford, followed by a back road to Quechee, then on to Woodstock and back to camp. It was only about 70 miles in all, but a good ride for Ellen. The roads were twisty, but not overly so, and in good condition...and the weather was perfect.
We stopped in Quechee to visit the Simon Pearce store and workshop. They have a great line of handblown glass and have added pottery and other crafts to their offerings. We spent a fair amount of time watching them make stemware wine glasses in the workshop. They looked like red wine goblets to me.
A pair of glass craftsmen can make about 60 glasses a day. The team we watched had a younger worker, probably an apprentice, and a master artisan. The younger would dip a blowpipe into the glass furnace and pull out a blob of glass. He would then smooth it into a sphere by rolling it in a wooden mold. Once that was done, he would blow it into a hollow egg shape and hand it off to the master and take away the previously finished glass.
The master would work the end attached to the pipe to lengthen it a bit while the apprentice would get another blob of glass. A bit of this would be attached to the egg shape and the master would roll and stretch it out, making the stem. At this point the apprentice would return with another blob of molten glass to be put on the end of the stem.
The master would then use a wooden paddle to flatten the blob into the base. Once the base was formed the apprentice would stick a rod with a bit of hot glass onto the bottom of the base and he and the master would align the rod and original blowpipe. At this point the master would snap off the blowpipe and start forming the mouth of the glass while manipulating it with the newly attached rod.
He would reheat the glass in a very hot furnace right next to the workstation, then widen and form the opening by rolling the rod and using a steel tool to spread the glass, forming it into the final wine goblet shape.
During this last step the apprentice would be blowing the initial shape for the next glass. They had the workflow down to the second. As the master finished a glass, the apprentice would be there with the next one. The apprentice would take the finished glass on its rod, remove the rod from the base and set the glass aside for later inspection.
The whole process took less than ten minutes, probably closer to five if they wanted to complete 60 a day. The stemed wine glasses are available in the store for a mere $68 each.
While this was going on, another worker in the background was making pilsner glasses on his own. Since they don't have a stem, it looked like they were made from a single blob of glass and could be produced by a single person.
Simon Pearce now has three workshops, the original one in Quechee, another in Windsor, Vermont and one in Maryland. The one in Quechee does only glasses and other stemware such as candle holders. The one in Windsor does the really large pieces and pottery and I guess Maryland does the rest.
After Quechee, we rode on to Woodstock, which is much more pleasant when it isn't raining. There was a street festival going on with many of the local vendors serving food and drink in the middle of Elm St. It seemed like a good place to stop for lunch. After perusing the offerings, we opted for wood-grilled cheesburgers with carmelized onions from the Worthy Company. They were definitely worthy...not to mention large, juicy and both to perfection. The fries were nice and crispy as well.
After lunch we wandered the main street a bit, popping into a couple of stores before heading down the road. We made one more stop at the Woodstock Farmers Market outside of town. It is not an outdoor market with stalls, but a store much like the Fruit Center in Hingham. It is really quite oriented towards local foods with lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, local meats and dairy products, a good deli section with great sandwiches, locally baked breads, local cheeses and the usual array of baked goods, candies, cookies and condiments, not to mention beer and wine.
One can eat well out of this store, but we only bought vegetables for a salad, some cheese and whole-grain rolls. After our massive burgers for lunch, we had to rethink dinner and it was a salad.
We finally returned to Speedy by mid afternoon, only to see that it was still in shade. We must have the most shady site in the park, much to the detriment of our solar panel. I saw put out no more than 2 amps this afternoon, usually less than an amp. As of 9:30 this evening the batteries are at 68%, not good. I suspect we will have to run the engine tomorrow or move it to a sunny spot for the day.
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