All Winding Rollercoaster Roads Lead to Stars Hollow

A whimsical mother/daughter journey in search of a real-life equivalent to the small town in Connecticut from the beloved TV show, Gilmore Girls. Though Stars Hollow only exists in the show, we are dedicated to creating our own Gilmore-esque adventure!

Readers might notice that my posts in this blog enjoy an almost-annoying length.  
If this disturbs you, please read them aloud in staccato-fast Rory and Lorelai speed.  
Or just pretend you did. Ellie and I often read things or have entire conversations in foreign accents, just to be totally obnoxious.  It makes us laugh so much, and brings us joy, so why not?  
We love words, so words expressed in various accents make life double the fun.  Right, Ellie?  

All Winding Rollercoaster Roads Lead to Stars Hollow

When did all of these people find out about Stars Hollow? 

But First Breakfast...

It was difficult to sleep off the anticipation of our Tuesday morning's adventure to Stars Hollow, so we did the next best thing to sleeping.  We ate breakfast.  The Mystic Marriott Hotel and Spa
provided ample choices for the hungry, sleep-deficient and gluten free, too.  This was our Dragonfly Inn! Sookie would have been in the kitchen, we imagined, preparing about eight different kinds of fruit trays, fresh juices and a wide array of egg-related foods for us to sample.

Mystic Marriott & Spa

Ellie loved the pancakes and bacon, while I indulged in scrambled eggs, fruit and yogurt with my green tea.  My sister Dianne ate eggs and muffins with her fruit.  It was going to be a steamy day in the Berkshires, so eating lightly and early would be the saving grace of our day. We brought along lots of water bottles for the trip. Luke's Coffee would have to wait until later.  And not by accident, Ellie wore her beloved Luke's Diner shirt for the big excursion.

(I still need to add a Photo here of Ellie in her Luke's Shirt)

You Can't Eat Legos and Other Sordid Facts

The first thing that I will point out is that you can never know the actual size of a location you visit until you are on the roads, and reading the maps.  Not the Google Maps, or Waze maps or any map that merely gives you the specifics of arrival times and faster routes.  We were bowled over by the vastness of Connecticut!  We chose to stay in Mystic because it was a historical nautical town like the ones we knew at home.  The only issue with that was it was about two hours away from our destination.  We posted in the blog about Mystic already, so you will understand why we ended up strolling the Mystic streets three times in three days! Fun shops, good food and the quaint little town beckoned to us.  Now, it was time to get to the heart of the matter.  At least or heart's matter.  Washington Depot, AKA Stars Hollow.

We passed plenty of Bob's Furniture Stores, signs for a cool-sounding Yale free concert series with Sheila E and the Stylistics, countless malls, and even crossed New London's river bridge, to name a few landmarks.  Ellie noted the big Pez Visitor Center signs in Orange, which we stored in the memory banks for later.

My sister Dianne joked that there must be comments added to the Yelp review saying, "Go to Pez! It's edible and fun.  Legos are fun, but you can't eat Legos! Well, it is not generally encouraged anyway, but we are not fans of the practice."  After five hours of driving to Mystic on Monday, then two more hours today, it was not surprising that we got a bit punchy and silly.

Tiny towns popped up on the road, each boasting an "established in 1694", or "1765", or sooner.  Most of the towns had Colonial English-sounding names or Mohegan Indian names like Naugatuck, Kent, Torrington,  New Bethlehem and a few very American names like Washington Depot.
Washington Depot was founded in 1779, current population 3,578, and is run by a Town Meeting form of government, just as it is in Stars Hollow on Gilmore Girls.  Not sure how that would work in my own hometown of Ship Bottom. Or any small beach town in South Jersey.  Beach Badges discussions alone would take up half the meeting!

Good Thing We Came in the Summer

The hilly terrain was a bit serpentine, and surprisingly steep at times.  I imagined that the stagecoaches which followed these paths in the slippery winter weather must have been very happy indeed to see a welcome sign! Did they ever talk about this kind of thing on Gilmore Girls?  New England winters are notoriously arduous.  I would have stayed in town, worn snowshoes 24/7,  and sent for everything to be delivered by USPS!  Thanks to Ben Franklin for inventing the Postal Service.




Our anticipation got the better of us during the trip, so it was a welcome surprise two hours into the trip to jostle Ellie awake, slumbering under her exploding Tardis blanket (another series obsession) as we passed the first sign our of town announcing the town of Washington Depot.  It was smallish and green, and nearly camouflaged by the massive pine trees and summer greenery popping up alongside the road.

Even Lane had trouble reaching Rory with all of those phones. 

Phone service and GPS were only scrambled temporarily as we arrived, and I was told that AT&T cellular phone towers are the only ones nearby.  That brought to mind Rory and her many cell phones for various locations, one special flip phone.  Just for Stars Hollow.  Good move on her part.

Can you BELIEVE these jersey GG fans? A blog, about us, Mom, no less? 

The car's GPS coordinates had been set directly to Marty's Cafe in Washington Depot.  This is where it is rumored that Luke's Diner was conjured up to be by Gilmore Girls show writer and producer Amy Sherman-Palladino.  Wish I had followed Luke to his Diner, or better yet, let him drive us in his truck.




Hmm. Maybe not. 

Sherman-Palladino has been interviewed about her GG creative process in detail by the fans and media. It seems that the tale of the Gilmores was brought to life in the real life Mayflower-Grace Inn.  It is the first notable sign you will see on the path as you enter town itself.  Nestled in a grove of magnificent trees and well-manicured gardens, it is also fortunate enough to be  surrounded by a gathering of a few little old white churches at the base of the hill.  Yes, we stopped at the Inn, but that is a story for the next post.

So this happened while we were in IRL Stars Hollow...

"It's a Gilmore Girls Reunion! Melissa McCarthy and Yanic Truesdale Soak Up the Sun in Greece"

Michel and Sookie met up in real life while were meeting up with Stars Hollow.

Next UP:

Ok, We Found Waldo, But Where's Rory?