I’ve been debating telling people that I’ve left San Francisco for an easier life in the Hamptons because it’s less expensive. I’d be sort of correct, but not exactly talking about the same Hamptons they’d be thinking about.
Today we took a drive through the ‘Hamptons. Note the apostrophe. We drove from Northampton down route 5 to Easthampton and then continued on to Southampton, but we didn’t make it quite as far as Westhampton today because we were getting hungry and well, Easthampton was the best choice for food [close to the only choice as well outside of Northampton unless you wanted to eat more Dunkin‘ Donuts.
Easthampton is an interesting town. It’s small, but they’re working really really hard to make it a hip and artsy place. We stopped in at Eastworks which oddly enough is also the home to the Department of Motor Vehicles as well as lots of hip cafes, bars and art spaces. Like everyone else we’ve met here everyone was nice [except in the DMV, or RMV as they call it here which is it’s only little slice of hell.] They were happy to talk to you even if you were going to buy something. It’s just the way they are here.
If I had to come up with a label for the locals here I’d have to call them working class hipsters. There’s lots of factories here, not necessarily steel mill type factories, but most of the people, women included have a look like if you got into a fight with them you’d probably get tired of punching them because they’d just be able to stand there and take it. There were lots of piercings, tats and non-naturally colored hair like you were walking around Haight Street in San Francisco, but there was no waifishness to any of the locals. They were all really passionate about what ever it was they were doing. One was the owner of Crooked Stick Pops who was telling me about how he gets some of the ideas for his creations…I think you might be able to guess if you click on the link.
We were hungry though and decided to stop in at the Easthampton Diner. Diners are a big thing here usually, if they’ve been around a long time you can see the remains of the train car that they started as. This place had a rather large menu and I should have learned that if I’m paying $10.95 for something at lunch it’s going to be a lot more than I can eat. I ordered the Buffalo Chicken Quesadilla and it’s so far served as lunch and dinner and probably lunch tomorrow as well. Things like my quesadilla are typical here. They aren’t exactly traditional in anyway like you’d expect, but none the less they’re pretty darn good. Check out the menu on the link above and you’ll see for yourself.
Easthampton was about a five minute drive from Northampton and in those five minutes there was some beautiful scenery along the way. I think we’ll be going back there often. Here’s a few pictures of the Easthampton Diner you might enjoy it’s quite popular with the locals.
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