August 16th 2014: Ziplining in Hillsdale, NY

I had to wait for my friend to arrive at my place this morning before we were to go ziplining in New York, but as I had a lot of time before that, I decided to head into Clinton for some breakfast,

Old Building, 200 Union Street

getting a Hot Chocolate

 and a Steak and Cheese Grinder

from John's Sandwich Shop, a typical small town diner in town.

Not too bad, although nothing amazing.

From here, I headed with my friend into Hillsdale NY to do some ziplining at Catamount Aerial Adventure Park, which is also Catamount Ski Area in the winter.

We were early, so we decided to find something to eat, settling for Four Brothers Pizza Inn in town.

The restaurant itself looked pretty nice, but the turkey sandwich my friend got was just alright.

He should have gotten the pizza instead. Oh well.

When we got back, everyone else had arrived, so we went to get our tickets, discounted if one of the participants is a AAA member. We received our harness and gloves,

and after putting them on, we were subjected to a live tutorial as to how to traverse obstacles in the course,

including how to use our alternatingly locking carabiners and ziplining trolleys,

which ensures that we stay attached to the lines while up in the trees. Unlike my last ziplining experience which was guided, we had to do everything by ourselves today, which made everything much more exciting.

Each route has a different grade of difficulty as well, with yellow being the easiest, and the double black diamond being the hardest. In order to climb to the upper level to do the harder courses,

we had to do a green or a yellow first, so we decided to go with a green first. The bridges we had to traverse were tough enough though.

When we got to the blue level, I almost gave up on my first obstacle, but somehow I made it through,

sometimes just barely.

Our final course was the black one, which had its challenges too, but somehow we had grown used to it all, and even though it took a while, we managed to finish it in its entirety, ignoring all the quick exits along the way.

After the last course, we decided to call it a day. We missed out on the Green Rapids path though, which had a lot of ziplining across the open ski slope. Next time I guess.

With that, we headed back into Massachusetts for the day. I decided to bring my friend back to Worcester to try the best burgers I have had to date at The Fix Burger Bar. It happened to be Restaurant Week as well, and the stuff on the special menu looked really good. For appetizers, we got the Chili Pork and Drunken Melon (chili rubbed pork belly, tequila, lime marinated Watermelon, jicama & apple slaw, red chili sauce), 

the fatty pork belly being of melt in your mouth texture, the watermelon salad perfecting the dish.

I got the Millionaire Burger (Kobe beef patty, foie gras, Champagne blackberry bbq sauce, heritage bacon rubbed in kona, fried egg, cognac-flamed wild mushrooms, shaved gruyere, tempura lobster meat),

while my friend got the Big Beef Burger (short rib, grilled onion, provolone, lettuce, horseradish mayo, brioche roll).

I did not get to try my friend's burger, but who would have thought that foie gras could go so well in a burger? Definitely not me.

I'm glad my friend, who is very particular about food, enjoyed his meal. From here, we made a quick exit, as I had yet another event to go to in Cambridge, to have even more food at Muqueca, a pretty hip Brazilian restaurant, with interesting sculpture paintings hung all around the restaurant, in the Central Square area.

By the time I arrived, I was already late, but thankfully everyone else were still waiting around. After we finally got seated, we got drinks, for which I got the Graviola (soursop), which was excellent for an extremely thirsty me after the day's events.

For appetizers, we went with the Fried Yucca (With a delicious, secret sauce created by our chef),

the sauce apparently being a fish broth,

that only arrived later.

Not bad though.

We also got the Brazilian Patties containing cod,

the texture of which somehow did not feel like fish meat at all, and it took me a while to figure out that it was.

We ordered several other dishes, getting the Tripe Stew (With white beans, bacon & sausage.
Served with rice),

the Mariscada (Shrimp, crabmeat, mussels & squid with cilantro, tomato, onion & coconut milk. Served with rice, farofa & plantain moqueca), 

the Feijoada Completa (Black beans stew with fresh & dried meat, pork, sausage & bacon. Served with collard greens, fried plantain, farofa & orange)

and the Seafood Rice Casserole (Shrimp, mussels & squid, tomato, onion, cilantro & coconut milk).

The casserole was almost indistinguisable from the Mariscada, lacking only in crabmeat, although both were pretty good. My favorites were the stews though, the flavors being uniquely Brazilian. It was also cool to learn that the commonly used flour is called farofa.

Being foodies, we just had to get dessert to share as we were all extremely full, getting the Flan (with homemade caramel sauce)

and the Chocolate Flan. 

The caramel flan was definitely much better, the chocolate one tasting more like a chocolate mousse cake.

After 2 pretty filling meals, I took off to go watch "The Giver" at the Apple Cinemas in town. The premise of this movie is much like "Divergent", which I hated as well. Should not have watched this movie at all. With that, a day of ziplining an eating was finally at an end. Time for food truck stuff tomorrow.