Hartland: Complete!

Hartland: Complete!
The Coach Stop

Here is the CTMQ Guide to Hartland with my list and stories about everything I’ve done there!

After a decade of writing CTMQ, I decided to try to “complete” towns. In that decade of traveling and writing, I had already done a lot of stuff in many of our towns already. However, I have been continually surprised by how much more there often is to do. This page includes my “town completion celebration meal” and recap of my Hartland experiences.

Let’s get to it.

Hartland was my: 34th town completed
First CTMQ Visit: Falls Brook Trail & Falls, 2009

The Celebration

With 33 previous town completion celebrations under my belt, you’d think this exercise would be somewhat perfunctory by now. But each of our 169 towns are different and each completion celebration is unique.

There are no standalone bars or take-out joints or even gas stations in Hartland. There’s a library, a historic house museum, a fire station, a church, a school, and a town hall. There is a maple syrup purveyor, but I can’t make a meal out of that.

Fortunately, there’s one restaurant. And it has a bar.

Now, before we dig into my celebration meal, I have to shout out the fine folks of Hartland. When I shifted my ultimate goal for this website in 2016, I had the idea in my head that by categorizing everything into the 169 towns, the residents of those towns would pick up on what I’m doing and express some mild fascination with the fact that some random guy is doing everything in their hometown.

It took 34 towns before that happened as I’d envisioned. (Please know that I’m not complaining that this site hasn’t taken off to be some Connecticut cultural icon; not at all. I don’t promote it at all and keep my doings very quiet as I do them.)

But man oh man… Hartland! I don’t know if your fascination with my wanderings is indicative of the lack of excitement in town or just simply Hartland pride. But it’s pretty cool. After my write up of the local history museum, my page got shared all over various Facebook pages like The Hartland Gazette and The First Church in Hartland. I received fan mail from Hartlanders. Dozens of you followed my Facebook page. (I hate to break it to you, but this page you’re reading ends my Hartland adventures until you add a trail or open a museum or some otherwise CTMQ-worthy thing.)

And so, as I celebrate the town at its lone restaurant, I’m very, very fortunate.

Why? Because The Coach Stop is good. Really good. If it had been terrible, I’d be in a pickle. I imagine all the new CTMQ readers from Hartland would surround my house with pitchforks and torches. So thank you, Coach Stop, for keeping my life relatively peaceful.

I stopped in one afternoon after doing some things in town and over in Colebrook. I didn’t have time for a meal, so I simply had a beer. A pre-celebration celebration if you will. This gave me a chance to skim the menu. My preconceived notions were shattered. Seafood risotto? Cajun barramundi? Monkfish piccata? Escargot?!

Okay, Hartland, I see you.

The Coach Stop is located in an old building. Like, really old. There are a series of signs in a hallway between the bar and the dining room which attempt to explain the building’s long history. I took pictures of all three and have read them all twice and, well, let’s hope the food is better than their copy editing.

Through the typos, misspellings, grammatical errors and continuity issues, I gleaned that… this building is really old. Like, late 18th century? Maybe? It became a restaurant in 1963 and has been one ever since – though certainly not The Coach Stop. The most recent tenant has been here since December 2015.

I returned a couple weeks after my first visit to eat.

And eat I did. And then I ate leftovers the next day.

The Coach Stop’s portions are very large. As usual, I was pressed for time so I went with a pub order rather than their fancier fare. The Buffalo wings here are massive. But they are juicy and darn near perfect. (Though they are not hot… you know how there’s “Asian people hot” and then there’s “Latino people hot” and then there’s “Black people hot” and then there’s “white people hot?” Well, there’s a level below that… “Hartland people hot.” It was cute when my wonderful and maternal server rushed to my table with a second glass of water to better deal with those “spicy wings.” Oh, Hartland, you have no idea. My wife is Vietnamese.)

My chicken bacon ranch wrap was similarly massive. Just stuffed to the gills with meat. My word, this place feeds the farm boys up here well. The wrap was also quite good. My fries were perfectly cooked with crispy skins and pillowy insides.

And here’s the thing. Everyone knew everyone here. Not in a drunken “Hey Tony, howsh da old lady and the chthickenshandwish?” way, but in a knowing, friendly way. My server is the “lunch lady” at the school. For real. The older couples at the bar had a long chat with another server about their fish while his hand rested on their shoulders. The bartender was always present but not up in everyone’s business. I like this place.

Speaking of the servers, they all seem to be of retirement age. I guess that’s cool? The hostess, however, was a beautiful young woman who seemed woefully out of place, but she holds down the only hostessing job within miles.

My entire meal, plus a Corona was 35 bucks. Again, you can do much fancier than what I had here, both in terms of food and drink. And if you ever find yourself in this neck of the woods, you should absolutely stop in. (But not in July, because it’s closed for the entire month. That’s how it works in the Hartland hinterlands.)

The Coach Stop has been rolling along for eight years, and I wish them many more.

The Coach Stop’s Facebook page

Hartland Wrap-Up

The forests of Hartland are deep and dark. The dominating feature of the town is the deep and dark Barkhamsted Reservoir. There are houses and roads and memories buried under metric tons of reservoir water here, hidden among the acres and acres of natural beauty.

I’m sure for most kids growing up in a town like Hartland, there is an overwhelming desire to get out. And yet, I’ll bet, when those kids’ own kids leave home, there’s an overwhelming desire to return. Hartland is beautiful and forgotten and as “hidden” as a town in Connecticut can be. You don’t end up here by accident.

Which is good, since there are no gas stations or convenience stores.

Hikers know Harland because the last northern miles of the Tunxis Trail traverses the town; one of the best sections of CFPA trail in the state. Another shorter trail off of Route 20 takes you to one of my favorite waterfalls around – Falls Brook Falls. And county highpointers have all certainly trekked up South Johnson Hill, the highest point in Hartford County.

Beyond that? There are other trails here and there, and of course the town history museum at the Gaylord House. And that’s about it.

And that’s fine. Hartland knows who it is and it doesn’t need to be anything more than that. I like that.

Thought exercise: If I had to send someone to Hartland for a daytrip, I would tell them to put on their hiking shoes, find a friend for a car spot, and just hike the northern end of the Tunxis Trail. It feels northern, as in northern New England. Enjoy the solitude because that’s what Hartland is all about. The drive along Route 20 around the northern half of the reservoir is one of my favorites in the state. Afterwards, you must hike again to go see Falls Brook Falls and then… hope that The Coach Stop is open for a hearty meal.

Surprise: That Damian made it to the top of Hartford County!
Favorite fact: That so many people in Hartland came to find this website and seem to get what it’s all about.
Disappointment: The lack of proper trails in the Horace B. Clark Woods.

Hartland: Done!

Previous completed town: Somers!
Next completed town: Rocky Hill!