While still in the early planning stages of Gilmore Girls, California -native creator Amy Sherman-Palladino visited traveled to New York with her husband. Wanting to visit Mark Twain’s house in Hartford, Connecticut, the two took a drive and stayed at The Mayflower Inn in Washington Depot. Unbeknownst to her, this would be the town that inspired Stars Hollow. She recalls, “We’re driving by, and people are slowing down saying, ‘’Excuse me, where is the pumpkin patch?’’ And everything is green, and people are out, and they’re talking. And we went to a diner, and everyone knew each other, and someone got up and they walked behind the counter, and they got their own coffee because the waitress was busy, and I’m, like, ‘’Is this out of central casting? Who staged this thing for me?’” After spending a day in the town, she had worked out much of the show in her head and began writing the script for the pilot that very evening. She remembers, “If I can make people feel this much of what I felt walking around this f