We experienced our first "big" hills as we made our way through NE Pennsylvania, stopping for a night in our first KOA park north of New York in order to see friend and former IBM colleague Thorne Ventura and his fiance Lin. The KOA was a bit tight and heavily treed which did not make our roof-mounted satellite happy at all -- had to deploy the portable one and practically put it in the street behind us to get a signal.
Our next week was spent near New Haven, Connecticut, home of Yale University and close to Jeffrey's cousin Pete. We really enjoyed touring the college and seeing the New Haven Museum... quaint but interesting. Spent quite awhile trying to find a big "Yale" sign like our own University of Florida has, but only found a small thing. Odd. We didn't find New Haven to be the wonderful coastal town that I had imagined. It was much more industrial around the waterfront than expected and there were many depressed areas around the city.
Our next week in Old Mystic, CT was the complete opposite -- an absolutely fabulous area with tons to do and not enough days to do it all. In addition to the famous Mystic harbor town (and delicious "Mystic Pizza"), there is a terrific reproduction of a 1840's shipbuilding town (part of which is still actively restoring old ships), an aquarium where Dr. Robert Ballard's office is located (he found the Titanic), the ability to tour the U.S.S. Nautilus (the first nuclear submarine), and so much more.
But the biggest reasons to visit this wonderful area was to see Jeffrey's other cousin Tim and my former college roommate, Lisa Pickett and her husband Zack. -- oh, and their adorable yorkie Zoey! Lisa and Zack really rolled out the read carpet for us and gave us grand tours of the Mystic CT and Newport RI areas on their weekend off. We then kept ourselves very busy every day of the week and then seeing them most evenings for dinner. Good thing we were well rested from our slower "New Haven" visit! Below is a great picture of the four of us taken from a "cliffwalk" in Newport, followed by the best beluga whale picture I took at the aquarium. Funny, the whale looks tiny, but it is actually 15-20 feet long.
Tim is a busy guy who bounces between New York and Niantic CT in his
job. We were lucky to get a nice evening visit with him and catch up. His Niantic cottage is close to the water and we can see why he escapes the big city as much as he can. We are sad to be leaving this area as we U-turn and head back south again to get to Raleigh by Memorial Day. We highly recommend putting this place on your bucket list!
