Coastal Connecticut

This past weekend my favorite season arrived. Fall!!! David finished his 3 weeks of midnight-8am work. Bellevue was still "processing" my start date (ridiculous). So naturally, we had to do something fun. So we decided to take a drive along the coast of Connecticut. I've hardly been anywhere in New England, so it needed to be done. But we didn't leave until Sunday, of course, as Saturday's in September are reserved for College Game Day.

Sunday came and Ravy (I named our car a while back) took us along Highway 1 - the old highway before I95 was built, I'm assuming. We thought we were so smart to take it...we thought for sure we'd see the cuteness of all the little towns and probably see a lot more of the Long Island Sound as we went along. At first we were enjoying the leisure pace and small-town tranquility that came with driving through NYC subburbs...especially the surprise stop at Starbucks David made so I could get a Pumpkin spice latte. Well, about an hour and a half into our trip (which translated into like 45 miles), we were like "Highway 1 sucks! We're seeing all the crap parts of towns..if I see one more Linens 'n Things...and we haven't even seen the Sound since the Whitestone Bridge." We stuck it out though and eventually made it to our lunchtime destination: New Haven and Yale University. At this point we were hungry and irritated..and naturally ended up parking in the most expensive parking garage. Just our luck. We laughed it off though and quickly focused in on how different New Haven was than what we had expected. If any of you have been there before, you'll probably get what I mean when I say there appears to be no middle class in this town. There are the wealthy Yale attendees and alumni and then there are the beggars in the park right next to the campus. Awkward! We decided we wouldn't have felt comfortable going to school there... Despite the socioeconomic gaps, Yale was impressive. Such a walk back in time. That place is old!! I was tempted to buy a bulldog at the bookstore but realized I'm not a Yale sports fan at all. The only reason I care about it is because a fictional character named "Rory Gilmore" went there in a show I'm ashamed to admit I love. The rest of our time at Yale was spent at a sports cafe on campus and driving around aimlessly until we found the Yale Bowl. David says the Yale Bowl was the first bowl-shaped football stadium. It's pretty neat- the stadium is built into the ground and is very subdued. No distractions, just football.

We headed out for more coast driving- this time driving down I95. The interstate is lined with dense trees...barely starting to turn colors. It would have been quite the sight about 2 weeks from now. Got to the end of Connecticut and spent the night in Mystic, Connecticut. David had researched and knew this place would interest him- it's an old whaling town which equals boats and history. Perfect. We enjoyed the small-town prices at the hotel and made sure to watch the last game at Yankee Stadium before bed.

We were greeted the next day with perfect weather (cool, overcast, slight breeze) - okay, not perfect for all you sun lovers out there. We spent the whole day hanging out in Mystic. Highlights were the Beluga whales at the Mystic Aquarium and climbing aboard the oldest American wooden whaling ship - the Charles Morgan.

Before heading back to the Big Apple, I convinced David to drive another 10 miles to Rhode Island. Just to say I've been there. We ate at a quant little pizza shop. I think the name was the Pizza Hut.

Much to our amazement, it only took us 2.5 hrs to get from Rhode Island back to our Brooklyn neighborhood. That's like driving to MSP from Decorah! We've got to go exploring more often. A good time was definitely had.