Thurs June 10: Norwalk to Branford Yacht Club

 In which we have come home ...

I can barely open my eyes, and Rick is already cleaning and whistling.   I'm not sure which I find more annoying. 

 Let me first, and most importantly, welcome to the Loyal Reader Club our newest addition - my beloved sister-in-law, Janet!!!  Someone RELATED TO ME BY BLOOD is actually READING THE BLOG. Pigs must be flying, moons must be blue, Ivanka must be admitting they are grifters.  You other four readers, known and unknown, we appreciate the comments. And we are now taking questions.  Kim - you raise an excellent point - the Long Island Sounds is NOT part of the loop, which is why we are on our own again. We don't plan to finish the loop until next year, and we are waiting to see if we can get into Canada - so we are killing time to see a part of the coast that loopers don't usually see.  And we are so glad we are doing so.  WHY DOESN'T EVERYONE LIVE IN CT?!

Cute houses with their own beach!

While we have had some weather schizophrenia, it's starting to be what we had in mind, back when we started thinking about 'chasing spring' with the great loop. We think a lot about why we are doing this trip.  We talked about this with Lynn/Carolyn, and it's hard to give an answer.  But today I read an article from a travel blogger, and I think she explained it well 'travel should be an instrument of personal growth, and of self discovery'. THAT is what we are after, I think.  But let me go ask Rick what he is after - it's probably involves hardware stores...

We had intended to actually see Norwalk - but the weather on the LIS looked increasingly crappy (by which I mean, weather that might make me throw up) so we suddenly decided to get to Branford before things further deteriorated.  Off we went, unexpectedly, in the middle of the day...

We can ponder our personal growth only so long - the ADD person on board was quickly distracted by 'hey, that looks like a dragon, or seahorse'!!

We have not seen this before on our trip, but there is a LOT of this in LIS.  Mylar balloons - are you with me, people, in agreeing not to use anything celebratory that might break away and fall into the ocean???

As we come into the inlet for Branford, there are ROCKS on either side of the channel.  And a fishing boat IN the channel.  We are still so excited about seeing rocks that we give a little cheer, right before we wake the SHIT out of the little boat, because WHY are they in the channel!

Here we are in Branford Yacht Club, were everyone is ridiculously friendly.  It's almost as though they are sick of each other and were waiting for fresh meat!

We have not encountered Yacht Clubs ('yacht' is just a silly word - what is WRONG with the English language) before.  They are like social clubs, and if a slip is empty for a weekend (our slip boat was off racing) they rent it out with the owner's permission.  Before the night was done, I was on Zillow, looking at property in the area - the wait for a slip here is almost 15 years.  I guess by the time you got a slip you would feel like our Featured Boat Name: