In which we give no tucks ...
At dawn the day promised cloud cover, but no rain - one of my favorite combos!
This yacht club is fine, but kinda in the middle of nowhere (we are so cheap) so we happily climbed into Dan's car, and he proceeded to give us a great tour of the area he grew up in. We drove around Groton, along the coast with foggy views of Fischers Island, and into Noank. This is a very small, quiet town at the mouth of the Mystic River. It was like going back in time with small streets, water views and beautiful old houses. Even new construction was designed to look old in order to keep the feeling of an old fishing village. In fact it is still a working fishing village with small lobster/seafood shops along the shore. Almost immediately I was on Zillow, looking for houses!
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| Look! Ye Olde wooden hand-carved chains! I must live here!! |
From there it was a short drive into Mystic where Dan dropped us off in front of the Old Mystic Seaport living museum. This is an area like Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia, where they have preserved an old section of the town as a museum of period homes, boats and a working shipyard. People dress up on period costume and welcome visitors with tales of how it was to live in the 1800's. We didn't go in, but walked up and down the main street in front of the museum where many of the older 1840's homes are still used as museum offices.
We meandered along the main road back onto the town and took our time looking at the stores and buildings along the Mystic river waterfront and then we struck gold - a small bakery where we had a cup of coffee and, more importantly, CHAI! Plus we got a chocolate cream de menthe brownie for later!
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| They were clearly my tribe. |
Then we found a super interesting store where everything was made of knots. We had to go in because of the sign.
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| Star Wars/Knot humor - it's pretty niche! |
While I looked around, Rick and the owner shot knots puns back and forth. It was clearly KNOT her first rodeo, and he had to work hard to keep up!
In the center of the town is an old 1800's draw bridge with huge counterweights that hold it open while boats pass through. We were just in time to see it in action. Look at the size of these weights!
Because I am the perfect wife, I found a restaurant called the Oyster Club for lunch, so that Rick could indulge in his weird slimy-blob fetish. Happily/Sadly they were closed (so no oysters were harmed in service to this blog post), and we found another restaurant across the street called Friar Tuck. Their motto, 'we give no tucks', was the deciding factor!
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| The requisite photo of Mystic Pizza - but we have heard the pizza is not that good without Julia Roberts. |
Dan, and his wife Marcia, were kind enough to stop by to pick us up and we were able to get them to stop at a hardware store on the way back (it wasn't too hard to convince Dan to stop as he seemed almost as excited as Rick at the thought of looking at hardware). Apparently Rick needed a 5/8" hose T blah blah blah..... for something something... Because we are all boat-loons, we also had to stop by their house to admire the hand-sewn dinghy chaps (don't ask) Marcia had just made.
Wednesday was all about New London. New London is known for the large navy submarine base that has been here since WWII, and is the location of a gigantic submarine boatyard where they constructed the first nuclear submarine, Nautilus. The sub museum, and the Coast Guard Academy, are also here.
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| The diameter of the early subs vs the modern ones. Yikes! |
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| DIVE! DIVE! DIVE! |
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| Basically I would just never be on a sub - I've seen Das Boot. And Hunt for Red October. |
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| But if I were on one, at least I'd EAT! |
From the museum we took a Lyft over to the town of New London which was... meh. It was clearly struggling, although they had made a real effort with the waterfront and there were some lovely old buildings.
As the Feature Boat Name of the day says - I'm just not sure why some of these towns make it and others don't.
PS - the cream de menthe brownie was HEAVEN
2 of my uncles met and became best buddies on a nuclear sub during the Vietnam War (one became my uncle by coming home for a visit with his buddy and later marrying his buddy's sister). Their sub was stationed in New London. I remember being very young and living in Springfield MA when they would be in port and come visit us. (My mom and her sister her married the buddy lived in adjacent buildings in Springfield).
ReplyDeleteI would love to see that museum. Those rings are crazy how vastly different they are.
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