Sunday 9 September: Road trip from Stonington up the Connecticut river valley.
Chop-chop, out of bed at 7am, we have a hire car to pick up and make the most of the day. Oana is as usual beyond herself when it comes to road trips.
We take the launch boat to town, and while Oana orders an Uber, Glen has a stroll through the boat yard. It looks immaculate. And apparently they have a very good reputation. After a short Uber drive to the airport, we arrive at Budget office right on time as they open for the day. And we get a KIA, which will be our mean of transport for the next 2 days.
First stop, New London, at Muddy Water’s Cafe where we have great coffee and second breakfast of the day, egg and ham bagels. And it’s not even 10am! The decor is very special, with old posters, memorabilia, old toys, jukebox, train track suspended to the ceiling. Perfect find to start our exploring inland. The real train track passes right behind the cafe, along the riverfront, and we enjoy hearing the classic American train whistles as a couple pass by. We then drive a bit through the town, to have a glimpse of the architecture, and plot our course for next stop, Essex on the Connecticut river.
As we choose the scenic route, we very much enjoy the drive through the quaint villages. They all look pretty, and very sleepy on this cold Sunday morning.
The drive towards Essex village is a picturesque display of woods, narrow roads and secluded properties with perfect lawns. Essex village is charming, with quaint little shops and inns along the main road, and a busy waterfront, with shipyards, docks and marinas. We walk through it for an hour, during which we certainly warm up, and we are ready to move on.
Scenic route continues through more rural areas along the river valley with pretty and tidy houses. But as we go further inland it starts becoming less tidy, with an abrupt change at the time we get to Portland and Middletown. Rather unattractive: litter flying on the streets, garbage everywhere, graffiti on buildings, loud music blaring from passing cars. So drive through is all we do in these towns.
After which we turn towards the Haven towns: East Haven, New Haven and Fair Haven. Which again we find less appealing than the quaint villages we visited earlier in the day. So we just drive to the Yale University campus and have a look around. Students must have a nice life here, the campus is very nice. And so much history to it.
We drive on another very scenic road towards Madison, Clinton and Westbrook, which are another set of perfectly tidy and beautiful villages along the shoreline. Even in this dull evening light they look perfect. Just wished we saw it in bright sunshine, when they would be at their best.
As the last launch boat runs at 8pm, we returned to Stonington on the fast route, the highway. And we did have few minutes to drive around Stonington itself and see where is what. It is a very quaint village, we’ll surely enjoy walking it. Few nice bars too!
On the launch boat trip back to Cloudy Bay we spot her rolling from the distance. The dreadful swell is creeping in. Hm, we haven’t had such a bad rocking since the Mediterranean. Over dinner, we laugh as Glen’s soup is almost spilling out of the bowl when Cloudy Bay gets in full swing. We are not quite at the creaking floor boards stage yet (that would be Code-Red swell level!) but it’s not far off! So after some admin we head to bed for an early night and take advantage of the rocking 🙂