Connecticut

Moving our way north, we now visit Connecticut.  We've been fairly busy during our brief stay here, and we've barely scratched the surface of what there is to do.  We've driven past Noah Webster's house, Nathan Hale's homestead, the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, Mystic Seaport, and many others.  And it seems as though we're only an hour or so from everything in the state.  Oddly, I think we're only an hour and a half from everything in Connecticut once we're in Rhode Island.  And possibly Massachussetts.  Such a difference from the Southwest, where even the bathroom was an hour or two away (ha ha).  

Man, I love our Rand McNally Road Atlas (Adventure Edition)!  Reading my atlas always shows me good things (when I can get my eyes to read that small print).  At any rate, I found the Submarine Force Library & Museum.  We spent several hours there looking over old submarines, including a full sized model of Bushnell's turtle.                  

Does this not make you claustrophobic?  You can't really tell from this picture, but if the mannequin had his elbows out, he could touch both sides of the machine.  Wow.  While the turtle failed to destroy any targets, I'm pretty amazed at the ingenuity and perseverence of David Bushnell.  And the willingness of anyone to put themselves in this thing.  No small spaces for me!!!                                  

We also got to take a tour of the USS Nautilus.  Remember the no small spaces for me comment?  I did fine, thank you very much.  The air moves nicely through the sub, and the tour is only about 30 minutes.  Even so, I was pretty sure going in that there was no way I would come out of this without a need for some anti-anxiety medication.  I faced my fear and came out on top (this time).  It's a pretty big deal for me since I've been having anxiety attacks and such.  Go me!              

But this right here is why sub life is not for me.  Each of those white curtains is another bunk.  There are four on the right hand side that you can see, and another three on the left hand side (limited on that side because of a lower ceiling).  Heebee jeebees, and that's not even taking into account the dangers of being out at sea and at war.  There was an excellent movie (they only show part I) on submarines in WWII.  Submariners sharing their tales.  Really very humbling when you think about the inherent dangers and how the technology still failed at times.  We also learned how the torpedoes would fail to explode on impact because of a design flaw and the designers blamed incompetent soldiers until an officer ran his own demo and showed that the impact of the torpedo on the water damaged the firing mechanism.  There was a survivor of a sunken sub--the sub sunk due to a design flaw, so that when they dove, water kept coming in.  Less than half the crew was rescued.  What a horrible way to die.                      

After the museum, we headed over to Mystic for lunch.  The Mystic Seaport is mighty pricey, so we skipped that, but I wanted to hit Mystic Pizza.  I loved that movie as a teenager.  They have the movie going constantly, though no sound, and tons of memorabillia from the movie.  The pizza was good and it was neat just to be able to say we've been.  We also hit the bakery down the street for dessert--Sift Bakery.  YUMMY!!!!  The kids had wanted dessert at Mystic Pizza, but I put them off in favor of the bakery.  I'm glad I did.  My aunt and I were talking about memories and how many revolve around food.  Dessert was certainly a good food memory for me!  Mystic is a cute town, the kind of small town that would be so nice to live in.  Everything in walking distance, cute shops that are kept up, visitors to help the local economy.  I enjoyed our brief stay.                                  

In West Hartford, we came across this sign.  I love clever people.  We were in Hartford to get some fajita seasoning from Penzeys.  We haven't had access to our favorite fajita seasoning consistently, and we've run out several times, so I made sure I got two packages this time.  Let's hope that keeps us for the next three months!                  

After Penzeys, we scooted over to Bristol to check out the New England Carousel Museum (another find on the atlas!).  We managed to hit the area during Open House, so the museum was free.  And, on site are two other museums--the Fire Museum and the Greek Culture museum.  Each museum was fairly small, so we finished the whole thing in about an hour, but it was good fun.  We learned about the three different types of carving, saw some incomplete carvings, and the kids got to ride a small carousel.                                

Possibly the scariest warning sticker I've ever seen.  Kinda like Mr. Yuck, but for flammables instead of poisons.  Seriously, it's Heath Ledger's Joker combined with Satan, with his hair on fire.  Not good.                    

Bill got into it by dressing up.  Quite the handsome man, wouldn't you say?  After all our fun in Bristol, we had to leave for lunch and errands.  There's a birthday this weekend, and purchases must be made.