October 5-7, 2009 New London – Mystic Connecticut Part II
Monday we spent a good part of our day at the Mystic Seaport. What an extremely interesting area. It is set up as an old whaling village, complete with the last existing wooden whaling ship, The Morgan. We enjoyed the exhibits, displays and the seaport. The weather couldn’t have been nicer, we have been so lucky. We hosted a barbeque back at our campground for everybody. We had a good time enjoying a nice dinner and visiting with Kristin, Laura, Suz (Laura’s mom) and Jay (Laura’s uncle). It was a most pleasant evening topped off by fresh made apple pie. The little MoHo oven really does work pretty well.
Tuesday we went back out to the Seaport for a couple of more hours, really didn’t get it finished on Monday. We walked through the Voyages Exhibit that had the most interesting exhibit of maps dating back to 1590 or so. It was extraordinary to see this original works of art, some with very accurate accountings of land mass and position for the day. We then drove out to Clyde’s Cider Mill established in 1881. We missed the pressing, but snooped around the shed to see the old equipment. Bought ourselves some fresh cider and doughnuts, YUM! We spent the evening in New London, starting with drinks at the Dutch Tavern, an interesting land mark in New London. Dinner was pizza at the 2 Wives, a wood fired pizza kitchen. Kris’ birthday was celebrated early, as we will be out of the area by the 22nd.
Wednesday we visited the town of Willamantic about 40 miles north of New London. The focus of our trip was to visit the Willamantic Brew Pub. It is housed in the 1906 post office building. What a great place, beautifully restored, with brews named to signify postal themes: dead letter porter, first class ale, etc. We ate lunch there which was one of the BEST burgers we have had in a long time. Returning to our area of Connecticut in the afternoon we met our friend Char and her travel buddy Karen for dinner. We walked around part of Stonington Borough and then had a good dinner at Skipper’s Dock. Mike and I had another great lobster dinner. We bid a fond farewell to the “Girls”, Suz, Char and Karen and headed back to camp to pack up and ready ourselves for our departure tomorrow morning. It has been a great week in south-eastern Connecticut.