Connecticut - July



New York City passing view

Arrived in Connecticut the end of June and have to say, we would NEVER drive an RV on highway 95 around New York City again.  Our GPS (Miss Tom Tom) at one point told us we had a delay on our route and offered us a quicker way.  Thank goodness we declined, as she was going to take us through one of the boroughs of NYC where the streets are narrow and congested  (Miss Tom Tom does not know we are an RV...she thinks we are a car).  Instead, we stayed true to our route and ended up going over the George Washington Bridge.  Very confusing, when you see a sign that says no trucks or buses on the bottom level and you  have to make a split decision if you are considered a truck, even though you are pulling a car.  We ended up on the bottom level, paid the toll and made it to the other end without incident or ticket.

CHARLIE BROWN CAMPGROUND

We settled  into our new digs, Charlie Brown Campground.  It is a great little RV park with 100 sites, half of them set aside for what they refer to as 'seasonals'.  Those are people who pay a yearly fee to park their RV or Trailer and then come and go as they would like throughout the season.  Steve and Pam St. John who owns the park, live on site, and were given the award by the Yankee Magazine of being the Best Family Campground in Connecticut.

The park's camping sites are all grass, very level and open.  They

Natchug River

cater to families and offer fun events like Christmas in July, A fishing derby (they are on the 2nd best stocked river in CT), and entertainment in the pavilion along with bingo twice on Saturdays.

Santa in July

Deane mowing lawns

Deane works outside in the park, cleaning bathrooms and sites and has gotten to refresh his electrical skills by fixing a number of electrical problems. My job is by far more comfortable.   I work inside in the office/store where it is air-conditioned.  

Air conditioning is something we have come to realize is a must have here on the east coast.  Ours seems to be running 24/7 since we got here. With the humidity comes very thick and stifling air, tornado watches and warnings, as well as sever thunderstorms.  The mixture of thunderstorms and tornado's are referred to an 'apparent rotation', and this is how it is explained:

A tornado watch is issued when weather conditions are favorable for the development of severe thunderstorms that are capable of producing tornadoes. A tornado watch therefore implies that it is also a severe thunderstorm watch. A tornado watch must not be confused with a tornado warning. In most cases, the potential exists for large hail and/or damaging winds in addition to the tornadoes.

A watch does not mean that the severe weather is actually occurring, only that conditions have created a significant risk for it. If severe weather actually does occur, a tornado warning or severe thunderstorm warning will probably be issued. Note that a watch is not required for a warning to be issued.

Apparent Rotation

Are you confused?  So are we.  We have experienced a couple of these in the month of July.  So we sit in front of the TV, as the stations do a best guess to where the potential tornado will hit.  So far, only one of them was aimed right at us and we headed to the rec center here in the park to wait it out with the others.

We entered the clubhouse to find what appeared to be a party.  About 20 people seated and standing around the big screen TV with the weather alerts continuing. People had brought trays of food, bags of snacks and cocktails.  No one seemed bothered by the events and we spent the next half hour watching the 'apparent rotation' path and making small talk.  When it became clear the 'apparent rotation' had passed our area, the party disbanded and we headed back to our RV.

Our schedule allows us three days off in a row, so we are taking advantage of that and getting out and about, attempting to see as much of New England as we can and in my case, eating as much lobster as I can while I am here.

There  is much Revolutionary war as well as Civil war history in this area.  The names of the towns, many duplicated in each state, reflect where settlers came from in Europe.  What is amazing is to drive through all of the little towns (and there are a lot of them) and see they were established in the 1700's or early 1800's.  Our little town of Eastford was established in 1840, when they broke away from a  nearby city of Ashford that was incorporated in 1714.


Mystic Seaport and Aquarium

Mystic is a small town on the south coast of Connecticut.  If you remember an old movie called Mystic Pizza... part of that movie was filmed both in the town of Mystic as well as the planetarium in the Seaport.

Rebuilt whaling ship

The Seaport is a recreation of a 19th century seafaring village, consisting of more than 60 original historic buildings, and shipyards.  Most of them rare commercial structures moved here and restored.  The original town was known for its ship building, and many whaling ships originated from here that later sailed in the Pacific Ocean in search of whales.

Inside the whaling ship

  










The Mystic Aquarium was also fun to visit.  It is small, but very hands on and easy to see all of the displays.  They had a couple of beautiful Beluga Whales, a great seal show, and a wonderful walk through aviary where you could feed the lorikeets.

Essex Steam Train and Riverboat -

We've taken a few rides on museum railroads, but this one has an interesting history in that the Valley Railroad Company has been in existence in one form or the other since 1871. It's ownership has

changed many times until it's final purchase by The State of Connecticut who granted a formal lease to the Valley Railroad Company on June 1, 1970. The lease authorized the company to use the 22.67 miles of track for freight and passenger service; and on July 29, 1971 (100 years to the day of the first ceremonial run),

after thousands of hours of mostly volunteer effort, the first train of the new Valley Railroad steamed from Essex to Deep River and has been steaming ever since.  It was a fun ride along the side of the Connecticut River that ended with a Riverboat ride up the River on a very hot day.  The breeze from both rides was greatly appreciated.

Connecticut River

Old Sturbridge Mass. 

Old Sturbridge Village is a village depicting life in New England from 1790-1840. Costumed interpreters re-enact life during that time within the 40 antique 
buildings, including a country store, school, printing offices, tin-stamping, pottery and water-powered mills.  Along with the buildings, there are costumed Farmers that demonstrate farm work, planting, harvesting, milking cows, churning butter, dying wool and cooking over the hearth.

Potter, tho don't think the Mohawk
is period accurate

Tin stamper

We were surprised to learned here that there is no such animal as an Oxen.  Oxen are commonly castrated adult male cattle that are then trained to work in pairs in a yolk. 

Costume character

Dying wool

We have visited Williamsburg Va. a similar re-created village to Old Sturbridge, and came away feeling the re-enactment in Old Sturbridge was more engaging and entertaining than Williamsburg.   Williamsburg is quite commercialized, larger and more spread out than Old Sturbridge.






 We continue to sight-see and have many more pictures to show you...... stay tuned!