Discovering the mysteries of Mystic

Our first evening in Mystic, we sat on the deck of the Air BnB sipping local beers and chatting across the fence with a friendly neighbor. She was curious about from whence we hailed and was offering local restaurant advice when our host made her arrival. If I had not known her age, I never would have guessed accurately. She was tall, white-haired, spry and strong with a curious nature and stories to tell. She had grown up in a Connecticut town nearby and had recently relocated to the old farm house. She shared it with her daughters when they visited and rented out the second floor as an Air BnB on occasion. We offered her a beer, which she gratefully accepted as she began to give her own recommendations on places to visit.

Most important was food, and then attractions. She recommended we check out Sift bakery for breakfast and an oyster bar with a “Treetop” area with views for evening meals. She couldn’t say enough good things about Mystic Seaport, which was reassuring because that was to be our destination the next morning.

Someone remarked about how there weren’t any biting bugs out and that was their cue to arrive. We quickly parted ways and headed in for our nightly round of cribbage under the light of a single bare bulb in the kitchen. I think maybe I won that night, but I probably don’t remember correctly. Dad or Chas may remember better than I…

The next morning, we waited skeptically in the long line at Sift and were rewarded with a delicious bakery meal and tasty coffee. After filling our tanks, we headed to Mystic Seaport and were delighted to find a pile of large logs lining the parking lot. Dad and mom are lumberjacks and have a mill at home, so we pondered the offerings before entering the Seaport.

The Seaport is a living history museum where you can experience boats being rebuilt, climb about a whaling ship and take a ride on a coal powered passenger ship as well as enjoy other activities.

We headed to the whaling ship first and had a chance to help them pull up a whaling boat – sneaky way to put the paying folks to work. It was great fun to heave and ho together.

We wandered the grounds and found a fantastic display of figureheads.

Soon it was time to board for a steamboat ride down the Mystic river on the Sabino, one of the few remaining passenger ships that people like Mark Twain boarded to travel the waters of America. This was a highlight of the day. We boarded at the dock and picked some seats toward the front of the boat to enjoy good views and a chance to chat with the Captain. As presumed, he was an interesting fellow. Our journey took us down near the marina where we were staying and along the way we passed under the Mystic river draw bridge and through a train bridge. This being a true coal powered boat, we ventured below deck and chatted with the engine man during the journey. He tossed coal into the engine and made adjustments based on guidance from the captain. What a tough fellow!

After our boat ride, we roamed the grounds a bit more until our stomachs began to tell us it was dinner time. Our destination for dinner was none other than the famous “Mystic Pizza”. I wanted to go because it sounded fun, but I’ll be the first to admit I didn’t expect the pizza to be great in this touristy destination. Let’s just say we were pleasantly surprised. The pizza was fabulous and the restaurant had fun atmosphere with its namesake movie playing in the background on a tv screen.

To help digest our meal, we enjoyed a stroll through town back to our rooms that evening. It was a gorgeous night to admire the homes, many of which dated back to the 1700s.

Wrapped up the night with another round of Cribbage. I’m pretty sure dad won that night.

8 states in 24 hours

Our plan was to depart early on a Saturday morning and make the long haul drive to Connecticut. I had it in my head that it was an 8 hour drive. Sometime on the Thursday before our departure, I rechecked our route on Google maps and discovered it was a solid 13 hours. Hmmmm, 13 hours, I thought and I began to worry about starting our adventure on that particular note.

As Friday dawned, I awoke and started to pack up for the trip. The goal was to pack light. One key item that made it into my bag was our trusty cribbage board and two decks of playing cards. Playing cribbage is a treasured evening habit every time I visit my parents. It was bound to be an integral part of our Northeastern Road Trip.

As we cleaned up my Outback for her virgin road trip, we started to explore the idea of leaving on Friday night after Chas returned home from work. The idea firmed up in our minds and I texted Chas to get his thoughts. It was integral for him to agree for a reason you’ll soon understand. Although we have a very progressive relationship, we are very old fashioned about driving. He does it, which is absolutely fun by me. As I overhead him describe it once, he drives while I plan the next adventure. What can I say, it works!

Chas arrived home around 5, we quickly loaded the Outback and were on our way. Our goal was to drive until we all decided it was time to stop. Upon reflection, it was an invigorating and surprising way to start our adventure, which was otherwise completely pre-planned. I had spent months researching and planning which towns to visit and pre-booking our rooms. Travel planning is something I love to do and my dad had been telling his friends for months before the trip that all the details were being taken care of by his “travel agent”. I must admit, it gives me pride to have the title and accompanying trust.

We pulled out of our gravel drive and soon crossed the border to Virginia. Mom and dad had just celebrated 43 years together and it felt like the right time to take a quick break in the state that is “For Lovers”.

Next we crossed into Maryland and patiently navigated the DC traffic. As we approached Delaware, I began to scope out a hotel. I favor the Hilton chain, partly because I read “Be Our Guest” and appreciate Conrad Hilton’s philosophy on hospitality and also because I have points!

We debated stopping near Chesapeake or closer to a Baltimore. Noting that it was already after 9 and we’re getting older and like to sleep, I found a Hilton location about 30 minutes up the road. An hour later, as we waited in stopped traffic for the toll tunnel we were grateful we had opted for a close option.

Around 11 pm we checked into our room, popped in the ear plugs and sawed away for nearly 8 hours. The next morning, we groggily stumbled downstairs for the free breakfast. It was quite a spread, but the surprise came when dad mentioned to the hotel clerk that the hotel room water tasted terrible. The clerk, with much surprise said “don’t drink the water, it’s not safe!”. Well that was quite a shock for us and we all thought, geez that’s the big city for ya! We’ll keep the country life.

Fearing some strange bodily reactions to the water, we trepidatiously loaded our bags and shoved off to Delaware. As I looked at our route ahead, I noted we would drive near Philadelphia and the Liberty Bell. I had always thought it would be nice to see it sometime and everyone was ok with the slight deviation in our route, so I plugged it into the gps.

As we pulled into Philadelphia, I’ll admit it did not seem very impressive from the freeway. As we got closer to town, the architecture became remarkable with a strong Art Deco influence and nearly a dozen bridges. And, if the coffee hadn’t woken us up, the barrage of emergency vehicles attempting to crawl around the morning traffic with light flashing and sirens blaring did the trick! We began to wonder what was afoot. It didn’t take long to solve the mystery.

Downtown Philly was also loaded with beautiful architecture, and sadly, a number of folks who looked to be living on the streets. We followed the signs and parked the Suby near the Liberty Bell, walked to the park and quickly discovered the site was closed because construction under the streets had shut off the power. Hence, the emergency vehicles. As an alternative we strolled the grounds a bit and then loaded back up and continued on our way.

After threatening Chas that we’d have to return some day for me to see the Bell, we crossed through New Jersey, near the town where my mom was born, Trenton. Our path led us up the Jersey Turnpike, a road I had often heard of, perhaps in movies? The neighborhoods began to encroach closer upon the roadway, something a North Carolinian notices as a stark contrast to our tree-lined tunnels of highways. The green is equal parts beautiful and monotonous.

The neighborhoods in New Jersey did not appear prosperous and I wondered about the people who lived in these homes on top of the turnpike. Soon after I got to find out. A need arose for a quick bio break and with no rest stops in site, we pulled off the turnpike, tossed some coins into a rusty old exit, and began to search out gas stations on google maps. A turn to the right and down one block took us within site of a station and stuck in traffic. Mom and I hopped out in front of a church and passed a friendly lady on the sidewalk who greeted us warmly. We walked quickly to the station and assailed the attendant with the need for a restroom to which be responded by pointing to the back of a very suspect looking shop. Mom ventured inside and after safely exiting I followed her, being careful to not touch anything… let’s just say, it hadn’t seen a lady in a while.

After depositing a dollar on the counter in appreciation, we loaded up again and while waiting to re-enter traffic, a car began to back straight into us! Chas hit the horn and a mechanic jumped out and started yelling at us to move. So we did. Back to the turnpike we fled without so much as a backwards glance. Thus the protocol of proactive use of rest stops became the norm for the rest of the trip.

New Jersey soon became very rocky and scenic. A district change in the flora and fauna was apparent as we continued north. We had contemplated driving across Manhattan, but google indicated it would take us through gridlocked traffic and so we opted to drive north of the city. As we crossed the river we could just make out One World Trade Center in the distance.

We shoved on to Connecticut and were delighted by the rest stop complexes that we began to find in the region. They reminded us a lot of the rest stops along the autobahn in Germany. There was a standard assortment of restaurant options, clean restrooms and plenty of tables to sit , enjoy your meal and relax. We enjoyed our first, of many, Subway meals on the trip. It became the meal of choice. As we ate, we met a fellow and his sister who asked us what town we were in. I thought, this fellow doesn’t need to know details about our destination. You meet interesting folks on the road.

As we left I noticed the funniest contraption, an air conditioned pod you could rent to house your animal while inside the restaurant.

After our lunch stop, we had about an hour to go to reach our destination for the night, an AirBnB in Mystic, Connecticut. We drove through the crowds in town and soon located our oasis, a quaint restored farm house near the Marina. The top level of the house would be our home for the next 3 days and 2 nights.

As we relaxed on the back deck, we recalled all we had experienced in the first 24 hours and counted up 8 states: North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Connecticut. Our adventure was underway!

American road trip fueled by Subway

There is a map of an island that hangs on the wall near my parents’ dining room table at their retirement home in Oregon. This is not just any island, this is Thacher Island, a piece of land given to our ancestor Anthony Thacher as recompense for a tragedy at sea. My husband and I had the chance to visit the island once, a few years back. I was quite moved by the experience and I fell in love with the idea of taking my father to the island which is our connection back to our English ancestry.

Over Christmas, as we enjoyed a glass of dad’s home brew beer, I proposed that we might plan an adventure to Thacher Island. Dad agreed it was a great plan as long as I was the travel agent. I chatted with friends from the Northeast to find the best time of year for our adventure. Then, we bought plane tickets and I started planning our great Northeastern Road Trip.

Thacher Island is located just off the coast of Rockport, Massachusetts. We had two ways to get there: fly or drive. Without a ton of analysis, we decided to drive. We had 9 days to complete our adventure of about 1800 miles. There are moments when I thought we should have flown and then rented a car and traveled the Northeast. Then I realized there was a lot of country between North Carolina and Mass that my husband and parents had never experienced. So, drive we did.

I pulled up google maps and started to plan the route. We live in North Carolina and I mapped it straight to Rockport – estimated 16 hour drive. In the name of sanity, I decided to break it up. Our plan was to drive the Coastal route, stay in Mystic, Connecticut for 3 days and 2 nights, Rockport for 2 days and 2 nights, then swing inland for a night at Gettysburg and then wrap up the trip with 2 days and 2 nights in DC.

Of all the places we could visit, I applied this criteria to the selections: either, I had never visited, or my husband and parents had never visited, or they were on the water, or of historical significance.

What follows is a series of posts about the chapters of our adventure. Hope you enjoy traveling along with us and might make the adventure yourself someday.

One last thing, you might be wondering about the title of this blog post…let’s just say we are a LOT of Subway sandwiches on this road trip.

Next up – Baltimore and Mystic, Connecticut with a sketchy stop in New Jersey and big disappoint in Philly on the way.