It's rather nice to stay in an RV park during the off-season! Not sandwiched between RVs. Not awoken by noise from neighbors early in the morning. Not suffering from stifling heat or teems of mosquitos buzzing around in the sweltering sun. Having the facilities to ourselves. We took full advantage of it all, checking out at the last moment, and leaving behind the pretty fall foliage, tall trees, and pretty lake vista that we'd enjoyed.
Hartford Highlights
We took the afternoon easy, making an unplanned stop because we were struck by the architecture of the Church of the Good Shepherd, built in the Gothic Revival architectural style by prominent architect Edward Tuckerman Potter, who designed Hartford’s renowned Mark Twain House and the Caldwell Hart Colt Memorial Parish House. The Episcopal church was completed in 1867 and has a tall, striking tower that seems to be double the height of the main building next to it.
Our next stop was harder to spot: within the grounds of Hartford Hospital, in front of one of the buildings, is the Statue of Rover, a dog who was so loyal to his owner that it would wait patiently outside the hospital during his numerous visits, refusing to budge. There are many stories that highlight dogs' loyalty, and they're bittersweet and heart-warming...dogs are the best! There are also statues celebrating their loyalty all over the world--including one of Hachiko in Japan, who continued to wait for his owner for almost 10 years following the man's death (the story is also a movie with Richard Gere, and Lisette bawled her eyes out watching it).
We weren't able to park to see the Cathedral of St. Joseph in detail, but were able to gape briefly at the towering cathedral (the largest church in Connecticut) from across the road, before we visited The Mark Twain House & Museum, the home of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain was his pen name), and his family from 1874 to 1891. It's been described as part steamboat, part medieval fortress and part cuckoo clock, and Twain wrote many of his famous books here, including "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." At one point it was almost going to be demolished, but fortunately these days it's a museum that people can explore. Another famous house not too far away is the A Everett Austin House, a picturesque mansion that we saw from the road, which offers tours to the public.
One of the last sights we'd had on our list to see was of Conny the Whale, a life-size sculpture of a sperm whale, however once we got to the apparent location, we'd found that there were now condos that had been constructed, and that only the tail--which we could just make out--remained across the road next to Trout Brook Trail.
Catching Up With Relatives
Lisette has relatives on her dad's side that live on the East Coast, and in the evening we visited Lisette's cousin Jessica, her husband Shane and their 2 kids for dinner at their house. We haven't seen Jess and Shane since 2011, before they had kids, so it's been a long time! It was so lovely to catch up, meet their daughters for the first time, who even performed with a brief musical rendition on the flute and violin respectively. We deeply appreciated the hospitality (and the absolutely scrumptious and healthy meal--seafood, salad, rice, to make our own rice bowls!), and hopefully can return the warm welcome when we're settled after this trip!
While we didn't finish too late, we were knackered by the time we left, with a noticeable temperature drop warning us that it was going to be a particularly chilly evening. Time to rug up for sleep! Fortunately we didn't have to drive too far, finding a parking lot for a bunch of stores (including Trader Joe's, woohoo!), where we could rest for the night.
Steeped in Nature
The next morning, we noticed a terrible, terrible smell emitting from somewhere within the RV. It smelled like a dead animal, and we couldn't figure out where it was. Did we park on top of it? Had it fallen onto our roof and started to rot? It was concerning, because we didn't know where it was for a long time. Eventually, we realized that it was the smell of propane! Somehow the stove had been nudged, and it was emitting propane into the air. Who knew that this was the smell of that gas? Fortunately Michael figured it out, but we had to open up all the windows to make sure that the gas escaped, and we could also get rid of the odor entirely.
We had a late start to the day, spending the morning in the parking lot, getting more things from Trader Joe's (how can Lisette resist the fall seasonal items?) and continuing to catch up on work, etc. Eventually we headed to Castle Craig, a round, stone observation tower atop East Peak in the town of Meriden. The tower stands 1,002 feet above sea level (over 305 meters), to provide awesome views of the area, and was built by local stone masons in 1900 feet. There's a decent hiking trail to get there, or a road that snakes up that's open from May to October. We drove into the park to see the tower...well, we tried to see it. We no sooner arrived when we realized that the road would be too narrow and windy for us, and it would be tough to drive it as traffic passed us as well. But, at least we got to see an incredible autumn tree in the park as a highlight!
Instead of this tower, we saw the Traffic Control Tower in Meridien with no problems. Back in 1925, a traffic tower was set up at a busy intersection, and it quickly became one of the city’s favorite landmarks. It showed up on postcards, and the local paper even had a column named "The Traffic Tower" after it. The tower was retired in 1967 when traffic lights took over, but people never forgot it. A local company bought and moved it in 1975, and in 2019 it was fully restored.
Before the day ended, we visited West Rock Ridge State Park, a free state park to visit, which gave us a chance to walk along the pretty trail and immerse ourselves in pretty autumn trees and foliage. This time of the year is definitely perfect for Japanese-style forest bathing! Before the sun set, we stopped at a rest stop--a service plaza--off the I-95 in the town of Milford. It seems these kind of rest stops are popular in the northeast region: basically right next to the highway are dedicated stops where cars and trucks can park, and the stops have food courts in them that include several fast food restaurant chains, a petrol station, a convenience store and restrooms. This stop included a Subway, Panda Express, Dunkin' Donuts. It was super busy, with trucks regularly coming in to see if they could park, but fortunately we'd already nabbed a spot for us for the evening.