Big East Trip: Part 2

The remainder of my visit in Connecticut was all about trying to fit in as many activities into one week as humanly possible:


Tuesday evening - Trivia
Wednesday - Wadsworth Atheneum
Thursday -Beach with my mom
Friday - Visited Grandma, Dinner at Lura and Steve's
Saturday - Uncle Dave came over at lunch time for burgers and hot dogs, fireworks in the evening

I don't generally stress too much about having something to do every waking moment when I'm on vacation, but since I only had one week in CT, I had to make it count.

After our Tuesday trek to the shore to get lobster, our plan was to meet up with Mike, his girlfriend Emily, and Katie for trivia in Hartford. The place we were going to apparently hadn't updated their website since Christmas, but made us feel like WE were the dopes for expecting trivia. We ditched that plan and went to another place for some pub quiz action. We were half an hour late but still played. I personally believe that had we gotten there at the beginning, we would have kicked some ass. After a couple beers I didn't want to call it a night, so we found a diner-type place where I had a very large piece of chocolate cake. It was important for me to catch up with Mike, I didn't get to see him at all during my last visit because I was sick, and it would have been completely unacceptable if I missed him again this time around.

On Wednesday we stayed in the area and went to the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford. We spent a good 4+ hours in Hartford, going to the museum, getting lunch, wandering an old graveyard, and then back to the museum. It was a good day to be inside, away from the heat and humidity. They don't let the paintings suffer from the weather, so it was comfortable indoors at the Wadsworth.

I always forget just how much stuff this museum has, it looks modestly sized from the exterior, but I can never seem to get through all the artwork in one afternoon when I visit. I came close this time, but only because I'm not a fan of modern art and I kind of blew through some rooms that had carpet costumes and large monochromatic canvasses with splatters of paint. There was also this video of a guy on a motorcycle picking up a dead kangaroo... like I said I don't really get some of this stuff.

One of my favorite paintings by Dali (the melting clock guy), is on display. I like the painting because it has images that sort of magically pop out at you the longer you stare at it. The Wadsworth has quite a few paintings by some very famous artists, and it's not like there's any high tech security there. They do have a large guys who tells you when you're getting too close, but other than that it's just you and the painting right in front of you. They also have a fairly large collection from the Hudson School of Art, and I like standing in front of large landscape paintings.