Connecticut Trip: The Final Recap

Some of you may be wondering why it is taking me so long to write about my travels this summer, and why I am doing it after the fact. True, doing it during my trips would have made this simpler, but for security reasons I don't like publicizing when I'm not home for long stretches.

I've also been catching up at school and have had some health stuff come up, but that's another post.

While I was home I wanted to make sure I got at least one beach day in, since New Mexico is land locked, and I don't want to cross over into Mexico to see the ocean. On Thursday we went to Ocean Beach Park, in New London, CT. On the one hand, it's nice to have bathrooms and food easily accessible. On the other hand, it costs $14 to park, which is kind of nutty. But then on the other hand again, it's a pretty clean beach, so I guess you have to pay for it somehow. I never use it, but for an additional fee they also have a small water park and mini golf.

When I go to the beach, my primary objective is to be as lazy as possible. I always being books and snacks and spend a good bit of time sleeping. I did get into the water, of course, and it was a nice break from the heat. Matt was reluctant to go in much further than waist deep, which is actually counter productive. You need to just get in, get it over with, and you'll feel much better afterward. Standing around shivering just allows you to get splashed. Being in the ocean also means you sometimes pick up hitch-hikers, like this arthropod that must have gotten on our blanket via Matt's bathing suit (eek!)...

My other favorite thing about going to the ocean is just walking up and down the shore, looking at whatever I can find. Ocean Beach has a bunch of these pinking half clam shell looking things that are actually snail shells. They're really pretty. While looking out over the water, a huge sail ship was coming in for OpSail, a tall ships event that goes on every year. They sometimes have historical ships, the one we saw was pretty far off shore but I think it was a Class A ship. I could be wrong, I don't really know much about ships.

On Friday evening Lura and Steve had us over for home made pizza and game night. I have to say, I really miss these guys and I always look forward to seeing them when I visit. It's funny because I wasn't super close with Lura in high school, but we've become pretty good friends because we kept in contact through college. There aren't too many people I still see regularly since I've left CT, not because I wanted that to happen, but it takes a lot of work on both sides to keep up.

Matt and I specifically made room in our suitcases to bring some board games along on our trip, with the hopes of having a game night. We successfully stowed away Settler's of Catan and Flux. We brought Settler's to Lura and Steve's, and also showed them a new card game we learned from our friends in Socorro called Oh Bleep! All in all, it was a fun evening.

For some reason that still escapes me, East Hartford had it's July 4th fireworks on July 9th (maybe because it was a Saturday). Matt, my Mom, and I went down to the river for some fried dough, whatever free stuff we could find, and pulled pork sandwiches before the fireworks. Despite my town having no money, and the supposed economic apocalypse that our country is going through, the fireworks were actually really good this year. The town sets them off from two barges in the river, and we got a really good seat up on the levee. Aqua, who I haven't seen in over a year, was supposed to meet us but she got held up and I didn't see her until after the show was over. Regardless we chatted while she enjoyed her much needed fried dough. The next time I'm home, I'm having her over for tea for a proper visit. No excuses.