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Old Seaport of Mystic, Connecticut

Mystic Street

That's right, in the last two days, we have visited the only two states we had yet to see in the USA. Connecticut & Rhode Island. I wonder how many people have visited all 50 US states? We left our campground and drove through the most eastern area of New York, and crossed into Connecticut. Can you believe it though, as we were travelling on the Merritt Parkway not long after entering the state, we were pulled over by a highway patrol car that had been tailing us for several miles. We knew something was happening, when he pulled out behind us, slowed down to be level with us and effectively between him & us, we had blocked the road behind us, and cars and trucks were piling up. We wondered if he was just checking our Rv registration or whatever, anyway, it turns out he had forced us to a certain exit to get us back to a main road, as up ahead were bridges that would be too low for our 12' high rig. As we did a tight turn onto this particular roadway, we just caught the tail end of a sign, as we were busy focussing on not hitting the curb on the turn. I mentioned to Murray that the sign mentioned something about articulated vehicles and 7,500 lb. We knew we were 8,000 lb, but weren't articulated, so never thought too much more about it. The fact that there were no other signs was pretty poor. Apparently there is a fine for vehicles who are over the weight limit who use the road, but the officer was very pleasant and said he understood we weren't from the area and let us go.

Not long after that we pulled into New Haven and drove past Yale University - I felt a frisson of academia waft across the highway to me. It is hard to comprehend the universtity was founded over 300 years ago, and has educated 5 US presidents.

We know we are heading north as the dogwood trees were on the tail end of blooming back in Arkansas in mid-April, and here we are 5 weeks later and the trees here in Connecticut (CT) are still blooming. How nice to have such an extended spring. I daresay as we keep steering north and end up in Canada next week, spring will just be springing there too. What a delightful time of the year.

One thing that really surprised us in the little town of Mystic, CT where we stayed last night was the amount of Dunkin' Donut shops that we saw. There were 4 within a few miles of each other, and they were just the ones we saw from the highway, imagine how many others were down side streets. Mystic Seaport is a nostalgic trip back in time to when life was a bustle along the water's edge - ships delivering goods and picking up coal. Very quaint. This town is one of the states tourist attractions, not that we knew that until I read it in an RV publication while Murray was putting air in the tyres earlier yesterday! I'll cover Rhode Island next...