Megan and her mother have both come to view Connecticut as a haven. There have been many good memories made in Connecticut and it all started in 1970 when I lived in Rhode Island and two of my good friends, Dale and Susan from Bethany College, shared a rustic family beach house on Long Island Sound. During the winter and spring of 1970, my first semester in graduate school, I would drive to West Haven almost every weekend to visit with Dale and Susan. Dale had grown up in nearby Orange, Connecticut, and her family had owned the beach house on the Sound for years. It was not elegant but it was a great place to spend the weekend and enjoy the sound of the surf beating against the seawall. (I wonder what the rising waters have done to that sea wall.) If you are looking for a different sort of place to stay where you have relatively easy access via train to New York City, West Haven is worth exploring. http://www.cityofwesthaven.com/101/Visitors
After that first New England winter and spring I sort of drifted away from Connecticut weekends and found myself spending more time in Maine and Rhode Island. However quite surprisingly my friendship with Dale was renewed in the mid-2000’s, again the miracle of Google. She found out I lived in Bangor, Maine, and determined that she would accept my invitation to visit. She rode the bus to Bangor, after taking the train to Boston and changing from train to bus in South Station (a route I knew very well because we had taken the train from New Haven to Boston and the bus on to Bangor many times in the new 21st century, as our preferred method of getting to and from NYC.) Dale’s health was not great, but she enjoyed her long weekend on Campobello Island where we had by that time bought our own summer home on the Bay of Fundy. After that visit I made contact a few times when I visited with my brother-in-law in Connecticut. It turned out that Dale’s daughter had an interest in horses and we took my young niece to visit her stable in rural Connecticut. The horses were Percherons, a breed of draft horse originating in France but now used for driving and riding and competing in many shows and exhibitions. If you are going to spend time in Connecticut it is worth getting away from the coast and venturing into the rural areas. While it is not Kentucky, Connecticut is quite “horsey” and the countryside is pleasant to drive through.
It was not until Megan went to college in Vermont in 1998 that we started to again visit Connecticut fairly regularly. Just as West Haven had been my haven in 1970, Megan sometimes spent weekends at Uncle Pennell and Aunt Margaret’s house in Woodbridge. She could take the train from Brattleboro, Vermont, and her uncle would pick her up at the train station in New Haven. When Megan moved to Seattle and then to Taiwan, Woodbridge became a meeting spot for the holidays. We would put Grandma in the car and Harold and I would drive down to Connecticut (Wally and I in the back seat quite put out because Grandma got to ride up front.) Megan would fly into Kennedy airport and then take either the train to New Haven after first spending a day or two on her own in the city or else she would come directly from the airport via the infamous “Connecticut limousine”. We had some good holidays in Connecticut. One memorable Christmas Megan and I took the train into the city and spent the day doing New York sort of things, like having tea and expensive champagne at the Russian Tea Room and taking a rickshaw ride through Central Park.
I have enjoyed my many visits to Connecticut. Shortly before I retired in 2014 Grandma moved from Bangor to a retirement home in Connecticut located near Woodbridge and near the factory that manufactures Sikorsky helicopters. It is very interesting to learn about the history of that company and see the factory setting. Once Harold and I fully retired, we would travel south in the winter and stop in Connecticut to see Grandma and Harold’s brother and family on our way south. No more Connecticut Christmases after 2014. You can learn about the helicopters at this link. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_Aircraft
I recently stopped again in Woodbridge the Fall of 2021 on my roadtrip from Maine to South Carolina for the winter. Now I am flying solo with only Wally for a companion, Megan living far away and Harold and Grandma no longer with me. Needless to say, Wally now has his own pillow and seatbelt in the front seat and always rides shotgun. And that recent trip brings me to the Housatonic River. Because of my rather late start in the morning that day, my travels were only taking me as far as Matamoras, Pennsylvania. In order to reconnect with Interstate 84 Uncle Pennell suggested that I take Connecticut Route 34 along the Housatonic River up to Danbury. I had a little experience with Connecticut rivers, having waded and floated in the Connecticut River during my days visiting West Haven so I knew that once you left the cities and suburbs behind the Connecticut rivers could be quite charming. The route along the Housatonic has been listed as one of Connecticut’s most scenic drives. If you want to find out more about visiting the more attractive spots in Connecticut, this link might help. https://www.ctpost.com/living/article/Scenic-drives-in-Connecticut-15169004.php#photo-12836504
If your travels ever bring you to Connecticut, don’t write it off as a state to drive through without stopping for anything but gas. I haven’t even mentioned some of the more interesting and well known stops, like Mystic Seaport. https://www.smartertravel.com/things-mystic-seaport-connecticut/ Connecticut is sometimes called “the Nutmeg state.” Like nutmeg, it is a spice to be enjoyed in many dishes. There is an interesting history to the sobriquet. Some say it arose because of the spice trade associated with the state’s early maritime history, but some credit a local judge with coming up with the nickname because he said Connecticut residents were so shrewd that they could make wooden nutmegs and sell them to the more gullible in place of the real thing. Connecticut is worth a visit.
Memories - A Second Chance at Happiness 