Connecticut - Day 29 - Mystic

Mystic KOA
Thursday, 29 November 2018

today's route

Today was the last day for doggy day care in CT, and I begged them to wear the dogs out please.  Lily didn't seem to have hurt feelings at all about being left in sole possession of the cabin (I, of course, don't count).

I wanted to get some errands done and decided to go to Mystic, taking different routes than I had before.

I don't think I've ever mentioned my souvenirs from each state I visit.  I thought about it probably a lot more than it deserved before I started this trip and finally decided to get a t-shirt from each one.  They're much more lightweight and portable than the other things I considered (wine from each state, for instance - except it's heavy and how would I keep it during the winters?).  So here I was with the month almost over and I still hadn't gotten a CT shirt.  I decided to get one in Mystic, which I thought would remind me of how I spent my time here, considering so much of it was spent in this part of the state.

Because it was a weekday and relatively early in the day, I found a parking place in downtown Mystic right next to several clothing shops.  I first tried The Black Dog General Store, which turns out to have a black labrador printed on every single piece of merchandise they have, none of them saying Mystic or Connecticut but all of them saying The Black Dog General Store.  Not what I had in mind.

Across the street I found the Tidal River Clothing Co., locally owned, with very nice and only slightly expensive outdoor wear.  Including a selection of Mystic t-shirts, so I was in luck.  Very nice shirt.

Next I went back to the grocery store where I'd shopped before Thanksgiving and stocked up on all the things I'm running out of.  And especially went to the liquor store below it to get another bottle of Teacher's scotch before I leave a known source.  It's not a product that will go bad by sitting for a while, and after not finding it in the last 4 states I'm not sure the next ones will have it either.

I still had some time left before I needed to go back north for the dogs so I went over to the campground.  It had occurred to me that maybe my water pump hadn't really broken but instead that I was out of water for it to pump.  I'd of course looked at the water tank when it first happened and it looked to me to be at least half-full, but I figured it was worth a try.  And sure enough, I pumped a lot of water into the water hole and then the pump sounded a lot more like itself.  Sometimes the obvious answer is the right one.

Along the road today, I passed the 1st Congregational Church of Canterbury and its sign saying "Carols Cookies Cocoa" coming up in December.  Sounded pretty good to me - sorry I'll have to miss it.

I passed a house that had inflatable Christmas figures in the front yard, except they weren't inflated - probably just blow them up at night.  But there was a fairly strong wind today that was blowing the deflated baloons (and me) around and, as I drove by, they suddenly started rearing up like they were coming to life.  It was actually a little spooky.  Probably just a strong gust caught them just right, or maybe the owner was doing it and I just didn't see him.  But it looked like they were rising up on their own.  I've heard that robots will take over the world, but inflatable Santa Clauses?

There was an hour-long NPR program about a museum in Hartford called the Wadsworth Atheneum.  I guess they've got a really good exhibit on modern art, which I've never warmed to.  But the odd thing to me is that they kept pronouncing the museum as ath'-uh-NE-um.  I've spent my whole life pronouncing it ath-E-ne-um - as in the goddess Athena.  So I've just looked it up in my trusty hardcover Webster's dictionary I've actually lugged along on this trip for just such occasions and learned that I've been wrong my whole life.  And apparently so has everybody I've ever met, though I can't say this is a word used in my daily conversations so maybe not everybody.

I passed an intersection with Cow Hill Road on one side and Pumpkin Hill Road on the other.  Makes me think about the people who used to live in this area.

I drove back through Norwich a couple more times and still like it, still like looking at some of those fancy houses.

When I picked up the dogs, they'd just been running for a while on the treadmill and were seriously hyped up.  It's true they slept the whole way back to the campground, but it took a while for them to calm down.  As long as their energy level tomorrow is lower than usual because I still have things I need to do before we leave CT on Saturday.