Connecticut - Day 12 - northeastern CT

Mystic KOA
Monday, 12 November 2018

today's route

It was really cold this morning, and my water hose was frozen and I had to use my water pump and storage tank.  There was frost everywhere, and I passed a pair of mallards swimming on a pond covered with skim ice.  My first stop was doggie day care at Quinebaug Kennels.  I was hoping a 2nd day for Gracie and 3rd for Dexter would help the staff figure out more about them than they'd already seen - and really hoping they'd work off some of that energy.

All through New England I've been seeing rock walls - especially in Rhode Island, it seemed.  And I'd been thinking I hadn't seen as many here in Connecticut, but apparently I just hadn't noticed because I saw plenty today.  I even saw a man mending one.

I passed a business called The Best Little Hair House (maybe transplanted Texans?).

I passed the Finnish-American Heritage Society in Canterbury.  Who knew?  And later in the morning I passed the Hungarian Social Club in Ashford.  I would never have dreamed there'd be enough Hungarians in all of CT to need a whole building for their social club.  Live and learn.

Gen. Israel Putnam

In Brooklyn (est. 1786) I passed their historical society with 2 huge statues in front.  I found one online: Gen. Israel Putnam, who distinguished himself at the Battle of Bunker Hill.  The next town over is named Putnam, presumably after the general.  But don't you think this is an enormous statue for a town of 8000?

Actually, Brooklyn has another claim to fame: in 1809 the Windham County Agricultural Society began holding an annual agricultural fair.  By 1849, they were calling it the Brooklyn Fair, and it's now the oldest continuous ag. fair in CT.

In Pomfret (est. 1713), I passed what was obviously a greyhound kennel and looked it up online.  The owner calls it Regall Sports Kennels, and he has as many as 100 greyhounds that he raises to race at tracks from Rhode Island to Miami.  I have to say they looked well cared for.

I ran across the Pomfret School, a boarding school for college prep, getting ready to celebrate their 125th anniversary next year.

I passed another Woodstock (popular name in this part of the country), this one established in 1686.  They too have a very large fairgrounds.

Throughout this region I saw highway signs warning to watch for horseback riders on the road.  And I passed quite a few small stables and paddocks with horses in them.

In Ashford (est. 1714), besides the Hungarians, I passed a Mormon Church.  Not sure why that surprised me, but it did.

St. Philip the Apostle

I also passed this church and almost screeched to a stop.  It's a Roman Catholic Church and was built in the 1930s.  I had figured it for an Orthodox Catholic Church, because of the semi-onion dome, but the sign said I was wrong.  Pretty church.

And you can see it was a pretty day, probably why it was so cold.

I passed through Willington (1727) and Mansfield (1702).  I keep putting in all these dates because my little Texas background keeps being amazed these places have been around so long.

Puddin Lane in Mansfield is the terminus of the Nipmuck Trail, which I kept seeing signs for, and which is a 34-mile hiking trail.  The sign for Puddin Lane reminded me of my Uncle Tom and Aunt Marguerite, who named a cat of theirs Puddin'.  He kinda was a puddin', too.

I was vaguely aiming for Storrs because I'd seen that it was the main campus for UConn.  Like everybody else, I've been incredibly impressed with their basketball program.  I knew UConn had campuses in other places - Waterbury, for instance - and kept having trouble believing I'd really find a major school in a town that looked like an afterthought on the map.

It was there, all right.  As far as I could see, Storrs is almost entirely a college town and UConn is an agricultural school.  I passed their dairy barn, horse barn and plant science research building, for instance.  But it also has a Museum of Puppetry, with 2500 puppets from around the world.  Who'd have thought?

Storrs Congregational Church

I went to a fair amount of trouble to take this photo of the rooster on top of the Storrs Congregational Church - parking precariously in what turned out to be a dead end driveway - because I thought this was the one I'd read about that had been used as target practice by some soldiers long ago.  But I was mistaken.

It was the rooster on top of the Newport (CT) Congregational Church, not this one (what is it with Congregational churches and their roosters?), and the story was that the French troops under Rochambeau were doing the target practice.  But I found a Newtown website that says this story is just a local myth, and includes more information about the Rochambeau march.    patch.com/connecticut/newtown/french-soldiers  Interesting how these stories persist.  Of course, once I'd taken this photo I still had to get out of my tight parking spot.  A woman walking to her office at UConn stopped to tell me about a cemetery down the road she thought I'd be interested in and, when I mentioned my parking problem, told me people thereabouts are very polite and she was sure they'd let me work my way back into the street.  I thought, but tactfully didn't say, that if they really were polite drivers, they'd be the first I'd seen in CT.

Turns out she was right - several cars stopped to let me out.  Another myth shattered.

The cemetery, when I passed it, did indeed look interesting but had no visible parking area.  Or, at least, not one I could fit into.  I noticed yet again that very old headstones are often very thin, especially compared to today's solid chunks of stone.  Which makes it even more amazing that so many of them have survived 150 years or more.

cute, right?

Since I got into southern New England, neither Dexter nor I has seen or heard one chipmunk.  They were in New York, which is as far south as CT and RI are, so I don't know why chipmunks would be so scarce here.  Makes it easier to control Dexter, who's just not as interested in squirrels as he used to be, thanks to the chipmunks.  But they were really cute and pretty.

Picked the dogs up and found the staff bewildered.  They'd been trying all morning to get either of the dogs to react to the other dogs they paired them with, to no avail.  Dexter would go sniff them and bounce a couple times, and then go straight back to the staff.  Gracie could hardly be bothered with even doing that much and wanted to spend most of her time lying in the sun.  Because I'd pleaded with them to work off some of Dexter's energy, they put him on the treadmill for a half hour, but they couldn't get him to run around with the dogs.  Where is the dog other day cares throw out for being too aggressive?

I stopped a second time at the Prudence Crandall Museum (unfortunately closed for the season) so they could walk around a bit before the hour drive back to the campground.  There's an informational sign there that explains some of what I was saying about her the other day, so I took pics of it.  I had to take the sign a part at a time so the words were legible, so I'll mark the order to read them in.

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

I can't help but wonder about this woman and how incredibly stubborn she was.  Just knowing you're doing the right thing and believing that everybody deserves an education couldn't possibly have been enough in the face of the threats and violence and vitriol by her neighbors.  There had to be something else going on with this woman and I'm sorry I won't ever know what it was.

Back at the campground I found I couldn't connect my water hose to the RV.  When I tried, water spurted all over from the connection and, though I spent time on it, I couldn't figure out what the problem was and was way too cold to keep looking.  Tomorrow's another day (me and Scarlett).