Connecticut - Day 17 - Mystic

Mystic KOA
Saturday, 17 November 2018

The people who were noisy last night seem to be 3 couples, 1 in an RV and 2 in cabins across from me, each with a dog.  The smallest dog is the only one that's kept on a leash - the others run around freely, and one of the men keeps throwing a frisbee for his dog to chase.  And they're all gathering for meals at the outside table for one of the cabins. 

All of that means I'm afraid to take my dogs out for the walk they usually get before we leave for traveling.  Neither of the running-free dogs looks to be under very good voice control and I can't believe they wouldn't come running up to my dogs if we set foot outside the RV.  And that my dogs wouldn't go so crazy at 2 strange dogs running up to them that I'd lose control of them.

I wanted to ask the people to control their dogs but was afraid I'd just get some idiocy about how they were friendly and wouldn't hurt anybody - and no leashes.  I finally just drove the RV down to a different part of the campground and let them walk around in that area before we took off.

today's route

You can see we didn't cover much ground today - just that little bit of Rt. 1 from the Mystic River to the Rhode Island border.

A sign said Mystic was "settled" in 1654 - as opposed to "incorporated" like the other towns and which apparently hasn't ever happened.  Wikipedia says Mystic is a village but isn't a municipality and therefore has no municipal offices.  I don't know who paves their roads and picks up their garbage, but that's what it says.

It's a nice little village, much like the other coastal New England villages I've seen.  Lots of quaint little buildings and shops near either the Mystic River, which runs through town, or the coast, which is actually Long Island Sound.  One of the biggest chunks of town seems to be Mystic Seaport, which is one of the world's largest maritime museums.  If the weather will cooperate, I'll come back to tour it after dropping off the dogs at day care.

I drove past Mystic Pizza, which the old movie was named after, and wanted to stop by but, alas, no hope of finding a parking place.  I remember passing it 40 years ago when I was here with my husband, and it doesn't seem to have changed a bit.

The pizza place is on the west side of the river and the museum is on the east side.  The town seems to be evenly divided between the 2 sides, which are connected by the Mystic River Bascule Bridge.  I'm including a picture of the bridge, but if you're interested in more than that, I'm also including a link.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystic_River_Bascule_Bridge  The bridge in motion looks incredible from the interstate, by the way - I've seen it raised a couple of times when I've been driving that way.

Mystic River Bascule Bridge

I found a good local grocery store - great selection of cheeses and 5 kinds of paté and an olive bar and all kinds of stuff.  But no boneless turkey breasts.  They had 2.5 pound bone-in turkey breasts, but I just couldn't be sure all those bones would fit in my little 4-quart slow cooker.  I can barely fit in a 3.5 pound chicken and chicken bones make a smaller package.  So I spent quite a bit of time standing in the store rethinking my Thanksgiving menu, not wanting to count on being able to find what I wanted at another store before then.  Actually, I'd already tried at 2 other stores, so I knew my chances were slim.

In the same building but lower on the hillside was a great liquor store.  The first store I've found in the last 3 states that had the brand of scotch I prefer - Teacher's.  Felt like a jackpot.  And a wonderful selection of French wines - as many of those as from California, which is truly unusual.

And I walked the dogs around on the hillside for a while, dodging the snow piled up in parking lots and trying to work off some of their energy.

On the road back we drove through Wequetequock and Pawcatuck, on the RI border, both just little villages on the coast.  I passed a pond with a dozen or more Buffleheads, my favorite duck.  They're pretty and easy to identify.  What more can you ask?

Male & female Buffleheads

I should say that all the photos today except the map are off the internet.  I couldn't get angles on anything that would let me take them myself.

When I got back to the campground, I stopped at the office to check on the dog leashing policy and found out that they do indeed require leashes.  I explained my dilemma and the nice guy at the counter said I should call them if I felt uncomfortable talking to the people about their dogs.  I figured I'd play it by ear.

I drove the dogs down to the uninhabited part of the campground for a good walk before going back to our site, and luckily at bedtime these people and their dogs all seemed to be indoors.  Thank goodness, because I was a little nervous about talking to them about it.