Connecticut - Day 28

Mystic KOA
Wednesday, 28 November 2018

I saw the news reports about all the snow in the mid-west and how it was coming this way, so I figured it might be pretty cold here by now.  But I still had water coming through my water line this morning, and when I walked the dogs it wasn't bad at all.  It wasn't as cold as I expected and there was no wind at all, so our first walk was downright tolerable.

Of course, things changed by our 9:00 walk, because the wind had definitely started picking up and it seemed like the temperature was colder as well, and between the two I was sorry I hadn't put on my new long underwear.  I was chilly.

I'd intended to go into Mystic today to do some shopping and give the dogs somewhere else to walk, but by our 2nd walk I'd already changed my mind.  I'll be on the road tomorrow anyway, taking the dogs to their last day care session, so I decided to do my errands then and spend today getting more little chores done.

I've mentioned before, I think, that some of the folks who are staying here through the winter have insulated their underneath areas.  I thought you might be interested in what that looks like.

This type was much more favored at the Tototek Valley RV Park - almost all the RVs there had something like this.  But at this KOA, this is the only RV with this type.

This flexible silvery stuff is much more popular at the KOA.

I have no idea the relative insulation value or ease of installation.

Not everybody has bothered, though.  The RV next to the pink insulation one doesn't have any insulation, and I'm pretty sure the guy who lives there has a job he goes to most days so is probably here for at least a while longer.

I think if I had a trailer, or if I had some transportation besides my motorhome, and if I planned to stay the winter, I would definitely insulate.  Especially since the KOA is charging 15¢/Kh. 

Actually, I haven't even used 100 Khs while I've been here, because I don't use electric heat, don't have an oven, use my TV only for a couple hours at night, and am very careful about turning off my lights unless I need them.  But most people apparently do things differently.  The KOA told me some people end up with a couple thousand Khs each month.

And on a different subject entirely, I forgot to mention earlier in the month that I'd seen a pair of swans swimming in a pond over in the New Haven area.  I don't know which type of swans they were and the bird book doesn't help.  The picture showing their range is too tiny to let me see anything except any of them might be in coastal CT during the winter.

And I didn't mention Monday that I noticed a flock of juncos here at the campground.  Technically, Dark-eyed Juncos, and the subspecies over here is likely the Slate-colored Junco.  Juncos are one of the first species I learned in Alaska (though that was a different subspecies), and the wonderful thing about them for a casual birdwatcher like me is that they're so easy to identify - they clearly show white stripes down each side of their tails when they fly.

Junco - 6" - pretty, aren't they?

I've also been forgetting to show what Connecticut license plates look like.  CT doesn't seem to have many specialty plates, and the ones they have tend to follow this color pattern, so they're always easy to spot.