September 24, 2012 - Irmo, SC

We had an "uneventful" and very nice trip home after a fantastic trip!  We LOVED New England but were really excited to get back home to "smoother" and "less crowded" roads!  I don't think I will ever complain about our roads and the traffic on Lake Murray Boulevard or Harbison Boulevard again!  Our home was a "site for sore eyes" and we were excited to see that Veteran's Park across the street is almost completed.  The walking trail and exercise stations are great!  The "girls" love the trail too as well as being able to "run free" in "their yard". 

 

 

Now it's time to get settled back in the "real world", have the motorhome serviced, and get ready for our next "adventure" in Florida this winter! 

 

Keep checking back!  As we say in the South, "God willing and the creek don't rise" we will have more "adventures" to write about!

 





September 15-17, 2012 - Mystic and Stonington, Connecticut

We decided to give the cameras a break and spend our last few days of this great 4 month "adventure" enjoying Mystic and Stonington, and relaxing at this great campground. 

We did get to the movie, Hope Springs, and went back to make sure we had pictures of the locations used in the movie.  This time the Old Lighthouse Museum http://www.stoningtonhistory.org/light.htm was open so we were able to tour it (and take pictures where Tommy Lee Jones visited in the movie!). We love Stonington and were excited that it was so obvious the movie was filmed there!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can click on the links below to see the rest of the pictures we took today, and then go back to our September 11th blog to see the pictures from our first visit to Stonington.

 

https://picasaweb.google.com/104959812223133937279/September162012LindaStoningtonCT?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCIKbnfWR-YbxKQ&feat=directlink

 

https://picasaweb.google.com/104959812223133937279/September162012GlennStoningtonCT?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCJmI7uqPhvuAmwE&feat=directlink

 

 



Tomorrow we will drive the first leg of our 954 mile trip home...first stop, whenever and wherever we decide to stop!  Now that's an adventure!

September 14, 2012 - Gillette Castle, East Haddam, CT

I don't even know where to begin writing about today's "adventure" exploring Gillette Castle. 

 

It was fantastic, fascinating, spectacular....I could go on and on but the truth is I don't have the time or words tonight to adequately detail everything we saw and learned about Gillette Castle, William Gillette and Sherlock Holmes. (Orson Welles said it best "It is too little to say William Gillette resembled Sherlock Holmes.  Sherlock Holmes looks exactly like William Gillette.")  Which means that I am going to attach links to websites and our pictures and, hopefully, in the near future, do justice to writing about today's "adventure"!

But first, I must tell you about the most delightful people me met when they parked their "clone" of our yellow jeep wrangler in front of ours in the parking lot of Gillette Mansion. 

They are Harold "Tyke" Niver and his vivacious wife Theodora "Teddie".  We may not have been lucky yesterday but today we "Hit the Jackpot"!  Tyke and Teddie "are" William Gillette and his beloved wife Helen!  Now, instead of me trying to explain it all now, you need to click on the link below the pictures for details. 

 

http://www.sherlockholmesct.com/home.html

 

 

And I promise you it will be worth your while to click on the links in the website.  Then you will truly understand how amazing our day was and how fun and fascinating the Niver's are!  Our luck was still with us after we left the Castle and stopped to do a short hike to William Gillette's railroad tunnel that Teddie had told me about.  Guess who was there with their adorable dog...yes, Tyke and Teddie!  I don't know how long we all stood there and talked some more...at least 30-60 minutes!  And we could have talked for hours but, alas, all good things must come to an end and we all had to "move on".

 

 

 

Click on the link for Gillette Castle State Park: 

 

 http://www.ct.gov/dep/cwp/view.aspa=2716&q=325204&depNav_GID=1650 



 

 

Click on the links below to see our pictures!  Again, definitely worth it!

 

https://picasaweb.google.com/104959812223133937279/September142012LindaGilletteCastleConnecticut?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCJ7omuOakPWP_AE&feat=directlink

 

https://picasaweb.google.com/104959812223133937279/September142012GlennGilletteCastleConnecticut?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCIPo79XG2anYGg&feat=directlink

 

 

 

 



 





September 13, 2012 - Mashantucket, Connecticut

Today our "adventure" was to visit the largest casino in North America, Foxwoods Resort Casino 
http://www.foxwoods.com/aboutus.aspx, on the Mashantucket Pequot Indian Reservation.  To say it is huge is an understatement...the entire resort comprises 4,700,000 sq. ft. of space of casinos, restaurants, shops, hotel rooms, spas, theaters, etc. http://www.foxwoods.com/uploadedFiles/Pages/About_Foxwoods/resort_map.pdf 

 

We had fun just exploring the resort and eating (or "pigging out") at the Festival Buffet, which was excellent!



 We did "try our luck" at the slot machines in one of the casinos, to no avail!  Fortunately, we decided before hand that we could only afford to spend $20 "playing games"!  We had fun trying but, as always, Glenn's luck was better than mine!

Unfortunately that's all of the pictures we took.  We didn't take our cameras into the resort because we weren't sure if we could take pictures in the casinos. We used my phone for the two in the restaurant and, obviously, the lighting was bad.  Oh well.....

It was a fun day and we came home to relax and read but fell asleep instead!  What can I say!

 



September 12, 2012 - Hartford, Connecticut

Mark Twain described Hartford as "the most beautiful city he had ever seen", and what we saw of it is beautiful!  Our first "adventure" in the city was The Mark Twain House and Museum http://www.marktwainhouse.org/man/biography_main.php, where the author lived from 1874 to 1891 when he created Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.  It is a beautiful Victorian mansion and its history, as well as Mark Twain's and his family, is quite fascinating.  I left feeling the urge to be witty and profound but, unfortunately, I can't think of anything that doesn't sound lame after spending the day surrounded by reminders of his wonderful wit and wisdom...oh well!
Our next "adventure" was to "walk next door" to  the Harriet Beecher Stowe museum and her Victorian Gothic-Revival cottage-style house http://www.harrietbeecherstowecenter.org/visit/hbs_house.shtml,  where she lived from 1873 until her death in 1896.  Her famous anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, was only one of 30 books she authored, and the museum uses her story to inspire social justice and positive change.

Unfortunately these two fun and interesting "adventures" did not leave us a lot of time to explore Hartford, but we were able to go by the State Capitol Building, a gold-domed High Victorian-Gothic building completed in 1878, and Connecticut's Old State House, the country's oldest Capital building built in 1796. 

We could not take pictures inside the museums and houses, but we do have a few to share.

Hartford, Connecticut

 

 

 

 

 

Mark Twain House & Museum

 

 

A nice couple from Alabama (can't remember their names)

 

 

 

 

 

This statue was totally made with Legos!

 

 

 

 

 

The two kids were 4 and 7.  They were with their grandmother working on a school project as, in the little boy's words, "inspectors".  They were so cute and well behaved, raising their hand when they had questions.  On their clipboard was a sheet of pictures that they had to find in the house and write down the room it was in. 

 

 

 

We enjoyed talking to this couple, Sandy and Seth from Mississippi, after the tour.

 

The Connecticut State Capital Building

 

 

Connecticut's Old State House

 

It was such a fun day!  We highly recommend these tours!