For this special trip, I kidnapped my mother and she joined us on this two-day adventure in our neighboring state: Connecticut!
It has always been one of those states we had driven through dozens of times to reach our family in Massachusetts. I've always been curious to explore New England more thoroughly. Mom's one request was that she wanted to visit the beach and the ocean, so I delivered. I selected three locations to explore with mom and Ros.
The first stop was Gillette Castle State Park. As you can tell by the name, there was a castle! It was beautiful and felt medieval. It was originally designed and commissioned by William Gillette. Gillette was an actor, most famous for his work as Sherlock Holmes on stage. He lived in the mansion from 1919 till 1937. When he passed, the state of Connecticut bought the property from Gillette's estate in 1943, promising to preserve it. Gillette was known to have wished for the property to end in the hands of someone that could appreciate its beauty and surroundings. Seems like his wish came true with his home becoming a State Park.
Being there in person so many decades later, I truly feel that his spirit is still alive there. The castle looks timeless, and if it weren't for COVID, I would have probably felt the same way walking through its halls. The inside has been turned into a museum, so if you ever get the chance to visit it, make sure to take the tour! If you aren't a fan of tours, then you will definitely enjoy the view from the property of the Connecticut River. There are some trails surrounding the property, but we didn't get to explore too much since we were on a schedule.
Once we finished, we got into the car and drove to another state park called Ocean Beach Park. The day was perfect for a day at the beach. We got lucky and found a nice shaded sitting area where we were able to rest and just do some good old fashion people watching. As New Yorkers, we were extremely shocked by the fact that the beach seemed practically empty. Don't get me wrong, there were plenty of people, but you could actually sense the space between the groups.
If this were a beach back in NYC, I have a feeling it would be a lot more packed. We decided to end our day here, hoping to catch the sunset before ending at the hotel. We moved to a picnic area with a table and ended up playing dominos for a couple of hours. It was the purest form of happiness. We laughed and enjoyed each other's company, revealing our competitive sides to one another. Really puts into perspective that the best things in life are free.
The beach closed before the sun finished setting, but we managed to catch the more spectacular part of it on the way to the restaurant where we planned to stop for dinner. The colors were intense and vibrant, ranging from pinks to reds and purples. No two sunsets are the same. It's one of those activities that you should really add to your list of new habits. After filling our bellies, we drove to our hotel, and even though it was late, we were not done with the day just yet. Mom pulled out a monopoly board game, the one with the credit cards instead of paper money, and we set it up in our room; we were prepared to ruin our relationships over money. We laughed and had fun until at last, mom won. Again. Like always. Life experience has no competition.
Day two was more of a beach day than anything else. We drove to Silver Sands State Park and were surprised by how pretty the landscape was. There were a lot of raised paths that cut through wetlands and tall grasses. We noticed people fishing off the sides of these paths and realized that there were crabs in the pools of water. You could see them moving side to side in the shallow waters. I'm not sure if they wanted to eat them or use them for bait to catch something bigger.
We kept exploring and took paths along the shoreline. The sand was saturated with seashells. I took some time along the beach looking through the shells trying to find some that were intact. They ranged from infinitely small to rather large enough to fill my hand. My favorite part was watching these small sandpiper birds running back and forth from the incoming waves, trying to catch small animals in between. Have you ever seen the Pixar short-film "Piper"? It was exactly like that.
When lunch called out names, we found a nice place to eat and then returned back to NY. Maybe we can do more of these weekend trips. At least to cover the closer states. I had a lot of fun, and we pinned Vermont as our next target!
Commentaires