RV trip: Connecticut to New York

It wasn’t the most action-packed week in Mystic CT, but it was a good one. We drove into town on Tuesday hoping to see their cool drawbridge in action, but we missed it. We did, however, walk past the town crown jewel: the Mystic Pizza joint, made sorta-famous in 1988 by the Julia Robert’s movie of the same name. You’ve seen it, right? Me neither.

We didn’t have a sewer connection at our camping spot, and we did NOT do a very good job of conserving and managing our waste tanks. Fortunately, the campground provided a free poo-sucking service that emptied our tanks mid week. That was nice.

Also mid week, the girls did some fresh raspberry pickin’:

…and visited the Submarine Force Museum in Groton, CT. They were able to tour the USS Nautilus, the first nuclear powered submarine, christened in 1954.

The girls enjoyed comparing the tight quarters of a submarine to our RV.

Natalie had a fun day on Thursday. Amy drove her back to Newport, RI (about an hour away) so she could take some surf lessons, something she has wanted to do for a while now. (Her favorite movie is Soul Surfer.)

Nat catching a wave:

That day was also the 4th of July, and Emily made us an all-american dessert featuring the fresh picked raspberries:

We ended up at a Connecticut Tigers minor-league baseball game that night, just to see their post-game fireworks. The game was tied when we got there in the 7th inning, and it was still tied at the bottom of the 9th. But the Tigers scored a run and won their game, and I avoided extra innings. It was win-win.

…and we got to see our fireworks. It turned out to be a pretty fun evening.

The next day we made another trip into Mystic, and this time we DID see the cool drawbridge. Yes, those are humungous hunks of concrete that act as counterweights to lift the drawbridge:

We had a pretty light travel day on Saturday, so we were looking for something else to do (and to stay out of the heat). It was near our route, so we made a stop at the PEZ factory in Orange, CT:

Sextuple-parked in the PEZ parking lot:

Did you know that PEZ was originally a peppermint candy marketed as an alternative to smoking? And that the iconic dispenser originally looked like a cigarette lighter? We learned all kinds of fun facts like that.

All was quiet on the factory floor; no PEZ-making on the weekends:

We made it back into New York yesterday afternoon and we’re now camped in Elizaville, NY for the next few days.

We went to a farmers’ market in nearby Rhinebeck this morning. Amy has been to about a gazillion farmer’s markets over the course of this trip and she said this farmers’ market was one of her favorites (good selection, cool town, good vibes, etc.).

It was another hot day here, so we decided to postpone our Sunday morning hike for later in the day. However, it rained hard this afternoon, and there were some flash flood warnings.

We now have a few concerning issues that we’re closely monitoring. One is the refrigerator, which does not seem to be refrigerating. Our food is spoiling!

Another issue is that the creek is risin’:

…and lastly the power is out in the campground, which means we can’t run our air conditioning on this very hot evening. (Actually, we could run the air conditioning if we fired up the generator, but we’re not that hot. Yet.)

The water level is climbing, but it’s still a good 30 yards away from our RV…we’re watching it closely. That’s the nice thing about having a house on wheels: If things start getting bad, we’re outta here.