The Connecticutian

This morning Sarah and I went to the Olympia Diner in Newington, CT. It’s a great little diner — a greek diner that americans have come to love. It has very diner-ish decor, etched glass between booths, lots of diner green, vinyl seats, etc. The pancakes were good. Ya gotta love diners for breakfast.

Then we went to the Connecticut State Capitol. It is an interesting bulding. I know next to nothing about architecture, except for the fact that I know what I like when I see it. Sarah said it was a real hodge podge — almost a post-modern kind of style, even though it was built in the 19th c. She said it had a mix of classical and medieval styling. It was very colorful inside, lots of beutiful stained glass and “paintings” stenciled onto the walls. I forget you can go watch your gonverment in action, something that might be kind of fun to do some time. We went into the Senate gallery with a tour. The Senate is in session, but they were just milling aorunfd when we were there. Then we went to the House gallery, and the house is not in session, so it was like a quiet little sanctuary. I could have happily read a book or taken a nap in there. That is wghat government is all about, isn’t it?

So I mentioned in an earlier post that it would be great to find local swimming holes, and my friend and co-worker, Sarah, told me about this website Swimming Holes. Looks interesting so far. I have not yet explored any of these swimming holes, and I checked out MA’s list on the site. I know of many more in MA that are not on their website. So perhaps I will be able to stumble upon a few gems here, too.

So this is my summer vacation, and in order to stave off insanity, I need to get out of the house. Today I explored some of CT’s state parks. Since Sujal and I are getting married soon, I constantly have the wedding location antennae out. I drove down to Gillette Park in East Haddem, CT. It’s actually a pretty cool little park. The castle itself was built by William Hooker Gillette, an actor famous for portraying Sherlock Holmes. He was an actor on the stage. Frankly, I don’t know that he was such a particularly great man, but he did have the wealth to build this stone castle, and it’s quite beautiful. The tour of the castle is lovely, but I like the outdoors even better. There are a lot of little hiking trails, and some that go down to the river. They do weddings there, but they only allow for 75 people. You can have your wedding on the terrace outside of the castle, which overlooks the CT River. It seems like a great place to have a ceremony. The Connecticut River is picturesque, too. I might even like to do something cheesy like go for a steamboat ride down it. You can also do canoe trips and camp at various parks along the CT River. I will see if I can work on Sujal. I think it would be pretty fun! But what arguably might have been the best part of Gillette SP was when I went to the snackbar to buy some water. The young woman who sold it to me asked if my ring was amber, showing me her amber ring. She said, “It’s like we’re the Wonder Twins.”

I replied, “I can’t believe you know the Wonder Twins.” There really is a dearth of Wonder Twins fans as far as I’m concerned. “Form of an ice bridge.”

“Shape of an eagle.”

Then I saw signs for the Devil’s Hopyard SP. Man, was it ever difficult to actually find. Their map bites, and I was so lost mainly because of some detour signs that ended up not having anything to do with the park itself. I did a small amount of hiking/walking there. The trails seems pretty good, and I think I’d like to go back…with a better map. There was a pretty waterfall, slopingly falling over tiers of rock.

It is supposed to be in the upper 90’s tomorrow, and while I am busy tomorrow, it would be nice to find a swimming hole some time. Lara and I had a fun time finding various swimming holes a few summers ago. It would be great to do that again. The other thing I’d like to find is a good farm stand. They seem to be tough to find around here. I miss the great ones of my youth.