The husband has always loved sailing – do not ask my opinion on this subject, just don’t – and has long attempted to take me on sailing adventures. In the early years of our marriage he had sailboats of various sizes starting with what is now known as the Devon Scaffie (when we bought ours it was a Drascombe) and ending with our little Pacific Seacraft Flicka, an ocean going, little cork of a sailboat.
It took the husband a while to figure out that sailing was just.not.my.thing.
Perhaps it was the seasickness. Or the fact that I spent the whole time we were on the Flicka hiding belowdecks.
Whatever.
My father soon saved us by coming up with tickets to Hawaii and that is what we did for vacations. Thank you Daddy. He then gave up the sailboats and went on to….I think the little race car was next. The man always has a hobby. But I didn’t have to go in the little race car so all was good.
But now he has a wooden canoe and yes it has a little sail so as they say – what goes around, comes around. So off to the Wooden Boat Show in Mystic, Connecticut we went. This is not my first time at a Wooden Boat Show – are you surprised? It’s been a few years. The last one I went to was in Newport and it was MUCH bigger. The husband says that it’s probably due to economies of scale. Owning and maintaining wooden boats is not for the light of pocket.
It was the first long trip for our electric car and that went very well. We had to stop once to charge and it was easy to find places along the way. We just plugged in and read for a bit.
We stayed in a VRBO in Stonington, CT, which ended up being a delightful little cabin in the woods. A funny aside – when we first started going to Hawaii in the mid ’80ies we found “Bed and Breakfast Hawaii.” It was the precursor to the whole VRBO and AirB&B phenomenon and as everyone now knows a delightful way to travel.
The cabin had a kitchen, bathroom with shower and comfortable bed.
The owners left us some fresh fruit and cookies along with bottles of water. The kitchen was fully outfitted so that if we wanted to shop and come back and cook something we would have had anything we needed to do so. Need I say we did not do this? Hahahaha.
Vacations mean Patty does not cook.
There were also a large number of books available which I always see as a positive.
The husband was happy wandering around looking at sailboats and my side of the trip was a visit to the Mystic Aquarium ’cause as all married couple know, there are always trade offs.
AmIrite?
As it was a rainy day it wouldn’t have been good for looking at wooden boats anyway so the Aquarium was a good place to be. I let me little kid loose and had a delightful time with all of the other little kids in the place.
We saw many an undersea creature – many that we have actually seen under the sea. There was also a Herring Gull. Had to laugh. There are always seagulls.
I must admit that seeing all of those tropical fish made me want to go back to Hawaii or well, anywhere warm and tropical. Himself just looked at me probably because….
….that seagull was in with a whole lot of penguins. Hardly tropical birds, penguins!
Where I did get to go is in the chair for a virtual reality experience which was pretty cool. I went diving with the humpbacks (so in a way I did get to go to Hawaii) and the husband went on shipwreck in the Bahamas with a mythical giant squid. We both enjoyed our separate “trips.”
After our aquarium visit we went for some food and ended up at the Mystic Diner! I know! But when in erm, Rome? The place was hopping but service was quick, pleasant, and efficient. The husband had bacon and eggs and I had….
….a most delicious bacon, tomato, and avocado sandwich. It was perfect. Dinner was less than so I won’t mention the restaurant. If you want to know, just contact me. It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t great and it was expensive.
All in all though we had a lovely getaway. It’s been awhile since we have gone for a night or two away and I will tell you that upon our return we were greeted by some very unhappy cats.
I got many “cat stares of death” from all three of them. But they all joined us in bed that night so I suspect they were happy to see us after our fun trip to Mystic Seaport. Plus I brought home a little memory to hang on our Christmas tree as I do for every trip that we take….
…a little hammerhead shark. I thought it was cute. I tend to find funny things to remind me of our trips and look past the touristy nameplace items. I mean, I brought a hedgehog home from Italy….don’t ask me why but every time I bring that little hedgehog out I smile and remember that trip.
We both enjoyed our visit to Mystic and would go back. It’s not that far away and we had a lovely visit. Our accommodations were very nice and I am sure there are more things to discover in the are.
