New England Trip

Wicket wakes up a little later now that we are a few degrees west, and for that we are thankful. This morning’s walk call was at 6:20 a.m. The skies were cloudy and threatening rain, so we took our time with showers and breakfast. We also discovered that we had left our umbrella at the restaurant last night, which gave us a great excuse to drive back down to Stonington and see the lighthouse. We picked up the umbrella, and explored Stonington.

The lighthouse was built in 1823, and although the light is no longer in service, the beautiful building is used as a museum with a very large collection of old stuff from the lighthouse era. Like many of the New England lighthouses, this one was moved to its present location from the edge of the point, now protected behind a man-made breakwater. Through a glass section of floor, we could see the cistern that had been dug and framed under the building for collecting rainwater after the water from the well, also visible through a glass floor, proved too salty for use. We were able to climb the steep spiral staircase and ladder to the top of the lighthouse tower, and had a great view of the shoreline and the village.

There was an eclectic collection of stuff in the museum – weapons and cannonballs from the war of 1812, whaling harpoons, ice harvesting equipment, old medical equipment, and other stuff connected mainly by being old and from around here.

The curator of the lighthouse museum, a delightful woman named Louise, was a fount of information about the history of the town of Stonington. She told us about the factory that employed Stonington’s residents through many generations and different product lines – silk weaving machines, plastic Coke bottles, guns – and finally burned to the ground in a spectacular fire (coincidentally) just before it was to be re-developed into condominiums. Apparently such fires are part of a common history of New England towns..

On the way back to the motor home, with a grocery stop en route, we drove through the side streets of Stonington and took several pictures of beautiful houses, one with a copper roof and gutters. The neighborhood reminded us of the old neighborhoods of Charleston, Savannah and other coastal towns, and some historic districts in inland Southern cities. There are beautifully kept old homes even in areas that seem to be of very limited financial means. When we get home, it will be interesting to try to look at our towns and neighborhoods with a tourist’s eye, and consider whether we may have overlooked some beauty in the familiar rural poverty of the South.

By the time we got back to the motor home, the rain was settling in for a long siege. It rained most of the afternoon and into the evening. The kids who ran for cover in their campers when the rain started finally came out and jumped on the “jumping pillow” in the pouring rain. They probably had been getting stir-crazy in their campers like Wicket, and their parents seemed to have shooed them out about the same time Wicket announced that he had to go NOW, whether it was pouring rain or not. (Margaret bundled up in Steve’s rain jacket and followed Wicket around through the puddles. When you gotta go, you gotta go.)

The rain is beautiful to watch. Some day, we will have this kind of rain again at home. We will try to remember never to complain about wet dog hair and muddy feet again. According to NOAA, Hartwell had about ¾ of an inch of rain in the past week, and we hope some of it fell on our plants.

We went to the town of Mystic for dinner at the S&P Oysters restaurant. The meals were delightful, as was the restaurant surrounded by gardens on one side and the Mystic River on the other.

The first picture below is one of the lighthouse, and the second is a picture of the house with the copper roof.