August 13, 2009 by Rick and Tinka.

Rick’s brother, Gary, and his wife, Meg, offered to take us on a day trip to the Mystic Seaport.   We thought that we were heading to the coast, taking a few pictures, wading in the seashore, and heading home.  We were soon to find out that the Mystic Seaport is also known as “The Museum of America and the Sea”.

On the way to our ultimate destination, we stopped at The Rock Garden, a rock store that did a big business and provided educational programs for youths.  The place is easy to spot  with this commercial dinosaur in the parking lot.

An interesting exhibit was a darkened room with a display of luminous rocks.

They had all kinds of prehistoric specimens.

Specimens included some ancient geodes and other nice specimens.

Then off we headed to the Mystic Seaport. The museum covers several acres that included complete neighborhoods of early sea life, including churches and shops.  There were a number of ships that have been restored and can be boarded for viewing.

Several actual buildings used for the clam, crab, fishing and lobster industries have been preserved.  Several of them have actual working displays of barrel making, shipsmithing (like a black smith shop), printing, etc.

Several buildings displayed numerous nautical items.  One of my favorites was the lamp shop.

Mystic sports its own shipyard for the rebuilding of antique ships.

Ironically, Hurricanes Katrina and Ike have provided the ship rebuilders with a nearly unlimited supply of wood from live oak trees.  This is a favorite wood in ship building and some trees, as old as 600 years, have found their way to Mystic.  This 6-foot diameter log is an example.

The Mystic Shipyard is in the early stages of a gigantic undertaking.  They are rebuilding the last of the old wooden whaling ships, the Charles W. Morgan.

The Morgan is 105 feet long and was built in a period of nine months in 1841.  This restoration will take at least three years.  For a long period of time at the beginning of this restoration efforts are underway to remove the 9 or 10 inch arch in the keel that has appeared over the years from various repairs.  Jacks at both ends of the keel are forcing the ends up and gravity is pulling down the center.  Caulking is removed from various side planks to allow the ship to squeeze the planks together as it regains its shape.

A large hole has been cut in the hull under the water line to allow the rebuilders to pass new boards, up to 40 feet long, into the ship.

Visitors can climb up into the ship to observe the progress.

From the stairs heading to the deck, you can see how the ship dwarfs everything around it.

We spent about six hours at the seaport and didn’t see everything.  On the way out, you couldn’t help but notice this old, partly wooden, anchor.  I had never seen one with this type of construction.

We want to thank Meg and Gary for taking the time to show us this coastal gem.

Posted in Connecticut | Print | No Comments »

August 12, 2009 by Rick and Tinka.

We cruised across Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York. We were very impressed with the  beauty of each state.  It appears that we can see the light at the end of the “tunnel”.

The purpose of this trip was to visit with Rick’s mother and his brother, Gary, and family who live in north central Connecticut.  It is difficult to relate to the size of this state.  The distance from north to south in Connecticut is  a shorter distance than crossing the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex.

We enjoy the old architecture, but not everything is “Big Rig” friendly.  This gas station is an example.

One of the quaintest towns was New Hartford, its buildings just oozes  early 1900’s.

It seems like all of the cemeteries are on hills.  As a confirmed “flat-lander”,  I wouldn’t want to be a pall bearer in this area.

We found an RV park, White Pines Campsites, which were located on top of a mountain.  There are easy ways to get there and really steep ways.  Our GPS had us turn the wrong direction and we were forced to go down a 12% - 15% grade for 8/10 of a mile.  The brakes were smoking when we reached the bottom.(Front pads and fluid changed out, another $300.00)

The campground is very busy on weekends.  They get tons of day people to use the pool, horseshoes, RC car track, and other activities.  They even have a hayride with “Mr. Hayride.”  That conjures up visions.

There’s no hay, and they pull it with a lawn tractor, but the kids enjoy it.

They have had so much rain that we were unable to get into the slots that would have allowed us to use our satellite TV dome.  Too many tall trees.  They ended up putting us on 3 RV spaces with water, electric and cable TV.  Most of their sites have gray-water sewer, but not ours. They came around and drained the gray and we fully dumped upon our departure.  Trees and low wires hindered the access to the dump.

We had a great visit with Rick’s brother, Gary, his wife, Meg, and son, Noel.  They were great hosts and kept us busy throughout the visit.  I don’t know how they do it.

We were happy to get time with Rick’s mother, Nelle.  Rick was able to get her computer tuned up.  She had been having problems with it.  A defective UPS was the culprit. That and a new mouse had her up and running like new. We really enjoyed our visit with her.

Nelle’s brother, Dick, also arrived for three days of visit during our stay.  We stopped at Dick’s house in St. Louis back in mid-July.

Posted in Connecticut | Print | 1 Comment »

May 29, 2008 by Rick and Tinka.

WE’RE BACK!!!!

On the morning of May 14th we headed to the airport and hopped two American Airlines flights heading in opposite directions in a quest to visit our mothers.  Tinka headed off toward Kelowna, British Columbia with stops in San Jose and Seattle.  Her mother, Val Echols, lives in a retirement home near Tinka’s sister Jenelle.

Thinking she was headed off to the Arctic Circle, Tinka only took winter clothing along.  As luck would have it, the daytime high temperatures were in the mid-nineties.   She had a wonderful time and because of the warm weather they even made it out to a par-three golf course.

                             Not bad for 90 years old.

Rick headed east to Hartford, Connecticut via St. Louis.  His mother, Nelle, lives in the Hartford suburb of Farmington.   With a stoke of luck, Rick’s visit overlapped with that of his uncle, Richard Hudgens.  It was certainly good to see him.

Rick upgraded his mother’s computer with a new HP scanner so that she can begin to scan the photos in her scrap books. It’s pretty slick and is basically a one-button operation for scan, crop, and storing.

Rick’s brother Gary, who lives in the neighboring town of East Hartland, ran his butt off moving us to and from the airport, shopping, and entertaining, not to mention handling his own chores.  We all headed up to his house for the afternoon on Saturday.  Those of you that have been reading this journal for a while may remember the fantastic lobster/clam bake Gary served up last July.  This time we were treated to a great steak dinner.

We arrived to find the yard in the midst of breaking out into bloom.  Some shrubs were in full bloom.

Others were loaded with buds and preparing to burst into color.

We both had wonderful times on our trips and made it back to the Dallas / Fort Worth area in time to get ready for a busy Memorial Day weekend.

On Saturday, we headed out to Lake Tawankoni where the family was gathering for the day.  We spent the day boating, tubing, jet-skiing, and fishing.  The fishing was pretty quiet for most of the day, but at about 6:00 PM the sand bass and hybrids went crazy.  Rick caught seven fish in eight casts.  Then all was quiet again.

Marc shows our three granddaughters, Gracie, Ayden, and Maddie, how to hold on to the tube.

Gracie escapes from the chilly water.

Tinka keeps an eye on Maddie, our youngest granddaughter.

Even Rick made it out on the jet-ski and stayed dry.

On Sunday and Monday, we had pool parties to attend on the other side of the DFW Metroplex, so, we packed up our home and moved to Bennett’s RV Ranch in Granbury, TX.  Bennett’s is a nice park just off of Hwy 377 on the north end of Granbury.  It is convenient to shopping and the lake.  The wide pull-throughs are about 60 feet long and can accept most any size rig.  Navigating through the park is a little strange, but not a problem if you swing wide going into your site.  They accent the border with large boulders near the edge of the pull-throughs.  This isn’t much of a problem, but may cause you to go the wrong way on the interior road in order to exit.

We had a great time visiting and catching up with many of our “old” friends.  It’s the first time we’ve been able to catch a little sun since we left Tucson.

Posted in Canada, TX Dallas/Fort Worth, Connecticut, Texas | Print | No Comments »

July 28, 2007 by Rick and Tinka.

We drove up to CT a few days ago.  We skirted around the heavy populated areas.  The drive up there was like driving on a Dallas freeway all day long.  And it was raining the whole time.  Not a relaxing day driving a 5^th wheel.On the way up to CT we stopped at the New Jersey shore and went to the beach.  Our view from the beach was New York City.  The picture doesn’t do the view justice.  It was very awesome looking across the bay and seeing NYC.

 (Click on picture for panoramic view.)

In some old movies they talk about Beach Clubs, having cabanas and having cabana boys.  In one of the towns by the beach they have about 8 Beach Clubs.  We went on the internet and read about the ones we saw.  They are much like Country Clubs to us.  You join for the season, have a cabana, restaurant, swimming pool, beach access, and activities for the children.  It can cost $1,700 and up to $18,000 for the SEASON depending on the beach club and what you want to pay.  $1,700 gets you a season pass and a locker for your stuff.  A nice cabana is like an efficiency apartment.  Because of the price of $18,000, up to 4 families share a cabana.  The main idea of a Beach Club is that you can have an access to the ocean.

New Jersey has some strange driving patterns.  There are no left turns or U turns on city streets where we were.  All left turns were made from the right side lane.  You would circle around to the right 180 degrees and be perpendicular to the street you just left.  Sometimes that right 180 degree turn would circle to the right, sometimes to the left, sometimes it before the light and sometimes beyond the light.  It really keeps the traffic from backing up but confusing.  The other thing we noticed about NJ highways is they do not spend a lot of the budget on directional signs.  One day we drove around and missed quite a few turns.  So the next day we went over the same roads and quickly saw why we made so many mistakes.  They will have junction signs.  No advance warning to which lane you need to be in to turn.  Then right at the junction they will have the signs to go north or south.  You are always in the wrong lane or miss it completely.  If they just happen to have an advanced sign about a turn it will be obstructed by tree branches. Tolls are very high in the east.  It cost $5 to go across a bridge.  In one day we spent over $30 in tolls.  CT was up and down hills, very New England and beautiful. Most of the roads we traveled on were 2 lanes and busy.  On our return trip to VA we went a different route away from the populated cities.  It was a much easier trip and it wasn’t raining except for one rain shower in PA.  PA was very pretty.  On the trip down to VA we could see the countryside and the entire sky.  We didn’t get claustrophobic with tall trees right beside us and only seeing the sky right above.We are heading to the Outer Banks of NC and SC for a few days.  Then we will spend a few days in Savannah, GA before heading to Daytona and then to the Tampa, FL area for a few weeks.

Posted in New Jersey, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New York | Print | 1 Comment »

July 26, 2007 by Rick and Tinka.

We are in Connecticut visiting Rick’s mom, brother and family.  We went up to Rick’s brother’s house and Gary cooked a Lobster dinner for us.  UNBELIEVABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here are the lobsters. Aren’t they beautiful?  The platter doesn’t look like that anymore as they were very tasty and GONE.

Here are the clams.

 This is a platter of corn, potatoes, and spinach.

Missing picture.  Imagine in your mind a platter of steaks.  We were busy getting our plate loaded down with lobster when the platter of steak was put on the table.  No camera. We also had a great Toll House pie.If only we could eat like this every night!!!!!!!!!Thanks to Chef Gary for a wonderful dinner.   

Posted in Connecticut | Print | 1 Comment »