road trip, day 3 -- novelist and ferries

After a drive into Port Jefferson, we took the 10 am ferry into Bridgeport, Connecticut. The bus driver drove the bus right up onto the boat. It look like it held about 50 cars and the center lane was large vehicles, maybe 6 of them. Including a Fedex truck. The ferry goes about 30 MPH, and there was a headwind.  The whole thing took about an hour.

You couldn't really sit out on the top deck to long or you'd get blown away. I was doing loops. Inside, outside, hang with Bonnie and then repeat. At one point I was walking and the wind pushed me so that I ran.

A few minutes before docking,  the announcement came that drivers and passengers needed to return to their vehicles. So we all boarded the bus on the boat. After docking, we drove to Hartford just in time for lunch. We stopped at a food court at the Old State House grounds. It had all the usual suspects, and it also had two HEALTHY places to eat. I was shocked.

After lunch we drove a few minutes to visit the Mark Twain House and Museum. While on the bus we were broken into four groups. I was in group C. So I had a little wait. As you know, this house was the Samuel Langhorne Clemens family home from 1874 to 1891. The house has been called "part steamboat, part medieval fortress and part cuckoo clock." While living there, Clemens wrote his best-known works, including The  Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Prince and the Pauper, Life on the Mississippi,  Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, A Tramp Abroad, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.

Also in the neighborhood was Harriet Beecher Stowe's (Uncle Tom's Cabin) home. It's undergoing restoration but still open for visitors. People in groups A-B had plenty of time to go there. C- and especially D, not so much.

After the tour we met up with the Connecticut Valley Volkssport Club that begins and ends at the museum. They re-routed their capitol walk just for us.  Bonnie and I actually abbreviated it a little hoping to get back in time to do the Harriet house tour. But that wasn't in the cards. All we needed was another 15 minutes. But we had to be at the bus at 5. When we arrived there was only 3 other people on the bus. Then we found out that the time was extended because the D group complained. We had to 5:20. Shit. We could have done the tour.

Then it was off to the Hampton Inn in Danbury for another exciting night of grading, updating blogs, getting files ready for the printer, and the clubs Facebook page. But first we stopped at the Carousel Mall for yet another food court, and a ride on the carousel. We have our priorities.

I don't understand why we stopped at the food court. There's a Chili's in the parking lot.