Text 15685, 106 rader
Skriven 2008-10-28 16:47:00 av Dale Shipp (1:261/1466.0)
Ärende: NE Trip report 1
========================
Gail and I recently took a coach tour of New England.  The tour started
out at the Sheraton Bradley at the Hartford airport, which is really
closer to Enfield than it is to Hartford.  Along the way, we took a
moderate number of pictures.  I have uploaded the pictures to the
photobucket web site -- 

URL = http://s311.photobucket.com/albums/kk451/dale5351/ ,

folder "New England fall 2008" has a bunch of subfolders arranged in
time order.

We drove up on Sunday, a day early, and spent the night near Mystic CT
so that we could visit Abbott's Lobster in the Rough and have some of
their large lobsters.  As usual, we enjoyed them.  Since the tour group
did not meet until an evening reception on Monday, we did a little sight
seeing in the Mystic/Groton area.  For breakfast on Monday we went to
the Oh Boy diner which had been recommended by a local.  We had pretty
typical diner breakfast at a normal price.  Gail's eggs, bacon and
hash-browns were good.  My pancakes were quite good for a change -- but
a bit thick.  Next time there I'd order only two pancakes instead of
four (or opt for silver dollar pancakes).

After breakfast, we visited the Submarine Museum in Groton.  This is a
very nice museum, giving the history of submarines from Galileo times to
the present -- with most of the emphasis on WWII and nuclear subs.  I
would recommend this museum to anyone who has an interest in naval
history and/or submarines.  A prime exhibit is the Nautilus (SSN-571,
the first nuclear submarine).  It has been permanently docked and the
inside areas set up to simulate what it might have been like.

On the way to Enfield, we stopped at BF Clyde's Cider Mill in Mystic.
I'd hoped to find some unpasteurized cider for Dave Sacerdote, but no
such luck.  Instead we got three bottles of hard cider wine, which we
gave to Dave as a present for keeping our car while we were on tour.
More on the wine later.

We planned to meet Dave at his house at about 5 pm.   Since it was a
short drive from Mystic to Enfield, we had extra time and spent it at
the Air Museum near Bradley Airport.  This is the museum that Joan
MacDiarmid and Glen went to on a previous picnic held in Enfield.  It
was a pretty good museum, some early history of aircraft and mostly on
WWII.  Not much since WWII.  In addition to aircraft, they had a couple
of old motorcycles on display.  I snagged photos of them knowing that we
have a few motorcycle buffs in the group.

After the museum visit, we decided we wanted some sort of light meal.  I
let my Magellan GPS list restaurants nearby.  Picked an Italian sounding
deli/sub place with a name like Vinnies that was about 3 miles away.
Drove there, only to find that it was closed.   We tried another one,
but could not find it -- probably bad address or it had closed.  In the
end, we stopped at a place called Scooters.  This was a retro
(50's/60's) diner type of place with emphasis on hamburgers and hot dogs
at reasonable prices.  Gail got a hot dog smothered in grilled onions
and I got a single cheese burger with grilled onion topping.  Total
price was less than $10.  Gail's hot dog was a decent hot dog.  My
hamburger was very thin patty and overwhelmed by the grilled onions.  In
essence, I had a grilled onion sandwich with meat topping.  I did notice
someone at the counter who had a jumbo hamburger.  It looked quite
decent, and the menu price was under $5.

We arrived at Dave's house just after 5pm, and he pulled up within a few
minutes.  After a brief chat, he drove us to the hotel at Bradley
airport in time for the evening reception with the tour guide and the
tour group at 7pm.  This tour company has these evening meetings for
people to get introduced to the guide and each other.  It counts as a
day in their advertisement of an "Eight day tour".  This time they
served some desert cakes -- almost all were heavy on the chocolate!

The tour proper started on Tuesday, 7 October.  As is pretty typical of
these tours, suitcases are put into the hall early in the morning and
are picked up and loaded onto the coach while people eat breakfast.  As
is also typical, bags out at 7 am with coach leaving at 8 am.  Breakfast
at the airport hotel was a buffet set up just for the tour group.  It
consisted of steam table scrambled eggs and bacon plus other things such
as cold cereal, juices and fruit.  This one was fairly good as such
buffet breakfast go.

After breakfast, the coach took us to Old Sturbridge Village.  This is a
restored historical village, with buildings that have been moved here
from across New England.  Fairly nice historical park.  Lunch was at
Salem Cross Inn.  This is described as being built by a grandson of the
first child born on the Mayflower, and furnished throughout with
American antiques.  Lunch was a fixed meal consisting of pot roast,
mashed butternut squash, mashed redskin potatoes, squash muffins, and
white bread rolls.  Dessert was apple pie (or so they said, I would have
described it more as a cobbler -- made in a large rectangular pan).
They brought out a humongous bowl of whipped cream and proceeded to plop
about a cup onto each serving.  As would become the standard, the noon
time meal was always included and was substantial.  The evening meal was
either not included or was something light.

After lunch, we went to Concord and visited a National Park site for
Lexington/Concord.  Then we got a step-on guide from the area who took
us to Lexington and then Concord, giving a very good account of what had
happened there.  After this, the coach took us to Woburn, MA where we
stayed at the Hilton.  Dinner that evening was not included in the tour
price, but they dropped those who wanted light dinner at the 99
Restaurant, which is apparently a New England chain.  Gail had a bowl of
chili, decent and could have been Hormel:-}}  I had a basic hamburger
with french fries, also decent.

... Shipwrecked on Hesperus in Columbia, Maryland. 15:52:22, 28 Oct 2007
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