Off to Connecticut

May 13, 2008
Broad Brook, CT

Last Thursday, we ran a few errands while in our "old stomping grounds" in New Jersey. First, we hopped across the bridge to Philly for a cheese steak at Tony Luke's - excellent! Then we hit the new (well, over a year old now but still "new" to us) Wegman's for some grocery shopping. I wish there were more of these stores in our travel area, as they are well-stocked and have great meat and fish. After that, we made a stop at our favorite Canal's wine shop to stock up.

We picked up a "prepared meal" (chicken parm and angel hair with asiago) at Wegman's for a "no clean up" dinner. We'd wanted to catch up with Peter and Paola Baxter, but couldn't make the scheduling work this time through.

We left the Philadelphia area as planned on Friday, heading for Connecticut. The weather turned into what they call "a soaker". It started raining early in the morning, so everything was extremely wet before we left. I put on the rain gear to dump and flush the holding tanks, pull in the hoses, and hook up the car. Unfortunately, there was no way to avoid the 1-2" deep puddles, all of which were strategically placed in front of the bays I needed to access. I think my shoes have finally dried out several days later. After winter in the desert, we're still getting used to this rain thing.

Once on the road, we have an uneventful, albeit rainy, drive up to Connecticut. We took I-295 north, hopped over to the Turnpike (similar to "The City" meaning "New York City", "The Turnpike" means the "New Jersey Turnpike") at Exit 4 and continued north. We switched over to the Garden State Parkway and followed it all the way to the northern end, crossing into New York and heading east on I-287 through White Plains. The GSP isn't a "designated route", so there was very little truck traffic (local trucks only) but we saw a few busses and RVs. The lanes are a little narrow but everyone seemed to be driving slower due to the rain, so we were fine. From White Plains, we took I-684 north to Brewster and I-84 east to Hartford. We switched to I-91 north to East Windsor and arrived around 2:30 PM; not bad time considering the route and weather.

So far, we've rested up a bit after a couple of weeks on the road and started a few projects. I've ordered some small fans to provide cooling in the cabinets where our DirecTV boxes live, as it gets pretty hot in there. I'm also going to mount them on drawer slides, so I can extend them out to improve airflow when needed. Al and I have also started a couple of projects that'll make our stay easier: adding water and waste lines. When they expanded their driveway several years ago, we put in a 50 amp electrical box, but we've always had temporary water and sewer connections. These projects will finish off the connections so we'll be completely self-contained while we're here.

Everyone here is always in constant motion, typical for families with kids these days. Britt's sick and been home from school for a few days. Alicia's finishing up her first year at college this coming Wednesday; Al and I made a run with his pickup to move her refrigerator and a load of other stuff Sunday night. Pat and Melisa (Geri's daughters) had planned a Mother's Day excursion to Atlantic City with their friend Lynne Bower, so they left Sunday morning and won't be home until tonight (we hope they had a good time even though the weather was awful there yesterday). We're just about "pasta-ed out" after having "kicked up" mac-and-cheese with lobster, scallops and crab on Saturday, leftovers on Sunday, and Geri's wonderful stuffed manicotti last night (with the prospect of leftovers tonight). Meals here are something that happen rather than being planned, so we go with the flow for the most part. We've got a few recipes we want to make and I've been trying to get a calendar in place to plan them out, but I'm not getting much traction in that area. Oh, well...