Weekend Wanderings!

This weekend was good and bad. On Saturday we stayed home, it was raining and we had to wait for my wood to come in, so Bill could work on that. Well, it did not come until 7:30 at night, so too late to use it and that didn't matter, because the wood is junk. I wanted rustic wood, but this was so rough, Bill got a splinter, picking one up. Their were 8 boards in a box, and they were all crooked, so they went back today. We will just get our own wood and do the sanding and painting, not worth the cost of finished when they did a horrible  job on the wood.

Sunday was our day to get out. The bad thing was, I was sick, a combination of fighting off the latest flu and inhaling toxic smoke. I could hardly breath and I was coughing, so I took some med and headed out for the day. The med cleared up my lungs but I am still sick, but at least I can breath a lot better.

We headed to the apple orchards in Connecticut, but our first stop was an old prison building. We always see them on the way and I wanted to get a few photos. There are several building complexes along the road, but this is the only one without fencing. It is falling apart and all the windows are broken, such a shame to let buildings like this go to waste, lots of beautiful architecture on them. Also a bit creepy.

Of course we stopped at the orchard next and I got a large bag of apples and a few pears, they weren't as good as last time. Golden delicious are Bill's favorite, so half the bag is filled with those.

Afterwards I noticed a pull over at the river and then a sign, I can't pass by a historic cemetery. We walked around and I took a few more photos, sadly a lot of the graves are sinking into the wet ground. 

Since I was feeling better, I decided to head down to Groton and enjoy the views from the beaches. On the way I saw a tall stone tower, so we took a side road and headed up to see what it was. What we found was Fort Griswold. It was the site of a battle in the Revolutionary war, involving Benedict Arnold. This is the tower that I saw, it was erected later, as a monument to the men who fought in the wars.

We walked through the gates and entered into a large depression surrounded by earthen mounds. There was a door and an opening, so we checked it out.

It was a tunnel, that led to the other side.

On the other side was the area were the men were stationed with the guns and lookouts for enemies coming up the river. The tunnel was their escape route, they could run up and through, to the area we started in, to protect them from incoming fire.

On the edge of the banks, we could enjoy the views of New London and the ferries.

Some of the buildings are still there, the old furnace, where they heated up the canon balls, so that they would burst into flame, when they hit.

And the powder house, were they stored the munitions. It was a fun place to visit and I left a rock at the gate and it was found by a wonderful family, so they posted a photo of their little boy on DSmiles4miles on Facebook. It is fun for us too, when someone posts and we get to see the smiles.

Our last stop was  Eastern Point beach, it is at the end of the Thames River, so it is a nice spot to relax and enjoy the views and of course the boats and ferries, come and go.

A fishing boat coming past the Haunted lighthouse.

And to end the journey, a funny story. Maybe not for one seagull though. I was taking photos of these two guys, fighting for some reason and the other gulls seemed to be egging them on. Just as I was readjusting my focus, the one gull threw the other one off the roof and the gull went falling down the side. It was comical, especially when the poor guy got up and walked off, the flew away, no harm done. I also left a few rocks on some ledges on the house, on the backside, rough sea areas are not good places to hide things.

I hope you all had a good weekend. I am working on finishing a few more pillows and a new stitchery of the month.

Vacations must end!

This vacation was bittersweet. I have always wanted to go to Old Quarry to paddle, but this year I am not in the best shape with my injuries and watching Nick, wore me out. We were able to enjoy a lot of things and the camp was a nice place to just walk around and relax, but I really wanted to paddle to the islands and the boat rides were more than I wanted to spend right now.

We were able to get out for one paddle, one I had always wanted to do. It is in a protected area, so we avoided the winds and fog and there are islands all around. The main reason for this paddle was to go to Holbrook Island, which is part of the park we started in. It is a large island with a beach and a campground and the perfect way to spend the day.

I had the map in my photo brain, so we headed out towards the island. The paddle was in a river that led to thePenobscot bay, so I wanted to go to the mouth of the river, since it was not far away. We could see Castine and the area we had visited earlier in the week.

Bean is giving me the, hurry up and stop taking photos so we can get to the beach. He knows kayaks lead to beaches.

 We landed on a beach, that had no signs, so we figured it was ok. You can see the lighthouse sticking up, at the end of the point on the right.

This is the view to the left of us. We did paddle over to the middle of the two islands, now I wish we had gone all the way, but I had no idea what islands they were and if they were private.

It wasn't until we got back home and I looked at the area we paddled in. And that is when I realized, the island I thought was Holbrook, was a private island, duh. I knew it didn't look as nice as the photos but when we headed from the launch, we were actually on the opposite side of what I had in my mind from the map. So, this photo was taken at the launch, from across the road, the island on the left is Holbrook and the island on the left in the last photo is Holbrook, I could kick myself, lol. Next time I will use my phone to keep track of where I am. You can get turned around with so many islands and coves and with low tide, the islands connect with sandbars.

So, I missed out on landing on the island, but we still have a wonderful day of paddling and beautiful weather.

And we made it to the hill for a spectacular sunset. The sun was just going behind the mountains in this shot, I love how it cast beautiful colors through the clouds.

We had planned on an extra day to go home, but I woke up before 5 and decided to just go home. We saw a lot of places we wanted to stop at, but hard to get in with a trailer. Places to visit on another trip. We did stop at the Rockland Prison store, the prisoners make wooden items to sell to the tourists. I found a wonderful bird feeder, now I need to set up a river to put it on;) I also found the ship at a local thrift store in Blue Hill. The money goes to the local pet shelter.

I made Bill pose for a photo.

And of course we spent lots of time on beaches, most were rocky but a lot of granite. I did find some treasures to bring home, some I plan on painting and the one in the back, is a whale shape. It sits on it's own, so I will paint him and sit him on a shelf. I was surprised to find sand dollars on one beach, they were just sitting there, no others around.

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday weekend. I think it is time to hit the ocean, and hopefully we can steal Nick to have some fun on the beach with.