Connecticut – RDZ Photography

Virtual Travel – Connecticut

Architecture, History, Museum, Nature, Transportation

Our virtual travel tour takes us back to east to Connecticut. The oldest map in the collection is from 1964. The cover is a nondescript view of an early Interstate with the State Police posed in the median strip with minimal traffic.

In Connecticut the traffic has changed but the roads are the same.

The flip side has a collection of tourist attractions of the state.

For 1965 a colonial church is featured. The European history of Connecticut started in 1636 as a Puritan settlement known as the Connecticut Colony. In the famous Charter Oak incident this group refused to surrender local authority to the Dominion of New England, one of the first acts of self government in the country.

Connecticut Yankees have a history of having great ingenuity. There is no better example of this than Mystic Seaport.

The Mystic Seaport is the largest maritime museum in the United States, with a large collection of ships and buildings in a complete town.

The transportation modes of Connecticut is featured on 1972. Located between New York and Boston, Connecticut has always been a commuter state with a large rail network for getting into the larger cities surrounding it.

New England is known for it’s impressive fall foliage. While most visitors head to Vermont and New Hampshire, Connecticut offers some scenic fall countryside views. as shown on this 1983 map

Connecticut’s one major airport, located between Hartford and Springfield, Massachusetts is on the cover of the 1987 map.

The next in the series from 1989 is a scene from the Long Island Sound.

The Long Island Sound separates Connecticut from Long Island. There are a number of ferries that cross the water thus bypassing the need of going through New York City.

We once took the New London – Orient Point ferry providing great views leaving New London and crossing the Sound.

Since the late 1990s the maps have featured non identified scenes.

We leave Connecticut with a postcard view of a small coastal town.

Across Connecticut – August 2019 – From Yugos to Yale

Architecture, Art, History, Transportation

If you are going from Boston to New York City you have no choice but to pass through Connecticut. We did, and found two very different stops along the way.

At the edge of the town of Middletown we found the Yugo Ranch!

Just 15 miles, but about 2 light years culturally, is Yale University in New Haven.

It seemed much of the university was under construction but we eventually found what we were looking for – Beinecke Library, one of the most amazing libraries in the world.

Enough stops – on to New York City.

New London, CT – May 2018 – Crossing the Long Island Sound

Architecture, History, Nature, Transportation

If you are in New England and you want to go to Long Island you can either make the drive to New York City and backtrack back out the island, or you can take a cross sound ferry.

We made a choice to take the ferry from New London, Connecticut to Orient Point, New York. With a full day in Boston, we showed up in New London in the early evening and spent the night before taking the 1st ferry of the morning.

We spent our evening in New London having dinner (an interesting experience at Tony D’s Italian restaurant) and walked the downtown area, where it was apparent the architectural firm that designed the library was the same one who had designed the Waterworks in Boston, as the buildings had a strong resemblance.

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The schooner Amistad is docked in the harbor.

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While along the harbor front is a row of American flags.

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A fountain celebrates the whaling history of the city.

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The New London Union Rail Station was designed by Henry Hobson Richardson in the late 1800s.

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A centerpiece for the town is a schoolhouse that Nathan Hale taught at before the Revolutionary War.

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The next morning we caught the ferry out of town. It offered a nice overview as we left.

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Including the impressive interstate bridge over the Thames River.

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Past the lighthouse and into the Long Island Sound.

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We were on the slow ferry since we had the car with us. Soon the passenger only Sea Jet ferry caught us and passed us in their 40 minute crossing, whereas ours took 80 minutes. But soon we were on Long Island and continued our trip.

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Mystic, CT & Newport, RI – Late Summer 2016 Road Trip – Day 4

Architecture, History

If you really want to test a marriage tell her we are leaving the hotel at 5:45 AM to beat the traffic into and through the city. True to course we were in the Holland Tunnel at 6 AM, eventually making our way to Park Avenue, before cutting across 79th Street to the Henry Hudson Parkway to get out of the city. It was interesting sailing up Park Avenue with little traffic, and few people on the street.

Once on the Henry Hudson Parkway it was fortuitous that we were leaving the city as you did start to see traffic backed up coming off of the GWB and onto the Parkway. But the view of the bridge, albeit brief, was excellent with the towers gleaming in the morning sun.

We made a brief stop in New Canaan, Connecticut for coffee and hot chocolate at Zumbach’s Coffee. An interesting little shop who specializes in grinding their own beans, they had bags of them everywhere.

After crossing much of southern Connecticut we arrived at our next stop, at Mystic, to see the Mystic Seaport. Subtitled The Museum of America and the Sea offered a glimpse into the whaling industry and the importance of shipping to the area. We were free to roam the shipyard to stroll through the recreated 19th-century seafaring village, comprised of dozens of real 19th-century buildings brought there from parts of New England and staffed with historians and craftspeople.

Also onsite is a cooper’s shop that made barrels, the rigger’s shop that made and installed the ropes on ships. The rigger shop was a long building with ropes stretched and looped; it had spools of hemp or manila to make rope for the rigging on the ship as in early times there, but today, rigging is made of wire or chain. The final buildings in the village were a home and general store open for tours, as well as a small ship.

There was a large shipyard where repairs are made indoors to ships. This enormous building offered a bird’s eye view of the carpenter’s shop and massive yard to hold the ship. Currently there is restoration work being done on the Charles W. Morgan. The ship, owned by Mystic Seaport and docked at the Seaport’s Chubb’s Wharf, is the last wooden whaling ship in existence and the oldest commercial vessel still afloat. This ship had not sailed for nearly 100 years.

Prior to the 16-week voyage that set off on May 17, 2014 along New England, the Seaport had spent $7.5 million on the vessel’s restoration. Built in 1841, the Morgan is a legendary relic of the whaling age that sailing historians consider priceless. Now as of our visit, the Charles Morgan is again in repair for more work not allowing us to board the ship. We did visit the museum of artifacts and the history of whaling in America. Whale teeth and baleen were part of more than 100 whaling-related artifacts, images, and documents, including logbooks, photographs, scrimshaw, ship models, souvenirs, and sound recordings.

From there it was another hour drive to Newport, Rhode Island, a tourist town that capitalizes on the millionaire mansions from long ago such as the Breakers. Initially we parked in town and had lunch at the Red Parrot. Lunch was excellent, as we sat at an open window looking upon the street, which was filled with traffic and scooters the entire time, with the harbor just down the street.

We made our way to the Cliff Walk area, finding parking on a street and starting the hike along the path. The first mansion we came upon is the Breakers, an east coast summer palace owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt located on Ochre Point Avenue in Newport with a view of the Atlantic Ocean. As we continued along the paved cliff walk that snaked along the edge above a rocky ocean beach hoping to see the millionaire mansions, but, only saw surfers catching waves riding into dangerous water near boulders.

Finally giving up on the cliff walk, our route took us back to the street for a front view of the mansions until we reached the car. A drive along the ocean drive in Newport while seeing cliffs, beaches and marinas filled with small boats. Eventually we had enough of Newport and headed for our home for the night in New Bedford, Massachusetts, a Residence Inn. The hotel fed us a complimentary dinner of meatballs and Italian sausage. We laughed thinking that our best meal thus far was a free meal from the hotel.

Boston to New York – July 2010 – A Ride on the Acela

Architecture, Nature, Transportation

On this trip to Boston we had rented a mini van to move stuff up, so for our return trip we were taking the Amtrak Acela to New York City to spend a few days, before continuing on to Pittsburgh.

The train leaves South Station in Boston.