Our Road Trip #1

Well Ron and I had a fantastic time visiting different ares in New England this summer. We began our trip by renting a car from Enterprise with a GPS unit. This would have been great except that the cars charging port (formerly known as the cigarette lighter) wasn't working. Soooo after we had completely packed the car and almost started on the road we were forced to change vehicles. All of this took some time to decipher of course, we originally thought our GPS was malfunctioning, (but in yet another instance of God working in mysterious ways) when we were packing the car the cell phone charger simply broke into 6 different pieces for NO reason at all. Literally Ron was just holding the thing and it exploded. This led us to purchase a new charged from Target and then we had to test it, when our cell phone charger also wasn't working we figured it out. So two hours late, we were on our way to Mystic, CT.

Mystic, CT

This bit of our trip was frustrating for us. We had intended to arrive in Mystic for lunch but with our car & charger mishaps and 5 HOURS of traffic driving through New York we were quite late. So, we got there around 5 p.m. and had dinner at Mystic Pizza (the one from the Julia Roberts 80's movie). The place was packed when we got there just before the dinner rush but it was positively ridiculous at 6 when we were leaving. We both thought the pizza was good, nothing too special but there is lots of movie memorabilia on the walls. It's a good tourist-y stop.

Actually one of the more interesting aspects of Mystic was that we had our first run-in with a non New Jersey-ian. We were waiting online for the bathroom (of all places) and we struck up a conversation with a resident from New Hampshire who talked to us like we were long lost friends, by the end of the conversation she had invited us to her home. We declined because we weren't going to be anywhere near northern New Hampshire but it was an interesting glimpse into the surprisingly friendly country that exists outside of NJ.

After dinner we looked briefly at the pier there with its historic ships and then hopped back in the car (me driving this time) and we headed towards Sippewisset Camp Ground in Massachusetts.

Sippewissett

Is a truly disgusting little campground with some very nice people who work there. It was FULL of pirates.

pi·rate n. - A person (mostly found in large groups) who are very loud, drink alot and litter. They are often cursing profusely and don't care about the sleeping habits or needs of others. Sometimes they are known to sing bawdy songs, often quite friendly and want you to join their reverie. A fine lot of people really, just not for us.

Our campground there was quite crowded and loud, our tent was located about 4 feet from our neighbors and we heard EVERYTHING they said. The party to our left was a family with one frustrated father who yelled often and often loudly at his whiny children.

We went to sleep at Sippewisset and left early since I decided I could not bring myself to "go" in the facilities located there. The shower had spiders in it and so did the bathroom. This concludes the negative reporting from our trip (for the most part).

Happy to be leaving the campground we took a drive (using our trusty GPS) to Plimoth Plantation. This is a wonderful living history museum, which gave us the first of several bits of information about the Native Peoples of the North East. The museum is broken into four parts, the first is a physical museum with media presentations and exhibits (including a scathing one about Thanksgiving in Americans recent history). The second piece is a re-creation of a Wampanoag Homesite consisting of several huts and work stations. There was also a small field of corn that had been planted in the traditional method of making a small mound, putting a dead fish in that lump of earth and planting the corn in groups around the mound. This is a very successful method of planting but it's odd to our modern eye to see such irregular rows of corn. The Homesite is staffed by people of Wampanoag decent who answer questions you may have about the lifestyles of Native People's in the 1600's.

Then we moved on to the 1627 English village. This was fantastic! The people in this part of the museum are actors who have re-created lives of 1627 immigrants to the New World. The people there have so thoroughly researched their characters that you can literally ask them any questions and they are quick to respond in character. I mean minute details like: who are their neighbors? where does this person sleep? They really created 1627 for you. It was just amazing, the only downside was that they were SO good that Ron and I almost felt uncomfortable taking their pictures! We took much less pictures here than any other place on our trip for that reason!

The third part of the museum is a craft center, which has a couple of exhibits on seasonal eating habits of the natives and settlers. The larger part of the this center is devoted to artisans who work full time creating beautiful pieces of pottery, arrows, baskets and more! Those handmade crafts are then put in the craft store there.

There is also a re-creation of the Mayflower but we didn't have time to see it. So no comments there!

More to come......