Thursday, July 24, 2008

Riverboat Ride Up The Connecticut

Well, did you give up on the riverboat ride? I'm really sorry about this taking so long for me to post. As you know, there have been a few interruptions in my life, and when we are home (as we are at the moment) I find myself spending all my spare time playing with the granddaughters. Who cares about blogging if you can play in the sandbox?

Finally, as I promised, here are a few of the pictures I took as we went up the Connecticut River. You can see more of my Connecticut pictures by clicking here. I don't have all my Connecticut pictures there yet, but I intend to get them there in a few days. This is a picture of the boat we rode on. I took this picture a different day, but thought it would go good with this post.This is just a bit of the view. In the picture below, notice the dead tree to the right side. I don't know if you can see it or not, but there is a little dark speck on a dead branch that sticks out to the left...That dark speck is a bald eagle. It was a little shy and would not look at us. It was way on the other side of the river so I had to zoom in to get its picture. That's why it is a little blurry. The guide we had said that the eagles nest in the dead trees along the river.
Below is a picture of the school house where Nathan Hale taught before the Revolution. This was one of the places that I wanted to visit before we left, but things don't always work out like we would like. So I'll settle for a picture of it from the river.
If you want to see the school for yourself, it is in East Haddam where we stayed. Just a little way up the river from the school is the Goodspeed Opera House. It was built in the 1800s. (pictured below)Some famous Broadway shows, like Annie, got their start at this opera house.
This is a photo of an old inn and restaurant. We ate there one evening, out on the patio under the striped roof. It is really nice because you have a good view of the river.
Below are some pictures of a swing bridge connecting Haddam and East Haddam. We drove across it many times. It was cool watching it in operation as it opened to let a boat pass. The bridge has been there and operating since the 1800s as well. More pictures that I plan on putting on my Flickr page include our time in Essex. I took pictures of buildings that were built in the 1700s and early 1800s. We also made it back to the Gillette Castle and I'll post those pictures on Flickr as well.
Now that we are no longer in New England, I figured I wouldn't keep yacking about it here. Life moves on and so do we. I'm sure most of you are expecting my next posts to be from south Texas because of Dolly. I hate to disappoint you, but we are headed to Atlanta instead. Go figure.
When Rick got the rig home last Thursday, we started discovering some big maintenance issues: The brakes on the trailer were not working just right. The oven door broke so we are having to have the frame of it welded before I can use it. Some little doohickies that hold the axles to the springs were about to wear in to, and in the process of replacing them, we discovered that the frame was broken in two places and cracked or about to break in several other places. When Rick opened one of the slides, it hung up and messed up the rubber roof of the slide and tore up the gasket that seals it off. Man! What a mess! To top it all off, Rick had a cap come off a tooth that he needed to have stuck back on. Because of all our repairs, and because Rick really wanted some time off, he didn't take the Dolly job. So, they tried to send him to South Carolina. Again he said no-can-do because we still didn't have all the repairs made on the camper.
Yesterday he was called three times. Finally, I guess, his manager was persistent or insistent to the point that when Rick told him that we could not go anywhere until Monday, or the weekend at best, his manager said okay. So to Atlanta we will go, to "clean-up" some old storm claims. Just for the record, clean-up is not Rick's favorite thing to do, and Atlanta has not been our favorite place to be. But such is life. So if I don't get back here in the next day or two, I'll see ya in Atlanta --- unless something changes.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would have loved to see you when you came thru here. Oh well maybe some other time. It has been pouring here all morning. We really needed the rain so Dolly is no problem for us. I am just glad that we do not live closer to the coast. Have a great time with your girls, all of them. See you later on down the road. Cindy

Anonymous said...

I forgot, These are awesome pictures of the Eagle. I was just telling someone yesterday how the more I learn about Eagles the more interesting they are. I actually loved all the pictures. I went on a riverboat ride on my Senior trip for High School many moons ago. It was such fun. Cindy