This morning we stopped by the Post Office in Westerly, Rhode Island to pick up our mail that we had sent to General Delivery. Then we drove to Mystic to visit the Seaport Museum. Our first stop was at Mystic Pizza to have lunch. This pizza restaurant was made famous in the 1988 movie of the same name - one of the lead actors was Julia Roberts. The walls are covered with memorabilia from the Mystic Pizza movie.
We ordered the House Special pizza and a couple of Sam Adams on draft. We were not disappointed when our pizza was served. This was one of the best pizzas that we have had - they definitely lived up to their motto - "A Slice of Heaven". We also found out that you can buy frozen Mystic Pizza - I'll have look for it next time I'm grocery shopping.
Our next stop was at Mystic Seaport, The Museum of America and the Sea.
After paying the entrance fee and getting a map of Mystic Seaport, we started exploring the recreated 19th-century seafaring village. We went aboard the Charles W. Morgan ( an 1841 wooden whaleship that has outlived all of her kind); we were able to go below deck to see the living quarters. Some of the ships docked at the Village are National Historic Landmark vessels - the L. A. Dunton, the Sabino (a1908 coal-fired steamboat), the Charles W. Morgan, and the Emma C. Berry (an 1866 sailboat). We saw the Shipsmith Shop (the only manufactory of ironwork for whaling industry known to have survived from 19th century), the 1833 Mystic Bank, Spouter Tavern, and the Chandlery. Several of the buildings in the Village have been moved there from other locations to help complete the Village. We saw displays of different ships and figureheads, whaling exhibits, and toured the Preservation Shipyard.
We had a great time today and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.
Today we drove over to Stonington, CT to do some genealogical research at the RW Woolworth Library of the Stonington Historical Society. They had wifi there and Mike browsed the internet while I did research. We had brought both laptops with us in case we found a place with wifi.
I knew that my Utley ancestors had lived in the Stonington area during the 1700's. I found out that they had been members of the First Congregational Church of Stonington. I found birth, marriage and burial information on the Utleys. I also found out that my 8th great-grandparents, Samuel and Sarah Utley, had been buried in the Old Plain (sometimes called Great Plain) Cemetery in North Stonington, CT. After getting directions to the church and cemetery we set out to locate them.
The First Congregational Church, commonly known as The Road Church, was easy to locate. The original church was officially established in 1674; the church that stands now was built in 1829.
The Great Plain Cemetery was a different matter to locate. The only directions we had was that it was 3/4 of a mile NW of the North Stonington Town Hall. We stopped at the Town Hall and after consulting a plat map, we were given directions how to find it. At that it still was not easy to locate as it sat back off the highway and was not visible from the road.
It's a fairly good sized cemetery, but even after checking all of the gravestones I wasn't able to locate any Utley graves. But since Samuel and Sarah died in the early 1700's their stones may not exist, or are so faint the names couldn't be read. It's not the first cemetery we've visited where we know ancestors are buried but can't locate their graves.
Today Mike called Cummins Northeast in Dedham, MA to get an appointment to have our generator repaired. Dedham is about 25 miles southeast of Hanscom AFB where we'll be staying next. We have an appointment on May 22 at Cummins Northeast.
This morning we drove down to Groton, CT
to visit the USS Nautilus at the U. S. Navy Submarine Base. After parking the car we realized that we had forgotten to bring the camera!
There is no admission fee for the museum or to tour the USS Nautilus. We decided to tour the submarine museum first. We saw artifacts and photographs and learned about the history of the USS Nautilus in the Nautilus Room. The USS Nautilus was the world's first nuclear-powered submarine. It was launched in January 1954 and commissioned in September 1954. It was the first sub capable of almost unlimited underwater operation. The USS Nautilus crossed under the North Pole August 3, 1958; it was the first vessel ever to reach the world's northernmost point. The Nautilus was decommissioned in 1980.
Also in the museum are working periscopes, an authentic submarine control room, models showing the development of the US Submarine Force, displays showing pioneers of submarine development, World War II submarine operations displays and a Medal of Honor Gallery of submarine recipients.
Then we went out to the pier to tour the USS Nautilus. It is a self-guided tour. We each received an "audio wand" for the audio portion of the tour so we could learn about each of the areas on the tour. The tour took us through the torpedo room, a small berthing area, the wardroom, officers' staterooms, the Attack Center (the "Conn", navigation center, sonar), the Control Room, the Crews' Mess and ended at the Galley. Fortunately, the USS Nautilus website has a virtual tour of the museum and Nautilus so we can look at their photos since we have none of our own.
On our way back to Burlingame State Park we stopped at Vetrano's Restaurant in Westerly, RI for lunch. I had seen an ad for the restaurant the Westerly, RI travel guide. It was an excellent choice! We both had spaghetti (I know, not very original) and it was great. If you like Italian and are in the area, we highly recommend Vetrano's.
We go up earlier than our usual time this morning even though we only had 45 miles to travel today to get to Burlingame State Park. Before we left Wal-Mart I bought some groceries and got breakfast at the McDonald's in Wal-Mart. We left Wal-Mart at 8:45 this morning.
We stopped at the Rhode Island Welcome Center on I-95. There we were told the best place to get gas was at the next exit & then we could take SR-138 to SR-112 to SR-2 to US-1 where Burlingame State Park is located.
We got gas at a Gulf Oil station at the next exit where we paid $3.799 a gallon.
We arrived at Burlingame State Park about 10:30 this morning. It's $20 a night plus a $9 reservation fee. We were assigned site #748 - lots of shade. There are no hookups here at the park. We soon discovered that our generator wouldn't start. We started checking some of the empty sites and found site #547 where we could get sun for our solar panels. After checking with the park office we moved from site #748 to site #547 and finished setting up.
Site #547 is a gravel/dirt pull-through which is reasonably level. There are still a lot of trees around so we can't pick up a satellite signal even with the portable satellite dish. We can get all 3 networks plus some other TV stations on our roof antenna. We had to run the engine for a while in order to charge our house batteries. The solar panels started charging the batteries when we started to get full sun shining on the solar panels.
We left Rondout Valley RV Resort this morning at 11:45 - later than our normal departure time. After all of our sightseeing yesterday and then coming home to find our awning filled with rain water and then the awning breaking, we decided to take our time leaving today.
We stopped at McDonald's in Middletown, NY for lunch. Then we crossed the Hudson River at the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge (our toll was $5.50). We stayed on I-84 into Connecticut until just south of Danbury where we connected with US-7. We took US-7 until it connected with I-95 and stayed on I-95 until we reached Waterford, CT.
We're spending the night here at the Wal-Mart Supercenter in Waterford. We drove about 190 miles today.
