Day 75

---

---

Obfuscator writes: Connecticut proved to be much more reasonable than Rhode Island, at least in terms of keeping us entertained. That's not to say that Connecticut was entirely non-disappointing. Groton, which is across the Thames River from New London, is home to a major submarine base for the Navy. It's also home to the Submarine Museum and U.S.S. Nautilus, which was the first nuclear submarine. We had high hopes for this, being interested in the craziness that is submarine history. Fortunately for us, it didn't seem to be closed for the season, a refreshing change in this part of the country. Unfortunately for us, it was closed until mid-November for renovations, and since we didn't have a week in our schedule to spare, we knew we wouldn't be making it back for this one.

New London is an interesting town in its own right. There's a lot of submarine history there (including a large General Dynamics submarine building facility), and a lot of history in general. It's largely a town that made its fortune on whaling and seafaring. It was also pretty much entirely burned, along with Groton, by a British army led by Benedict Arnold during the Revolutionary War. We visited Fort Griswold, which was the fort protecting the Groton side. The earthwork walls and fortifications are still in very good shape, and you can see why the fort was able to repel several infantry assaults before it succumbed. They also have a big plinth nearby memorializing the fort's defenders. Incidentally, New London, or Groton, or something, is also home to a Pfizer R&D facility, which tempted me to ask around about a tour for stockholders. Finally, New London has a replica of Nathan Hales schoolhouse. It doesn't really belong in New London, but Hale is really big in Connecticut, so why not have a replica?

On the advice of J, a friend of ours who lives in New Haven, we went to Essex to see their Connecticut River Museum. This museum wasn't very big, but it had two very cool things in it. First, it had a good exhibit on the town's big event in the War of 1812. That big event was basically getting raided and subdued by the British. The town and the Connecticut River in general had been harboring Privateers who had been playing havoc with the British shipping. The British, who controlled Long Island Sound with the strength of their Navy, sent a detachment of Marines and sailors up the Connecticut River in the dead of night on small boats to put the Privateers to the torch, and make off with any other military supplies they could. Due to a variety of circumstances that worked against the militia forces, the raid went off more or less without a hitch, and a lot of Privateer ships were burned.

The other thing that the Connecticut River Museum has is a functional replica of the Turtle. The Turtle was the world's first operational submarine. It a tiny little craft, with a prop powered by a crank, and only enough air to last for about 30-40 minutes. The submarine was designed by David Bushnell for use in the Revolutionary War, and it was intended to drill into the hull of British ships, and to thus attach a mine to them. The Turtle attempted three attacks, all unsuccessful, but it was an operational submarine, nonetheless. The original was lost sometime during or shortly after the war, but from letters written by Bushnell to Jefferson, in which the Turtle was described in some detail, various people have created several working replicas.

When we left Essex, we headed north, to see more things related to Nathan Hale. In East Haddam we found a neat looking Opera House, as well as another replica of his schoolhouse. This one was at least in the right town though, even if it was still in the wrong place. Nearby, we also were able to find Gillette Castle. The castle was built by William Gillette, an actor, director, and playwright most famous for his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes. The castle is really just a large mansion and estate, but is built of local fieldstone and meant to look like a medieval castle. The effect is somewhat jarring. It does resemble a castle in some respects, but it's very clearly a place that isn't a castle and is attempting to look like one. It's sort of the same effect you get when Onaxthiel or I try to go to art museums and look respectable. It was too bad that the Castle was closed. The inside looked like it would have been really interesting too, but we had to content ourselves with checking out the exterior and moving along.

We drove north further, and attempted to find the Nathan Hale State Monument, but couldn't. Apparently not marking things at all is not a trait limited to Rhode Island. After driving around every road we thought could conceivably take us to said monument, we simply gave up and went to Hartford. By the time we arrived, it was already dark, but we eventually found parking on the capitol grounds. The Statehouse was closed by this point, but it looked very pretty on the outside. We wandered around downtown Hartford for a while, and ate at a really good Mexican place in a rather rough looking part of town. After that, we boogied back to our car, and onward toward our projected camping site at Housatonic Meadow State Park. It took us quite a while to get to the park, so it was about 9:00 PM when we got there. We were pleased to find that the park was free during the off season, so we laid out our gear, and hit the sack since we were both pretty well exhausted by this point.

---