Delicious breakfast this morning of blueberries, peach yoghurt and granola with dried raspberries, followed by a spinach/tomato/egg bake which was yum! Then it's back on the road.
Really pretty drive with the trees finally hitting the really red and orange colours (just as I'm leaving!) I was just a couple of days early for the full peak but I've seen it today so I'm happy with that. And even at just on peak, it was all pretty spectacular. Unfortunately today's viewing was all from the motorway so I have no photos.
First stop was the last of the literary stops - Mark Twain's (or Sam Clements, as they call him - it is his name!) house in Hartford, 2.5 hours south of Quechee. It is another one that can only be seen on a tour and I was just a little bit too late so had to skip out early. The nice girl gave me a discounted ticket coz I wouldn't see the whole tour.
Randomly, they have a LEGO Mark Twain out the front...
..next to the gift shop.
Apparently Hartford was quite the place for artistic types in its day. Sam moved here with his wife and three daughters to further his career. They would entertain the likes of Harriet Beecher Stowe and Rudyard Kipling. It is not where I would have imagined Tom Sawyer to have been written.
The design of the house is very unusual and interesting - specifically to impress and create conversation among the artistic types. Only allowed photos of the outside.
The house inside was amazing - very ornate but very dark. With gas lighting, the darker the rooms, the better they looked coz the gas discoloured things. The entrance hall was very fancy and gave a great first impression to the home. The staircase went up three storeys, the drawing room was to the right, complete with grand piano. Through to the dining room, which had some original pieces.
Through to the library/family room, which had bookshelves, chest-height lining all the walls of the room. The observatory was off the library, which, as you can see from the outside picture, was an interesting shape.
There was a huge mantle in this room that Sam apparently loved. When he went bankrupt, through a couple of bad investments and too much entertaining (where no expense was spared), they had to sell off the home and a lot of belongings and move to Europe and England. They took the mantle with them. There was a fire many years later and it was thought it had burned, along with everything else. Then a few years ago, on one of the tours, a guy said, "I've got that mantle at home." He lived in Reading, England (where they had settled) and had it in his barn, somehow! So they got it back.
On the second floor were the bedrooms, including their bed, that they loved so much, they took that with them too. It's a very heavy carved wooden thing that looks too big and clunky for its own good. There's also the children's schoolroom with little desks and their bedrooms.
This was where I had to run away, unfortunately, but the nice guide let me sneak upstairs to have a look at his study, where he did all his writing. I got a postcard of this, as there is no photography allowed. Here's a photo of a postcard(!)
Back into the car and Mr GPS says we'll be in Mystic at 2:07. This is okay coz I need to be there by 2:15. Then I take the wrong "turn right". "Recalculating." Now it says 2:11. Still okay, as long as nothing goes wrong. The roads are a bit busier, there are more roadworks, and wherever there are roadworks, there are police to help out - they're everywhere! But it still seems to be okay to speed.
Arrive in Mystic, ignore the directions I had put in the GPS to the Steamboat Inn and instead follow the directions to the Mystic Aquarium. Arrived in time for my beluga whale encounter. Had a look at these magnificent creatures before it started.
There were six of us on the encounter, an English couple, an American couple and an American girl. We went into one of the back rooms for an introductory session about the whales here and about them, in general. There are four here, two males and two females. The males are here on a breeding exchange program. They are white coz that provides camouflage in the snow. And they are extremely intelligent. They also can't hear low frequencies, including the human voice so instructions are given by hand signals.
We were then given our ever-so-attractive waders with gumboots attached. They even made the little American girl look large so you can imagine we all looked great! Then into the enclosure and into the pool. We were meeting with Naluark - the bigger of the two males. Had a brief information session here and then we all got to have a kiss, then a feel, then a feel of his teeth.
Last up was a signal from each of us. The English couple gave the signal for head nodding, the Americans, for head shaking. The American girl got the spin. I got the best one - the talking one - hands out and clench them, like gesturing to come here. They squeal and squeak loudly.
Then back inside for a quick video on conservation and looking after the animals and the ocean, shed the horrendous waders, wash the hands and off.
Had a walk through the rest of the aquarium, it's a great place, would be good if I had more time but it's nearly closing. You get a photo with the package so after I chose that, walked through the really good Titanic exhibit.
Here's a photo of the photo I got - we couldn't take photos in here either! They want you to buy their CD of photos for $80. I did not do this. Here's a photo of the photo, though.
Back in the car and now off to Steamboat Inn on the Mystic River. So fabulous a spot and so fabulous a room. Here's the inn, in the right.
And here's my room.
See the view? Right out to the river!
And some random photos of the river and wharf.
The bridge goes up to let boats through.
Stopped for fish and chips and ice cream.
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