Photo of the day

The lighthouse at Point Judith, R.I., is an impressive sight. Built in 1857 to replace two earlier buildings at this location, it became fully automated in 1954. It stands 51 feet tall, which Roni doesn't. Photo by Glenn.


June 28, 2007
[Day 2] << Go to >> [Day 4]

If you've ever seen the movie "Mystic Pizza" then you already know about this place. The film's namesake in Mystic, Conn., really exists. Naturally we had to stop for photos and a few sample slices. Photo by Glenn.


The Union Baptist Church sits on High Street, just a couple of blocks west of Mystic Pizza. It dominates the town's skyline and has a carillon that chimes every hour. The steeple was destroyed in a 1938 storm, but rebuilt in 1969. Photo by Glenn.


The Mystic River runs through the center of town and is lines with boats, homes and businesses. This view is looking north along the river from the bascule bridge on Main Street. Photo by Glenn.


Here is the reason why you should take careful notes about the places you visit on a trip. We have no idea where this was taken, but it was somewhere in Connecticut. We stopped at a little park across from a municipal airport, then walked out along a breakwater lines with grasses, honeysuckle and wild roses. Perhaps we mentioned it in our videotape, but we haven't gotten around to watching the replay. Photo by Roni.


This is one of the wild roses along the path at that park whose name we can't recall. Photo by Glenn.


No mystery as to where this was shot. This is the Stonington Lighthouse in Stonington, Conn. It was the state's first lighthouse, originally built in 1824. This incarnation of the structure, erected in 1840, was decomissioned in 1889 and has since been converted into a museum. Photo by Roni.


Outside Stonington Harbor, Roni consults a book to determine our course to find the next lighthouse on her list. Before the book, finding the lights was a chore. With it, finding them was merely a challenge. Photo by Glenn.


We never found the lighthouse in Watch Hill, R.I., but we did find these yummy gelatos. Photo by Glenn.


This is the U.S. Coast Guard station at Point Judith, R.I. On the grass to the right, out of the frame in this shot, is the lighthouse seen at the top of this web page. Photo by Glenn.


We stopped at a chowder stand called Iggy's on our way back from viewing the Point Judith lighthouse. The place was mobbed. We asked one of the locals if it was always so busy. "At this time of year it is," he said. Photo by Glenn.


This delicacy is called a clamcake. Very good. Photo by Glenn.


A swan makes its way past the Conimicut Shoal Lighthouse near Warwick, R.I. Photo by Roni.


A closer look at the Conimicut light. We'd had decent weather all day, but about this point a huge thunder cloud was gathering to the west. This would be our last lighthouse visit for the day. Photo by Roni.


On past vacations we've made a point of stopping at every state capital we passed through to check out the capitol building. Not this trip. Here we have Providence, R.I., and if you look closely to the far left you'll see the capitol dome. This was shot from Conimicut Point Park, several miles away from the city, and the photo has been enhanced substantially. Photo by Glenn.

We always enjoy hearing from our visitors. We welcome your comments.

There's a light that never goes out

Thursday, June 28 (Day 3) — My stamina for writing these long travelogues isn't what it used to be. There is so much ground to cover and I'm very good at getting off on tangents. I'm still a day behind after missing the first day's entry. I blame Budget for that. If not for that lost two hours I'd probably be better rested and on target for doing my full journal entry each and every night. Sigh.

The good news is that the hotel was still standing this morning when we awoke. The bad news is that we'd overslept to around 9:30 and missed the continental breakfast. The housekeepers were knocking on our door in hopes that we'd soon be on our way. They just don't appreciate the fact that we Californians... er, Georgia folk... are three hours behind the Yankees. Their 10 a.m. feels like our 7 a.m., and we're still not caught up from the first day's early airport departure. But we got our stuff together quickly and were off to explore the Connecticut coastline.

Mystic is an interesting little town, known in recent times for it's portrayal in the movie "Mystic Pizza." I've never seen the movie, but Roni seems to know quite a lot about it. She knew that there really is a restaurant in town called Mystic Pizza, and had figured out where it is located. We made it our first stop, each grabbing a slice of cheese pizza for breakfast along with a couple of postcards and the obligatory photo or two in front of the place. The pizza was OK, but I don't see what the big deal is myself.

We drove through the downtown area, which is lined with shops, and parked near the Mystic Seaport. The Mystic River divides the town in two and is linked via an ancient bascule bridge called — you guessed it — the Mystic River Highway Bridge. (Okay, maybe you didn't guess it.) We walked on both sides of the bridge, spending enough time in town to buy a few postcards and admire the quaint waterfront with its legions of sailboats tolling the river. The Union Baptist Church sits on a hill near the center of town, its white steeple a local landmark. It has a clock that chimes at the top of every hour. We were wandering near the river at noon when the carillon broke into a full-blown concert. I got a bit of it on my camera, but I'm not sure how it will come out.

Roni wanted to spend the day looking for lighthouses. The coast between Connecticut and Rhode Island is littered with them. She had researched their locations online before we left home, but somehow she managed to leave all her printouts behind. Our search didn't start off easily. We never did find the lighthouse in Mystic, and after we stopped in New London a few miles to the west to grab some snacks at a grocery store and gas up the car ($46-plus for regular unleaded at $3.18 a gallon. Ouch.) we managed to miss the lighthouse there, as well.

We picked up U.S. 1 and began to make our way north, stopping in the off-trail town of Stonington for the first lighthouse we could actually locate. The place had been converted into a museum and was charging $5 admission. We passed. But they also had a gift shop where Roni picked up a book on lighthouses that provided full color photos and better information on how to find them than what she had lost. Armed with this new guide, we continued north to Pawcatuck and then crossed into Rhode Island at Westerly.

The book said there was a lighthouse located at Watch Hill, near the southern tip of Westerly, off a backroad at the end of a private driveway. We never did find the lighthouse there, but the search took us on to Bay Street, where we did discover a seaside community of shops and a harbor with its own private yacht club and a beach that charges $6 admission to go lounge on the sand. There is a carousel where the road bends. We stopped in to buy some gelatos (Italian ice cream) at one of the shops before getting back on the road.

Eventually we reached Narragansett and hooked up with Highway 108, which took us to a place called Point Judith. This is where we found the Point Judith lighthouse, which is located inside a U.S. Coast Guard station. This was probably the best lighthouse we'd seen. You walk through a gate and past the Coast Guard station to reach it. It is fully automated, but there is a foghorn that sounds at regular intervals. On the way back up Highway 108 we stopped at a little chowder stand called Iggy's. The line was long so we knew it had to be good. And it was. We bought small servings of clam chowder, clam cakes (a breadlike concoction made from clams and deep fried. Very good.) and something called "doughboys," which are doughnut-like pastries similar to beignettes or churros. We have a few leftovers of the doughboys that will make a good breakfast tomorrow.

It was getting late in the day by the time we found our final lighthouse at Conimicut Point Park near Warwick, R.I. This one is literally out at sea, a lone sentry known as a "bug light" at the end of a shoal on the edge of Narragansett Bay. Roni monopolized the camera, leaving me to the video footage. Ben spent his time playing on the beach, collecting shells and looking for unusual flotsam on the shoreline. As we looked around, the skies to the west over Providence were growing darker, and it was clear the 60 percent chance of thunder showers was soon going to be 100 percent. We returned to the car just in time for the deluge.

It is amazing how quickly a thunder shower can soak a roadway. Highway 1 is four lanes most of the way, but I had to stay on the inside lane because the outside lane was too flooded to drive in. Soon the rain was falling at torrential pace, and it was at this point where I finally learned how to use the Taurus' windshield wipers properly. They couldn't move fast enough to clear the water from the windshield.

I'd wanted to see the capitol building in Providence, but it was still stormy and growing dark by the time we rejoined I-95. I could just see the top of the capitol dome from my window. Would have been fun to get a photo, but that would have meant getting off the road and maybe getting lost again in another large city. I thought better of it and we pressed on to Massachusetts. That's two new states on our travel resume in the same day.

Fall River is just a dozen miles from Providence on I-195, so we were soon at our hotel. We checked in at the Best Western, where we are staying in Room 311. It is in an industrial park where there is some sign at the entrance spelled out inside the upturned lids of toilets. We'll have to investigate this in the morning.

I put in a call to my Uncle Dave to make plans for seeing him and maybe my cousin Jeff tomorrow morning. My Aunt Marie is still in Oregon for the birth of their grandson and won't be home until Tuesday. We'll miss getting to see her, but we will get to see the others around 11 a.m.

We had managed yet another long day and were too pooped to find a sit-down restaurant, so we ordered delivery from an Italian place called Papa Gino's. Great prices for the convenience. Roni and I got salads to go with my hot basil chicken sandwich and her garlic bread. Ben ordered  something called the pasta trio plate, a sampler. So much for our diets.

I've still got a lot of catching up to do, both on this journal and on my sleep. It's 1:42 a.m. now, so I'd better get to work on the sleeping part.

This page was last updated on Sunday, July 29, 2007 at 01:21 hrs.

Back to The Gehlke Family Home Page