Essex, then north…

Connecticut – Sunday, Sept. 30

Tula and I were up and out and got in 2 miles of walking in East Lyme before hearing from the Seattle gang (who are, of course, on Seattle time!). I headed over to Old Saybrook where we were initially going to meet up, and got another mile in, but then we decided to meet in Essex instead. I had been there and it was a fun little town, and figured they would all enjoy it too. So we all met up there (this time also with niece Kim and her boyfriend Adam), and wandered through the town and shopped a little. The old “curiosity” store has been in business since the late 1700s and is a former sea captain’s home. We also wandered down by the marina/boat yard, and saw that there was a little restaurant out in the marina somewhere – we had to take a very short little boat ride to get to a restaurant with a Caribbean flavor – and enjoyed a lunch before they all had to head to the airport, and I needed to be making my way north. All in all, it was wonderful to have some family time while out on my journey 🙂

My donation today was getting the things for my next military care package. This time I am sending a care package to a navy unit in afghanistan that is missing the little things. Their requests were for ketchup (it’s like gold); iced tea mix; cream and sugar for coffee (they’re happy to have coffee but miss the extras) and I also added rice krispie treats (wasn’t sure if they wanted rice krispies or rice krispie treats!), beef jerky, trail mix and Halloween candy. I was lucky to get it all in the box and I got the customs forms filled out, so I’ll just mail it in the morning.

I kept heading to the northeast part of Connecticut where I hadn’t been yet, and got out in Brooklyn and took a long walk out into the countryside on a quiet farm lane – passed a large pen of peacocks (or rather 1 peacock and lots of peahens!) It had been raining for about 20 minutes before I started my walk, but the sun was out, and sure enough there was a beautiful rainbow at the beginning of my walk!

That completed the walking for the day, and I had to drive a little west to find a place to stay for the night, and I ended the day with some microwave popcorn – not quite as good as the “real” stuff, but it still hits the spot!