Tourist Destinations

Montreal is nice this time of year.

 

Could you provide your approximate location and the distance you are willing to travel?

Washington DC seems like a no-brainer if it's not too far.

 

New York City (Statue of Liberty), or if that's too busy, try Long Island.

 

Too bad about the distance restriction. Portland, ME has some nice features, and if you are willing to wander farther up the coast, there are lots of nice sights to see. This is the off-season, so hotel and restaurant prices will be reasonable.

 

If Boston is OK, hit the Natural History museum at Harvard (the Glass Flowers will entrance anyone) and perhaps the Museum of Science.

 

Depends on what you want. If you want to see large installations of "art" NYC is pretty much the go-to. If your relatives like geology, natural science, etc, I would suggest that you head for Harvard, and if you have any kids in the group that would enjoy demonstrations of scientific concepts (even 60+-year-old kids), it's hard to beat Boston's Museum of Science.

 

Once I spent a very pleasant weekend in Mystic Connecticut. It was a whaling center and still makes money from whales without harvesting a single one.

 

Mystic is a really nice area, along with Gillette castle, both are great one day trips. I also love Cape Cod / Martha's vineyard.

 

I live in Mystic, Connecticut. Every summer, thousands of tourists come in to walk around our little "quaint" village. If you do come by, please tell me what the heck it is that people do while they are here! (Other than photographing themselves under the sign of Mystic Pizza).

Actually, as Jimmy mentioned, there's the Mystic Seaport, which is a recreation of a colonial whaling port in the manner of Sturbridge Village and Colonial Williamsburg. Fans of boats, model boats, and maritime history generally love it. There's whale-watching outings, but sometimes they're just seal-watching. It's conveniently halfway between NY and Boston, and right off the interstate.

 

Yes, I meant Mystic Seaport which if I read the map correctly is not in Mystic, but in West Mystic across the Mystic River. When I was there there were some college kids building a full size tall ship. They were very enthusiastic and I enjoyed listening to their descriptions of the work they were doing. I don't know if that is an on-going project or it is finished. I was there more than twenty years ago.

 

The "What the heck IS Mystic?" speech:

Ahem

"Mystic" is actually not a town itself, but a village. There is no incorporation nor municipality that is "Mystic" other than the zip code and a fire district (There is of course the Chamber of Commerce, which now extends halfway across the state). The river divides two towns, Groton on the west and Stonington to the east. The seaport is on the Stonington side, and the Pizza is on the Groton side (as am I). Both sides of the river are still "Mystic." There is a "West Mystic," but that is a smaller village halfway between Mystic and Noank; many maps incorrectly call the Groton side of Mystic "West Mystic."

Then there is "Old Mystic" which is at the top of the river/estuary. Back when Old Mystic was just "Mystic," The Stonington side of Mystic was called "Mystic Bridge," the upper Groton side was called "Mystic River," and the lower Groton area was "West Mystic."

We'll have a short review quiz just before break today.

 

We have a similarly confusing town a bit to the south. The town is called Fairfield, but there are villages scattered all over it, each with its own post office, though one has been closed for a while. In the NW part of town, there is the village of Larone, which was once a farming community, now reduced to a loose cluster of run-down old houses. In the NE, there is the village of Hinckley that houses a school for kids with social/familial problems, a couple of convenience stores and a few residences. South of there is the village of Shawmut - just a cluster of homes and a hydro-dam, and west of Shawmut is Fairfield Center - a non-descript little place with a couple of convenience stores that grew up around the intersection of a couple of roads. Except for Larone, each has its own post office and zip code, yet they all located in Fairfield. The Postal Service should shut down all those little one-room post offices if they want to save money, rather than cutting back to a 5-day service schedule.