Kwaree Blog

Visiting Block Island – Again

If a picture is worth a thousand words, this post is worth over 38,000 of them. I apologize. I deleted about half of the photos I took yesterday, but so many of them were good that I didn’t have the heart to cut any further. You’ll just have to look at them.

I think I’ve been to Block Island, RI once before. It seems like more than that because I think about the place quite often. It’s one of those little gems that most of the area hasn’t visited. Don’t get me wrong, Block Island is jumping throughout the Summer, but the crowds disappear in the off season. Ahhh, the perfect time to visit.

The plan was to travel out to Block Island to have lunch at the Spring House Hotel. For my birthday last year, Laura got me a gift certificate just for this. I thought it was a great idea and was excited to go out and use it. We would take the 11AM ferry from Point Judith, arrive at Block Island at noon, eat lunch and leave at 3PM. Well, that was the plan.

When we arrived at Point Judith, we were a little early. I made a big fuss about getting out of the house at 8AM. I totally forgot how long it took to get to Point Judith, so yeah, as I said, we were a little early. Like about an hour. Good thing there was a high speed ferry that left at 10:30AM and only took a half hour to get to Block Island. By taking the high speed ferry, we arrived on Block Island an hour early (11AM).

When we got off the ferry, we walked straight up to the Spring House Hotel. I wanted to go up there just to let them know we were going to walk around a little bit and then come back for lunch. Hey, guess what? When we got to the hotel, we discovered that they don’t serve lunch after Labor Day. Oh well. We left.

On the way back down the road, I explained to Laura that it was actually a good thing that I didn’t call first to find that out. If I had, we wouldn’t have gone there for the day and would have just sat around doing other things. I was glad we made the trip. We just went and ate somewhere else.

Here’s the really cool part. Since we had a few hours to use up before the next ferry would bring us back to Point Judith, we decided to rent a scooter (or moped) to cruise around the island on. That was worth it because scooters are awesome to drive around on and you get to see the whole area. We drove from the most Northern tip of the island to the most Southern and made a bunch of stops in between. We looked hot on the scooter and all the other scooter drivers were envious of us because we could drive 28MPH. That’s a full MPH faster than most scooters on the island. Nobody had the guts to go that fast besides us. We were a gang of two.

At around 2:30PM, we gave the scooter back and did our thing to get on the ferry. During the ride back, I actually fell asleep on the bench. This was the slow ferry, so I had the time. Laura was busy talking with some old ladies who smoke and drank too much. I’ll tell ya, those ladies knew how to party.

Here are those 38 pictures I was talking about above. Enjoy.

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Visting Gillette Castle State Park in East Haddam, CT

On Monday (Labor Day), we decided to get in the car and cruise down to Gillette Castle State Park in East Haddam, CT. This has been on my “to do” list for a while.

We weren’t really in the mood for a hike. We kind of just wanted to see the castle. I read good things about it and heard it was really cool. I also wanted to see if it would be a good place to launch a boat, since it sits right on the Connecticut River.

It’s a good thing we weren’t in the mood for a hike. Even though there is a trail map, this state park isn’t like the others we have been to. The castle definitely is the main attraction. There is a visitor’s center and everything. The trails lead, in a zig-zag fashion, down to the river. We walked them, but there really wasn’t an opening down there. I kind of popped out of the woods where the water began. It’s not bad in the least, just not a hiking park.

Now, what was really cool was the castle. It overlooks the Connecticut River like nothing else does. I was surprised to see so many boats on the river. I mean, I guess it was Labor Day and everything, but still, it was packed with boats. I think the best part of this river is the fact that it leads down to the Long Island Sound. I am guessing that you could get from the castle to the Sound in about a half hour. That’s pretty neat, and really good if you have a boat.

The castle has tours, for a fee. We didn’t take them up on the offer this time, but I think we will do it when the weather gets a little cooler. I am thinking around Halloween. It can be spooky, I’m sure, especially because the castle has secret passage ways. I like secret passage ways because I am a secretive and sneaky person by nature.

Here are some photos of the castle and the surrounding area.

Bridge near pond at Gillette Castle State Park

Bridge at Gillette Castle State Park

Sherlock Holmes - William Gillette sign at Gillette Castle State Park

Castle at Gillette Castle State Park

Castle at Gillette Castle State Park

Connecticut River

Flowers at Gillette Castle State Park

Castle at Gillette Castle State Park

Castle and windows at Gillette Castle State Park

Castle at Gillette Castle State Park

Garden at Gillette Castle State Park

Boat on Connecticut River

Sailboats on Connecticut River

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