NJ to CT and RI

grandmaRgrandmaR Registered Users Posts: 1,943 Major grins
edited November 9, 2014 in Journeys
Earlier in the trip, we visited some NJ lighthouses http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=250579

After we go to the last lighthouse at Sandy Hook, our objective for this section of the trip is two-fold. Visit our great grandchild for his second birthday, and take photos of the house we lived in when we lived in RI in the early 70s.

Yesterday evening, I put all the rest of the GPS locations into the GPS and using Google maps tried to figure out which way would be the best to go. I decided to pick up the rest of the places we didn't visit yesterday and try to avoid the Garden State Parkway. So we got breakfast at the Hampton Inn and set off about 9:30 for Keyport

First I wanted to go by the house where our cousins lived in Keyport Every time we drove back and forth to Woods Hole, we'd stop in Keyport to see them.

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A Keyport Bridge



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I have a postcard of a bridge in Keyport and I took photos of several that we went over in town but I didn't look at the street name before I went, so I don't know if it is the same.


Then we went to visit Fair View Cemetery where our aunt and uncle are buried. It is a huge cemetery and we couldn't find the big monument marking te plot. We parked and Bob went looking but he did not find it. Then we drove all the way back to the beginning of the section but didn't see it. Went around the corner and I saw flat markers for our uncle's parents. There behind a huge boxwood, between two cedar trees was the main marker. We drove through the cemetery and I took some photos



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Fairview Cemetery Veterans Monument




Then we set off to find Sandy Hook lighthouse. First we went through



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Fort Hancock Historic District



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The lighthouse visitor's center is at the lighthouse now, and Bob went in and used the bathroom and he took some photos of the informational signs, but all the entrances had steps, so I stayed in the car


As we retraced our steps, we saw twin towers on the bluff and Bob said it looked like two lighthouses, but I did not think it could be It DID look like lighthouses though, so I took photos. I saw them on the town Welcome sign so I looked them up in the AAA book and sure enough, they are the Navesink Lighthouses.

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From here on the day went downhill. We got back on the Garden State (another $1.50 toll). Every time Bob has to pay a toll he has to get out his wallet (a problem in itself as his wallet is constrained by
the seat belt and I worry about him driving while he does it.


Then we got on the Jersey Turnpike ($6.60) and ended up at the GW bridge. At some point I got Bob to give me his wallet so he wouldn't struggle with it each time.

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The GPS kept telling us that there would be traffic (duh - it WAS Friday of Columbus Day weekend) and trying to re-route us. The problem is that Bob is now so deaf that he can't understand her, and by the time I figure out what she's trying to do, and tell Bob what it is, it is too late to do it. She wanted to put us on I-897 (?) or something, and Bob said he never heard of that road and wouldn't go there. So we were on I-95 headed for New Haven in horrible traffic (as this was a Friday of a long weekend). We stopped for lunch in Old Greenwich.


I thought Boston Market would be a good idea, but When we went in, ALL the tables and the counters were filled with dirty dishes.IMG_4557.JPG
One of the employees half heartedly collected some of the dirty dishes, but he did not wipe the tables off. I couldn't even find a napkin or paper towel to wipe them off myself. Bob asked for a chicken salad sandwich and they gave him a chicken salad. He had to send it back and get them to give it to him in a sandwich


The GPS routed us to Route 1 and we stopped about 1600 for gas at a fairly cheap place ($3.57 for credit). Way more expensive than in NJ where it was $2.99 for credit.


Again the GPS would tell us stuff and we wouldn't do it. So we ended up back on I-95 in periodic traffic. Our original ETA was 1535. It slipped to 1645, and finally was 1730. And that's when we got to the hotel in Norwich (after initially going the wrong way on route 2). So it took us from 11:30 to 1730 to drive 144 miles. This is the closest hotel to where our granddaughter lives in Colchester.


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Checked in and they said we would have no problem with the internet. They lied. When I logged on, it took me awhile to get connected, and Bob couldn't connect at all. He complained that the TV had no local channels so no local weather. (Channel list was also inaccurate)

About 2000 the wi-fi kicked me off and I called the front desk and they said the manager would call me when she got back. She didn't. But I got connected again, and was able with only a couple of brief outages to do some work on the photos I took. Then about 11, I got logged off and could not get logged back on. Called the front desk - he said it was fine there. Called tech support - on the phone with them for a hour. Could not get back on the internet no matter what we did. While I was waiting, I edited photos I'd taken. The only thing they could suggest was that I switch rooms. I asked if they had a LAN cable but they said no one used those anymore


We spent the next day and a half with our great grandson. Saturday we went to their house.



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Our granddaughter and our grandson.

Sunday Bob went to breakfast and said that he couldn't get anything because there were so many people there but he brought me an english muffin and a banana. He went down to eat and came back with a packet of oatmeal - he said there were more people down there then the hotel held. People were sitting on every available surface and the excess were standing waiting for food. He said they brought three trays of bacon out and it was gone before he got any. They had no hot water (for the oatmeal) and when they brought out the urns, they weren't labeled as to what was in them, so he brought the stuff up to the room and heated the water in the coffee machine.

When we left at 9:30, there was no one to check us out because the
desk lady was helping with breakfast so we left the keys on the desk
(along with a lot of other keys).

Our granddaughter was having a party for our great grandson at a farm in Glastonbury, with hayrides, a corn maze, a petting zoo, a pumpkin moon bounce,

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and refreshments

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We took a some four generation photos

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(great grandson, granddaughter, daughter and me)

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Back row - grandson-in-law, granddaughter, my husband and our son-in-law. Me on the scooter, and our daughter holding our great grandson.

We left about noon to go track down our old house. The GPS had an argument with us about the way to go, but I took I-395 north from Norwich to CT14A. This met up with RI14A, and took us north of Carbuncle Pond (which we didn't see) and through Greene . Apparently the PO and gas station are gone .

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We drove along Flat River Road (RI 117)

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and finally saw our house which is cream and white now instead of gold and black. We turned around and went back to take photos.

This was our house in 1973

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This is the way it looks now

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We got to the Summit intersection and had not seen the library and the gas station because they had straightened out the road so it did not go by the Summit General Store anymore. We went up the hill toward Harkney Hill Road and found Old Summit Road and when we drove down that we found the general store.
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The PO for the area is now in the store.

Talked to the boy in the store and he said the original owners bought
it in 1968 and it was being run by the children of the family and their spouses. One of the spouses was an old man behind the deli counter.

After that we drove across the intersection and found Western Coventry School
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which was where our girls went to school (It is now, according to the sign, "A Feinstein Leadership School"), and then we drove on through Coventry town to the hotel. Had dinner at Applebees (next to the hotel). I had the four cheese grille sandwich and tomato basil soup

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Onward tomorrow toward Vermont.
“"..an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered." G.K. Chesterton”
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