Epic Summer Road Trip 2019 (Day 26): Mystic Seaport, Connecticut

After hooking up the Aliner from the Turner’s house, we headed out toward Connecticut.  Not really a bad drive after hopping across the Hudson River on the Tappan Zee Bridge and headed east toward our next stop of Mystic, CT.  We unloaded the camper at our KOA and backtracked toward the Mystic Seaport Museum just after 2:30pm and tried to fit in a few hours at the museum before it closed at 5pm.  

Drew getting a few winks
on a whaler ship

For those of you who have never been to the museum, it’s like walking through Colonial Williamsburg as far as the layout of a village museum minus the ‘dressed up characters’ as Drew so eloquently pointed out.  It’s really a cool place which represents a fishing village in the mid-late 19^th century in Mystic, CT.  The guides were very knowledgeable in each of the different shops/buildings/exhibits and they mostly kept the kids’ attention.  I, of course, annoyed the kids by asking all sorts of questions.  Huh, so this is what it’s like to be one of those dads that slows down the tour or forces the kids to squirm and have a bored look on their face!  It feels fantastic, actually! 

We left as everything was closing and started heading toward the car when I had a real hankerin’ for some oysters.  There was an exhibit of an oyster barn and all I could think about from that time forward was a nice plate of chilled, shucked oysters.  Fortunately there was a restaurant next door that had a happy hour so we sat down in the tavern and ordered a ½ dozen of oysters, poutine, and some fried calamari.  I had never had poutine before, but it happens to be a HUGE plate of French fries topped with cheese curds and brown gravy.  The dish actually comes from Canada from the 1950's and was once considered a way to mock people from Quebec because it is such a simple, inelegant dish.  It later became a source of pride for Quebec.  This stop was supposed to be a just a snack before heading back to the KOA, but it turned into dinner and we didn’t even get through ½ of the poutine! 

I think the gut-bomb from the “appetizers” and limited sleep the last few nights finally took me over because as soon as we got back to the campground, I passed out while the kids played around the campground until the thunder and lightening finally brought them in.  Fun day with some good education thrown in!