It took us about 45 minutes to drive from our campsite to Orient Point at the very tip of the North Fork of Long Island. We caught the 10:00 ferry to New London, CT and thoroughly enjoyed the hour and a half ferry ride. Some of the highlights were seeing the impressive homes along the Connecticut Shore and Trumbull Fort built as a Civil War fortress, which was greeting us from the harbor. We took a short trip along the Connecticut coast with a stopover in Mystic – famous for the movie Mystic Pizza. By this time it was high noon and a great time to try out our own “slice of heaven.” It was great fun to see all the movie memorabilia in the restaurant. In addition, they were playing the movie Mystic Pizza on tv screens through-out the restaurant. (For those of you who don’t know, this movie was Julie Roberts debut. It’s a great, camp coming of age movie and one of my faves.) After leaving the restaurant, we took a stroll through the town enjoying the great views of Mystic River, the drawbridge, shops and great gardens. We continued our drive north on highway 1, eventually entering Rhode Island. We took a couple of side trips down some inlets and finally reached our destination for today at Fishermen’s Memorial State Park in Narragansett. It was still fairly early in the afternoon with a cool breeze so we decided to do some exploring on our bikes. We rode down the point to Judith Point Lighthouse and then rode around several neighborhoods with cute little cottages. This part of the coast reminded both of us of Mendocino. (See today’s pic). We then rode up highway 1 past some amazing, jaw-dropping mansions in the historical district finally ending up at the main beach near the 1885 Romanesque arches. Turns out this was the original Coast Guard station, later turned into a casino and now housing the visitor’s center. We stopped to watch some of the local surfers, but really it was just too sad. The waves they were surfing were just swells and no self-respecting Californian would even attempt to paddle these. We had a nice long bike ride back to the campsite (about 15 miles in all), but within about 1 mile of the campground Ned spotted a tavern and suggested we quench our thirst. Ned opted for a draft beer but I ordered a Manhattan. And, oh baby what a Manhattan it was! Talk about a work of art – served chilled on ice in a small carafe. It filled my glass 3 times – yikes. I had a very tipsy final mile home on my bike. Well, needless to say, after a short nap later we decided to ride our bikes to a roadside restaurant called Aunt Carrie’s. It’s been around since 1920 and still remains a popular spot today. We both had the lobster dinners and for dessert were given coupons to an ice cream parlor across the street. The ice cream was made by a company called “The Ice Cream Machine” out of Cumberland, RI. I think we have a pretty close contender to Farr’s Ice Cream. In all fairness I only tasted Ned’s so I’m thinking we need to do further research. As I’m writing this fire works are going off nearby. Kinda sums up the day perfectly.
