Tag: vacation

Our flight home was Aug 5. It didn’t leave until the early evening so we at least were able to have a leisurely day packing everything up. We popped back down to Amato’s for Heather to pick out a souvenir since she hadn’t picked gotten one yet. She had seen a “Spudster” stuffed animal in Canada, but we didn’t buy it. But, lo and behold, Amato’s had a whole line of Spudster creatures. She picked a cat and named it Potato.

After lunch we headed to Friendly’s for one last round of sundaes. After several layers of miscommunication we ended up with ~15 of us there. So it was quite the farewell party.

Somewhere along the way in Cromwell I picked up three boxes of Funny Bones to take home too.

We flew out of Bradley with a layover in Chicago. We landed in Chicago early, but then couldn’t get a gate until 25 minutes late. We had just enough time to get across the concourse, use a bathroom, and get on the next flight. So it was good that we were getting fed dinner on the plane.

Monday, Aug 4, we decided to take a trip down to Gillette Castle in Hadlyme. While I have vague memories of having been outside the castle I don’t think I had ever been inside before.

Due to traffic on the highway due to an accident and then construction we just barely missed our tour time, but then found out it doesn’t really matter. We were told the tickets were good for any tour time within an hour. So we got in on the next one.

Then Corinne was feeling ill and Jess took her back outside. And then she felt better and Jess got back in on the next tour time and caught up with us. So it was a rocky start.

Once inside things went more smoothly. Just barely a hundred years old it was built by an actor famed for playing Sherlock Holmes on stage. Although intricately constructed and detailed it’s not as large as it seems like it should be when looking at it from the outside. Wikipedia says it’s 14,000 square feet, which makes me think there were significant areas not included in the tour or maybe the design deceives the senses as to the size.

He built a narrow-gauge railroad around the property too and gave rides to visitors. Sadly the railroad was dismantled long ago.

After the tour we went to lunch at the restaurant next to the Goodspeed Opera House. They put a blue flower on my pasta dish.

That evening Megan and Chad ran another “The Price is Right” game for the grandkids (the one at the reunion was really for Grandma & Grandpa’s immediate children). They all had a blast. Heather won a surprise prize which is a ball on a string you’re supposed to attach to your head and punch. What could go wrong?

Corinne won a set of the hand paddles with a ball that have Velcro to play catch with. She and I played in the backyard for a bit, and eventually it was grandkids everywhere running around and having fun.

On Sunday, Aug 3, we went out to the fields between the high school and the elementary school to launch our rockets.

I can vaguely remember launching rockets in the same location as a kid, presumably when either Mike or Evan was making the rockets. I don’t think I had ever assembled my own rocket as a kid.

I went for a tiny rocket with no parachute and painted it in tiger stripes. I called it the Teeny Tiny Tiger. Heather named hers Dragonite. We can’t remember what Corinne called hers.

This took an inordinate amount of fidgeting as the igniters didn’t seem to be igniting energetically enough to light the fuel. After a long time fussing about and only getting one launch we tried attaching two ignition systems simultaneously and that did the trick. I suspect the engines had absorbed too much moisture and just needed more energy to get started. Unfortunately we had burned through half the igniters on failed attempts. But we did get all 3 rockets to fly at least once and we flew some twice.

That evening was s’mores in the driveway in which other family groups participated in shifts. At one point it included Megan’s family. Erin’s family arrived after Megan’s left (returning from a trip to Maine after the reunion). Seems like there was one more group too, but I can’t recall.

Now at August 2 we spent Saturday hanging around the house recovering from all the reunion excitement. The girls and I built our model rockets. Apparently we don’t have any pictures of the painting and building process. You’ll see the rockets in the next post when we launch them.

Heather got to experience the comics section of a newspaper.

After the reunion we drove down to Cromwell to stay at Grandma and Grandpa’s house for a few days. The girls zonked out on the way after days of morning-to-night zaniness.

We stopped for lunch at a Friendly’s. After arriving in Cromwell, I took the girls down to Amato’s in Middletown to buy some model rockets. Pizza from Freddy’s for dinner.