My trip to Connecticut was a short one. My plane landed at Bradley International Airport at 8:45 and I took off for home at 4:45. After doing some research about where I wanted to go, Hartford, I was glad that it was my short day. I just went to Boston three weeks prior and that city is very tourist friendly with great public transportation and so many free things to do and see. Hartford really wasn't like that. There wasn't a good option for me to get twenty minutes south of the airport down into the city so I decided to rent a car. It was the first time I was happy that I was twenty-five.
I took the free shuttle over to Budget and a nice man named Danny helped me out there. We got to talking about my goal to see all fifty states after he confirmed that I was only renting my car for one day. He asked me if I was writing a blog about my travels and then asked if I was going to include the territories after he started listing the states he had been to and included Puerto Rico. I told him I hadn't thought about either of those things and we started talking about what I was going to do that day. He suggested I make the trek down to New Haven to look at the shore line. I told him I'd think about it and went outside to find my 2012 Jeep Liberty which was nothing like the compact car I had requested. It was beautiful.
I still hadn't decided whether to go to New Haven so I decided to plug in my GPS and at least get to Hartford. I didn't know where I was going in the city so I naturally chose the closest Marshall's. Once I got there I made the decision to just go for it down to New Haven so I searched for points of interest on my GPS and chose Lighthouse Park. The picture above was taken at the park and was my first attempt at parking that beast. As you can see, I failed miserably. I have a hard enough time parking my little Corolla on a daily basis. Lighthouse park was beautiful.
I then headed back up to Hartford to go to the one place I planned on visiting, the Connecticut Historical Society Museum. The helpful woman behind the front desk suggested I write a book about my travels and one of the other guys working there said that my dream was crazy, but in a good way. He seemed genuine about that. I learned about the history of Connecticut as well as dogs and cats and stamps. The museum had a lot of interactive opportunities so I left my mark in as many places as possible. After the museum I decided to head into the city and go to Bushnell Park. The ING marathon was still going on so I went in circles trying to find a place to park. I ended up right near the finish line for the marathon and cheered for some people as they finished. I then walked up a really big hill to see the Connecticut State House. I'm sorry Maryland, but their state house is way cooler than ours.
Isn't it beautiful? After that I walked around the city. I was way underdressed for the restaurants and the one clothing store I found had me imagining the scene in "Pretty Woman" when Julia Roberts first goes into that one clothing boutique while she's dressed how Richard Gere met her. You all know which scene I'm talking about. The clothing in there probably cost more than my car. The other stores in the city were closed already which seemed odd to me, but maybe I was just in the wrong part of the city. I decided to just head back to the rental place. Danny was still working so I got to tell him I drove down to New Haven and he wished me luck in my travels. I took the shuttle back to the airport and flew back home to the great state of Maryland where I was greeted by my best friend who was nice enough to pick me up and drive me home. Shout out to my dad for taking me to the airport in the morning and dropping me off and picking me up when I went to Boston.
Next up is Providence, RI so if you have any suggestions on where to go, leave them in the comments for me.
Looooove! So glad you are doing this!
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