Science Monkey

We had no fixed plans for our first day in Connecticut. We drove around Meriden for a little while and Emma pointed out places she remembered from her childhood — where her grandmother lived, the hill she would sled down into a line of trees, that sort of thing. Although we had planned to go to Mystic Seaport on Friday, we decided to go ahead over, because there’s a lot to see.

On the way to Mystic, we came across Gillette Castle, which Emma had gone to when she was a kid. It’s a remarkable house, built by an actor in the 1890’s overlooking the Connecticut River. Gillette (no relation to the razor family) was the man who brought Sherlock Holmes to the stage (and largely to America, I think). He made an absolute fortune acting across the country and eventually retired to Connecticut. He designed and built a home that looked like a European castle. Not an intact castle, though, but a ruined castle. It was…amazing.

The grounds were absolutely beautiful, with an amazing view of the Connecticut River.

The inside of the house was equally striking. Every detail in the house was either fun or interesting or beautiful or some combination of all of the above. Each door had a different, carved mechanism for opening and locking the door. Gillette had mirrors installed so that he could stand at his bedroom door and see who was either at the front door or who was vainly trying to get into his bar, which he had discreetly locked. It was simply fantastic.

After a few hours wandering around the castle, Emma and I pressed onwards towards Mystic. Since we were planning on going to the seaport the next day, we decided to go to the aquarium. The first thing we did was pet the stingrays. Hee!

The rest of the aquarium was equally fun. Our favorite part, I think, was the penguins. When we walked up to their area, almost all of the penguins were staring intently at the back wall. Just staring. Standing completely still, staring. The zoo person (guide? zoologist? whatever) came over and asked if we had any questions. “Um,” I asked, “what’s up with the wall?” It turns out that just behind the wall was their kitchen and lunch was being prepared. Smart penguins.

Two of the penguins were less interested in the wall and were playing in the water. Interestingly, they were the two juveniles in the group, so maybe they didn’t have the attention span of the older birds. The older of the two was swimming around, showing off for the visitors. The younger one was playing on the stone island in the center of the enclosure. He would waddle over one direction, follow something with his head, then waddle off in a new direction. After watching for a while, the zoo lady explained that he was chasing bumblebees! How cute!

They’ll also chase planes flying overhead. And will fall over. Heh.

For our last stop, Emma and I drove to the Mohegan Sun. It was completely overwhelming. There are two huge casinos (the Casino of the Earth and the Casino of the Sky) and a large number of shops and restaurants. We wandered around both casinos and failed to find blackjack tables with minimums lower than $10, so we played a few slots and ended up ahead 40 cents. Yes, that’s right. We took the casino for 40 big ones. Oh yeah.

Dinner Thursday was pizza in New Haven. New Haven is apparently famous for its pizza shops, and we were not disappointed. We ate at Modern Apizza, New Haven’s “fourth best” pizza, according to Billy and Eli. They don’t like the one that’s supposedly the best and we didn’t want to wait in line for the other two. The pizza was really good, I’ll admit, but it was not the best pizza I had ever had. Top five, though. Really tasty.

Day 4 report coming tomorrow.