Science Monkey

Day 4:

Friday morning we went out to breakfast with Billy. Every morning he goes to the same diner for breakfast and, since Emma and I like going out for breakfast, we decided that we’d like to join him. Talk about a greasy spoon! I mean, I enjoyed the food (although the hash was a tiny bit too salty for my taste), but after eating there I can see why one would need a bypass. It seemed like a lot of the town passed through while we were eating. Billy was constantly greeting and chatting briefly with people as they came in or left.

Following breakfast, Billy took us to a fantastic donut shop a few towns over. I’ve forgotten the name, which is a shame because they make amazing donuts. Lou’s? Bob’s? A short, male name, I think. Paul’s? I don’t remember. I’d recommend them, but I can’t remember where they are or what they’re called. Sorry.

After picking up a half-dozen delicious, delicious donuts, we dropped Billy back off at his house and headed down the highway towards Mystic. The goal was to spend the rest of the day enjoying the seaport then head back to Meriden for one last dinner with the gang there. I must say that we were quite successful.

The Mystic Seaport is a working recreation of a late-1800’s seaport from the area. They have recreations of a number of the shops (boring), as well as several tall ships and an actual working shop. There is apparently always a ship being either restored or built on the grounds.

One of the things that Emma remembered from her childhood was the Dead Horse ceremony. She didn’t actually remember the ceremony all that well (I think; I could be mistaken) but she remembered the song that her family made up afterwards for her aunt’s answering machine. “Cilla’s not here so you’d better leave your name / And we think so, and we hope so / Leave your message at the sound of the tone / Poor old horse! / Wait for the beep…” The song was based on this sea shanty that they perform, called “Poor Old Horse”. They bring a “dead horse” made up of old sailcloth on board and sing the song to it, then toss it overboard.

It’s apparently full of symbolism and crap, but mostly it was just fun. Since a crew would have to buy its own supplies for each voyage, the shops in town usually gave them an advance on their first month’s wages. This month, for some reason, became referred to as the “dead horse” month, so at the first day of the second month of sailing, the sailors performed the dead horse ceremony. It was fun. The whole day was fun, in fact. I could probably write for a few hours about all of the things that we saw and did, but I’ll spare you.

On the drive home, Billy had recommended that we stop at a used book store in Niantic called the Book Barn, and we’re really glad that we did. There were about a half-dozen buildings spread over a couple of acres, stuffed full of books. Oh, and there were cats everywhere, as well as a few goats (in a pen, presumably to keep them away from the tasty, tasty books) and a dog. If you’re ever in the area, you absolutely need to stop.

Dinner was at a Chinese buffet that Eli likes. As with the Greek restaurant the first night, this was one of the oddest Chinese buffets I’ve ever been to. They had a nice selection of Chinese dishes on half of the buffet — standards like beef and broccoli and General Tso’s chicken — but the other half of the buffet was made up of sliced turkey and steaks and the classic Chinese favorite, cheese pizza. And there was sushi. I always enjoy Chinese buffet, so I was able to rise above the oddity and have a nice dinner, but it was a little strange.

Coming tomorrow: We travel to Pittsburgh to go to a furniture store.