Coming to the end ..
Our final stop on this tour is in Connecticut, in the seaside town of Mystic.
Again pretty much a travelling day to get us within reach of our return to New York and travelling home. We travelled through Rhode Island and into Connecticut.
Newport, Rhode Island is famous for the America’s Cup sailing event which was held there every year between 1930 and 1983 when the Aussies whipped their butts with that winged keel and Bob Hawke gave everyone the day off to celebrate ! It was actually also the first location for the US Open tournaments in both tennis and golf.
Needless to say it smells of money and became the location of various “summer mansions” for the likes of the Vanderbilts and Astors. It was also the “summer White House” for Eisenhower and Kennedy during their presidencies.
All along the coast there are mansions upon mansions but the city took control of the forshaw area and there is a cliff walk along the bay where everyone can get a view of the swish properties. Some have been acquired at some stage by the Salve Regina University campus a private Roman Catholic university. We did some of the walk until we found it had been blocked off by a rock fall.
We had nothing else major planned and decided to do some shopping – which had its ups and downs ! We stopped for a break at a nice rest area and them taking us off the interstate we travelled through some gorgeous scenery along back roads and through an area called Stonington – aptley named as the whole area is covered in stone fences.
We then emerged on an area called Foxwoods which is run by the Mashentucket and Pequot native american tribes and is a huge casino – suddenly out of tree lined streets became a multi story casino complex and somewhere amongst all that was a shopping outlet !
In our travels we have found a number of native american reservations like this containing casinos. Apparently the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act came into law in 1988 and the purposes of the act include providing a legislative basis for the operation/regulation of Indian gaming, protecting gaming as a means of generating revenue for the tribes, encouraging economic development of these tribes, and protecting the enterprises from negative influences (such as organized crime).
After driving around in circles to find the right place to park we then had to negotiate the casino to find the shops – and then find our way out again ! We eventually succeeded – no shopping success though – and within minutes of leaving the casino we were back in picturesque woodlands ! Almost like driving through a mirage !
We reached Mystic in the afternoon and had a walk around town. While we were walking, the town drawbridge over the river opened, bringing the town to a standstill while a tiny boat sailed through.
Our hotel had a nice spot on the river which was historically a shipbuilding area but now relies on tourism. We checked out a few options for dinner and settled on a nice authentic italian restaurant to celebrate our last night.
So, that’s pretty much the end of our story for this tour. Today we travelled to JFK Airport to drop off the car and then flew to LAX to connect with our Fiji Airways flight home. We are now in the lounge having a couple of quiet bubblies to celebrate !
It has been a fantastic tour – the more we have seen of the USA the more surprises we have been met with. And now having visited 49 states and 40 National Parks, that’s a lot of surprises ! We were so lucky to have had excellent weather through our whole trip too !
It has been our longest trip in time but as we have spent more time in certain states and locations our overall distance travelled is still under our biggest distance tour of 2016 – the vast expanses of the Central USA !
Now – just one state to bring up the 50 ! Until next time, thanks for following along !!