The entire state of Connecticut must be under construction.

Today was our excursion to Countdown Hobbies in Bethel, CT, which we had originally planned to coincide with the New York trip, then realized we didn't have enough time even if we started our earliest. So we drove out to Bethel via "Suicide Six" and Interstate 84 and sure enough, there was construction out that way as well. Luckily it was raining part of the way so much of the construction was abated or even abandoned.

We didn't leave early so arrived at Bethel around lunchtime. Maybe behind the scenes it's a hotbed of sedition, but Bethel is the perfect small New England town, little shops and restaurants around a triangular town green centered with a War Memorial featuring a WWI doughboy. We ate lunch at O'Neil's Restaurant, which is across from the green at P.T. Barnum Square Plaza (Bethel is Barnum's birthplace), the place we call "the restaurant where everyone knows your name." The last time we were there, we arrived at breakfast, when all the regular town customers came in to pick up food. They were greeted by their first name and the question, "The usual?" Like something out of Bedford Falls. You were almost expecting Jimmy Stewart to walk in the door.

Instead of taking the interstate back to our next destination, we cut through the Connecticut countryside through routes 67 and 10 to get to the Shoreline Trolley Museum in East Haven. Connecticut actually has two trolley museums, so we still have another to look forward to. :-) This one is pocket-sized, with an exhibition of trolley artifacts, a slideshow and a 1934 film about trolleys, and a 3 1/2 mile trolley ride through a wetlands area. The trolley line has been there for 103 years and has operated in one form or the other during that entire time.

After the trolley ride you are given a tour of five of the twelve trolley barns and see restored trolleys starting from horsecars converted into trolleys to more modern units, plus trolleys undergoing restoration. There were fascinating photos of the last open-sided cars in use in the Connecticut area: they were in service one weekend a year up until 1947, to take fans to and from the Harvard-Yale football game! One photo shows the car so packed with people that the sturdy trolley is listed to one side and another is swaybacked from the crowd.

Several of the trolleys are sponsored by families or groups who have sole charge in restoring them. We saw one small trolley that was restored by one family over the space of 30 years.

Before we left we took yet another trolley ride. We saw egrets (cranes?) in the wetlands area and also an osprey's nest. What a great place to be a bird! Even the sparrows looked happy.

We managed to circumvent the last construction traffic jam by running down US-1 for a few miles, so arrived home a little less frazzled than last night.

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 7:37:00 PM

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