Saturday 20 to Sunday 21 May
It was a quick dash through Connecticut – not even enough time to learn how to spell the name of the state.
After formulating plans while we stayed with friends Earl & Cathy, we made our first journey across Long Island Sound to New London in Connecticut and a drive to New Haven, the home of Yale University. It is still graduation season and accommodation was absurdly expensive, so we chose a motel in West Haven which lived up to the reviews of dirty carpets and indifferent staff. Our room was comfortable and clean enough. But the motel was in the middle of nowhere, wedged between a motorway and a fishing boat harbour (not the tourist kind).
We had only recently started using Uber in Melbourne and it was a bonus to find my Uber and PayPal accounts worked seamlessly in USA. Bruce found a brew pub in New Haven and the cost of the Uber was far less than a hotel in New Haven during graduation week.
There was plenty of activity around the Ivy League campus of Yale – gowns, mortar boards and grinning parents abound. We found our way into the center of the old campus next morning, which was set up for the inevitable ceremonies.
It’s a beautiful campus, buildings, trees, large squares (or quads) and lots of ivy draped over the buildings.
After a futile search for coffee in New Haven, we drove to Bethel instead. It was our first drive on an American Scenic Byway, a lovely road meandering through spring green forest. In Australia, we simply don’t see the spring green of the northern hemisphere. It is magical, with soft dappled light that creates a feeling of freshness.
And now it was back to New York State – Upstate to see the Catskills and the Finger Lakes.