08-12OCT14 - New London, CT (40th reunion & homecoming)

Wednesday morning, 08OCT, we hit the road for a short drive to our next RV park in North Stonington, CT; for Dan’s 40th college reunion/homecoming at the US Coast Guard Academy in New London, CT.  Yes, unbelievably Dan is that old & graduated from the Academy way back in June of 1974.  See our below BLOG link for more about these reunions & our last attendance in 2009.  As we said in that BLOG military academies routinely hold reunions every year for the classes that previously graduated in five years increments.  So in 2014 reunions & special events are held during homecoming for the classes of 2009, 2004, 1999, 1994, 1989, 1984, 1979, 1974, etc, etc. This was number 40 for the USCGA Class of 1974; & more than 100 of our 350 inductees showed up (more on this later).

http://theryanrvexpress.blogspot.com/2009/10/05-11oct09-new-london-ct-reunion.html

The RV park we have used twice before (2004 & 2009) was a little dump’y & was almost empty previously; & we have never needed a reservation.  Apparently they have been taken over & major improvements have been made, because they are now full?  So we are now at another RV park that is further out from New London & reunion activities.  After setting up camp we headed to the Foxwood casino.  This is supposedly the world’s largest casino, but it is really several different gaming areas in different buildings connected by walkways & halls.  Very disorganized & many areas are closed & roped off.  After making our usual small offerings to the gods of chance we headed back to the RV.

Thursday it was off to New Haven, CT, to concentrate on roadfood & roadside America.  First stop was Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana, in business since 1925.  We got there at 1130 & it was filling-up fast (lots of regulars).  Pepe’s is credited with the creation of “New Haven style” pizza – thin crust baked in bread ovens fired by coal.  Pepe’s has won numerous local & national awards for their pizzas.  Dan went with their famous White Clam pizza & Corrie went with the classic Margherita, both excellent!  Highly recommend, just get there early.

http://pepespizzeria.com/

Next stop (after a quick Ikea stop) was the PEZ factory (which opened in 1973) & visitor center (which opened 2011) in Orange, CT.  PEZ started in Austria in 1927 as a peppermint (or in German pfefferminz, aka PEZ).  The visitor center is definitely all things PEZ with a viewing windows of the factory.  They charge $6 admission but you get four dollars off any purchase, plus you can easily win an unique dispensary w/candy by completing a “quiz”.  Since we made a minimal purchase, they lost money on us!  We recommend it!

http://www.pez.com/

Then it was back to New Haven for a burger at Louis’ Lunch, supposed inventor of the hamburger in 1895.  Louis’ is very small & constantly busy.  Louis’ is truly unique in that they “grill” their patties in ancient, gas fired vertical broilers.  We have never seen anything like the three contraptions they use to slowly (& we mean slowly!) cook their hamburgers.  Warning don’t even think of asking for ketchup!

http://www.louislunch.com/

Friday it was off to Mystic, CT, for a walkabout (Corrie still hasn’t seen the all time chick flick “Mystic Pizza”?).   Then it was off to Abbott’s Lobster in the Rough in Noank, CT, for a small lobster roll.  Turns out they close Monday for the season.  They opened at 1130 & were packed by noon.  Last stop for the day was tracking down a Muffler Man in Norwich, CT.

http://abbottslobster.com/

Then it was back to RV to get ready for the first reunion event – the Friday night no host cocktail party at the Mystic Marriott Hotel in Groton, CT.  The dress was supposed to be shorts, Hawaiian shirts, and sandals with no socks. Very few of the attendees observed the proper dress code; but Dan ever being the rebel wore sandals with socks!

Saturday, 11OCT, was almost an entire day devoted to Reunion activities:

1000 – A moving Memorial Service of all the class members who have passed since 1974, in the Auditorium of Dimick Hall led by Rex Auker & Will Henrickson, two classmates who moved on from their CG careers to becoming men of the cloth.

1100 – Tailgate luncheon in Dimick Hall Auditorium.

1300 – March-on to the USCGA football field (thankfully the rain stops).  March-on is when the five year classes attending Homecoming/Reunion march onto the field (starting with the youngest class first, 2009). While marching on, a humorous, short “commercial” is read over the PA about your class and its accomplishments (or lack of accomplishments).

1330 – USCGA vs Curry football game – GO BEARS!!! (CG wins 17-0)

1600 – All classes cocktail party at Leamy Hall.  This event is for any Academy alumni to attend during the homecoming weekend (ie those not part of a five year reunion).

1900 – The big event of the reunion weekend, the class dinner dance back at the Mystic Marriott Hotel.  Turns out that the Academy class of 1969 was having their dinner dance in the ballroom next ours.  We didn’t pay any attention to this, because with the number of five year reunions going on & small number of hotels available, having several classes in one venue is not uncommon.  But what was unique was that their music was being provide six of their classmates who played rock & roll at the Academy back in the late 60s!  And the lead singer was Rear Admiral (retired) Paul Pluta who Dan had worked for!!  Learning this, we headed next door to check it out.  All six members have played off & on over the decades, & definitely can still kick ass!!!

Sunday was a “new” homecoming/reunion event – Dan’s classmate (& reverend) Will & wife Jackie Henrickson had a brunch at their beautiful house in New London.  Normally in the past nothing “planned” happened on Sunday, as everyone makes their departure from New London.  Thanks to the Henrickson’s we enjoyed one more opportunity for reminiscing & an excellent brunch buffet!  Then it was back to RV to enjoy the great weather, recuperate from all the reunion activities, & prepare for tomorrow’s departure.

PS - At the beginning of this BLOG we mentioned that we would be discussing the number of attendees (or classmates as they call each other) at this 40th reunion/homecoming.  This year there were about 100 classmates, compared to 50 back in 2009.  Why the increase?  Because after 2009 a group of classmates decided not to depend on the mailing list created some thirty years ago to send out invites.  They decided to try & locate all 350 original inductees, not just the 200 classmates graduated.  They are still working on finding everyone.  But many who did not finish the entire four years were contacted & extremely grateful & touched to be tracked down & invited.  Many eagerly attended for the first time; in addition to graduates who decided to attend for their first time.  For example, two of Dan’s classmates who finished college elsewhere & we visited driving from Sultan, WA, to Connecticut, attended (see BLOGs about Montana, & New Ipswich, NH).

01-07OCT14 - Rhode Island (various; including new bedford, ma, while camped in bellingham, ma)

Wednesday morning, 01OCT, we made a short drive to our next RV park in Bellingham, MA.  Why Bellingham?  Because there are three states in the continental USA that we have not visited since we started full time RV’ing, or on our four month RV adventure back in 2004 – Rhode Island, New Jersey & Delaware.  So we decided to use the next week to explore Rhode Island but could not find a “suitable” RV park in the state.  So we picked a RV park in Massachusetts just north of Providence, RI.

Late Thursday morning we headed into Providence, RI, to gather sightseeing information.  First stop was the Roger Williams National Memorial.  This is a small National Park Service facility devoted Roger Williams who was driven out of Massachusetts by the Puritans due to his radical ideas about freedom of religion.  While many of the original colonist left England to escape religious persecution, this did not mean they would tolerate other faiths in their colonies!

Williams argued the radical idea that the practice of religion should be a matter of conscience for all men including papists, protestants, jews, turks, quakers, baptists, & even non-believers.  He also argued that Native Americans should not be converted to Christianity.  These ideas were viewed as heretical & forced Roger Williams to flee Massachusetts (where Quakers were sometimes hanged by Puritans) to what would become Rhode Island, a colony based on religious freedom.  As well as viewing the exhibits about Williams’ life, we also watched a short video about Williams & the founding of Rhode Island.

Trivia – whose statue is on top of RI’s state house?

Note – Williams never sat for an “official” portrait, painting or sketch, so there are varying images of him used for paintings & sculptures after his passing.  In fact, supposedly one RI college has his statue with the face of baseball great Ted Williams?

The Memorial is also part of the National Park Service’s John H Chafee Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor, more on this later.

http://www.nps.gov/rowi/index.htm

Next stop was the Providence Tourist Center located in the Convention Center (hard to find & parking is difficult).  Followed by a late lunch at the Original New York System for hotdogs.  Dan went with three dogs, fries & coffee milk (think chocolate milk with a coffee flavor).  Corrie went with the excellent chicken soup.  “New York System” hotdogs have nothing to do with New York & are unique to Rhode Island & consist of a little grilled tube steak with squared-off ends, meat sauce (looks like chili but much different taste), mustard, chopped raw onions, and celery salt.  Locals known them as gaggers, or as it is properly pronounced, gaggahs.  This establishment is credited with bringing the New York System to Rhode Island; but was actually a copy of the Coney Island Hotdog from Nick’s Original Coney Island Hotdogs in Fall River, MA; which apparently was based on something from Philadelphia?

http://originalnewyorksystem.com/

Friday morning it was off to New Bedford, MA, for a walkabout.  First stop was the New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park (note - the Historical Park is partners with the Inupiat Heritage Center in Barrow, AK, to help recognize the contributions of Alaskan Natives to the history of whaling).  We arrived just in time to see the National Park Service film “The City That Lit the World”, the title reflects the fact that whale oil lamps supplanted candles as the primary source of interior illumination before being displaced by kerosene.  After viewing the exhibits we then commenced walking about on the cobblestone streets before a very late lunch & returning to the RV.

American whaling started in Nantucket (hence the term “Nantucket sleigh ride”) but New Bedford became the world’s largest center of whaling vessels & businesses, because the whaling ship’s became too large for the Nantucket harbor & New Bedford’s rail connections to the rest of the USA.  During the height of whaling New Bedford was the richest city in the USA & most diverse.  New Bedford’s diversity included Europeans, Azoreans, Cape Verdeans, Africans, runaway slaves, etc; all were treated equally & received equal pay.  Hard to believe but these men signed-on for voyages that lasted up to five years!

Part of New Bedford’s history is that Herman Melville lived here, shipped out on a whaling vessel, & wrote the classic “Moby-Dick (or The Whale)” based on his New Bedford experiences.  As you may remember the novel was made into a classic movie starring Gregory Peck way back in 1956.  One of the scenes is a fiery sermon from a pulpit shaped like a ship’s bow before the PEQUOD sets sail.  Seamen’s Bethel is where Melville says the sermon took place, but the Church never had a pulpit as described in the movie.  To satisfy the tourists a pulpit based on the 1956 movie was installed in 1959.  Note – until recently the next door Mariners’ Home offered “Accommodations for merchant seaman or fishermen, including breadfast, TV, ping pong, game room, ...., including Coast Guard.  Open 24 hours.”

http://www.nps.gov/nebe/index.htm

http://www.nps.gov/inup/index.htm

We also learned that New Bedford was a primary destination of runaway slaves on the Underground Railroad.  This was for four reasons – 1) whaling vessels offered equal pay, & safety from bounty hunters when underway 2) the coastal trading system of New Bedford allowed easy movement of runaways to other USA ports, Europe & Africa 3) the city was controlled by Quakers, staunch abolitionists 4) the city already had more people of color by percentage than any other city outside the south.

http://www.nps.gov/subjects/ugrr/index.htm

Late Saturday morning, 04OCT, it was off to Providence, RI, for some exploring.  First stop was Hasbro world headquarters in Pawtucket; there Mr Potato Head whispered in our ear – "eat mor onin rings"!  Sadly no tours are given.  Further down the road we discovered a large, old, industrial building with large signs announcing Vineyard Vines Whalehouse Sale.  Turns out Vineyard Vines is a high end clothing line from Martha Vineyard & they were having a closeout sale for the next ten days.  For some reason Dan noted we were the only truck in the parking lot full of mercedes, beemers, volvos, lexus, & high end buicks, toyotas, etc.  We did a little driving in downtown Pawtucket but didn’t see anything of interest.

From there we headed to the Federal Hill area of Providence (aka Little Italia).  This was a very scenic area for a walkabout w/numerous restaurants & cafes; in fact many of the older generation (hey that’s us!) were speaking in Italian.  On one street corner we saw several men discussing world politics(?) in Italian.  Our late lunch & cannoli’s were at Via Roma, excellent!  Providence’s Little Italy is highly recommended!

http://romaprov.com/index.php/home/

Sunday we got our annual flu shots, before heading to the Big Top Flea Market in Providence – a disappointment.  From there it was back to Little Italy for coffee, lunch, & more cannoli’s.

Last stop of the day was at the John H. Chaffe Blackstone River Valley National Historic Corridor visitor center back in Pawtucket.  As the National Park Service brochure says the “...Corridor encompasses some 450,000 acres between Worcester, Mass., and Providence, R.I.  The federal government does not own or manage land as it does in most national parks.  Instead, people, businesses, non-profit historic and environmental organizations, 24 local and two state governments, the National Park Service, and a unifying commission work together to protect the corridor’s identity and prepare for its future.”  If you read our Lake Placid, NY, BLOG about the National Park Service Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor, this is the same concept.

At the visitor center we saw a very good film explaining the birth of America’s Industrial Revolution in the Blackstone River Valley along the 46 miles of the Blackstone River.  Right across the street from the visitor center is what is considered the first American factory, Slater Mill.  Then it was back to the RV to enjoy the good weather after two days of rain showers.

One interesting fact we learned was that before canals & eventually railroads, it cost as much to ship a ton of goods 30 miles as it would to ship the same ton to Europe!

http://www.nps.gov/blac/index.htm

http://www.nps.gov/history/heritageareas/

Monday, 06SEP, we decided to drive to Newport, RI.  First stop was the city’s excellent visitor center.  There we picked up tickets for one of the many “trolley” tours of the city & “summer cottages” of America’s first billionaires (can you say Vanderbilts or Astors?) built during the Gilded Age.  There are at least three companies offering tours & their prices are very close to each other.  We picked the one that was offering a 25% discount to seniors on Mondays for all of 2014.  Not sure why the other companies don’t have similar discounts?  The trolley tours can also be combined with tours of some of the summer cottages that have been restored.  By combining the tickets you save money over driving to the cottage & purchasing separately.  Since we were running late, we did not tour any of the cottages.  One thing different about the trolley tour vs others we have taken, was you could not get on & off the trolleyL

On the tour we learned:

---many people that have livestock now have llamas – why?  Because coyotes are now a problem in Newport & apparently fear llamas?

---“the Mrs Astor” established two rules for the 400 Club (ie the 400 socially elite of the time).  Rule 1 – you must be a multi-millionaire & have sufficient funds that your offspring would be multi-millionaires.  Rule 2 – your family must not have had to work for three generations.  Apparently Rule 2 has kept Donald Trump out of the few remaining exclusive clubs in Newport?

---while vacationing at his summer cottage in Newport, Howard Sterling Vanderbilt changed the scoring of auction bridge & is credited with the modern game of contract bridge.

---one of the 400 married a wife from Switzerland.  Apparently after some time she wanted to go back to Switzerland.  So he recreated her own Swiss village including farm animals in Newport.  Now decades later it turns out these farm animals are now endangered in Europe (ie belted galloway cows & fainting sheep) & the Newport ones are needed for gene diversity.

---the Newport Summer League baseball park was built next to the Mudville Pub by the WPA in 1937.  Since the pub predates the ballpark, you can watch the games for free from their outfield dugout.

Tuesday we decided to take a break from sightseeing.  Corrie headed out shopping, while Dan started to get RV ready for tomorrow’s departure.  Somewhere in the last couple of weeks our air horns died?  Dan checked the fuses & steering wheel switch with no joy.  After two calls to Tiffin in Red Bay, AL, to find out where the electric to air “interface” was; a technician finally called back.  When Dan opened the cargo hold where the interface was located, it was obvious that the 12volt wires had shorted out causing a small fire & causing the air diaphragm & air hoses to melt!!!  Luckily none of the chemicals in the hold caught fire, or pressurized air was realized.  Definitely dodged a bullet on that one!!!

That evening we headed out for Portuguese food in East Providence.  The restaurant Dan picked was closed on Tuesday nights, even though the website said it was open.  For the first time Dan used his smart phone to connect to the internet, & searched out the nearest Portuguese restaurant (Madeira within one mile).  Very good food & the evening saved!