Nov. 13th - Biking and Swimming - What could be better?

 

 Today started like any other day. We woke up. Then we hung out with Devin's roommates while eating a breakfast of pizza and applesauce before a bunch of us decided to bike out to a lighthouse. It took a little bit for such a big group of us to get organized but once we were we had a wonderful seven mile ride out to the lighthouse including some honks and a couple of directional mishaps. But once we arrived at the Sound it was amazing. The park was already setting up for Christmas with a bunch of big light decorations dotting the landscape.

 I don't know what it was; the beautiful water, the sandy beach, or the sea breeze blowing in my face but I decided I had to go for a swim. Devin joined in as well and I don't know if I would call what we did swimming but we took a couple paddles and waded around until our legs went numb and then used the swingset to dry off. After we dried off as much as possible we headed back to our bikes and the roads. We ended the ride across the street from Devin's at a nice little corner deli with some delicious sandwiches and our first Eggnog of the year.

We are now just finishing up packing and about to get back on the road to Vermont to pick up my shoes before we head for warmer climates.

Nov. 12th - Another Sleeping Giant.

Yesterday we biked out to Connecticut's version of Sleeping Giant which comes in a State, not Provincial Park flavor. Sleeping Giant State Park is a 700+ foot traprock mountain which is part of the Metacomet Range. We hiked up a fun, winding trail to the tower on what is the left hip of the giant which ended up giving us amazing views of the the surrounding land and the Sound again. After coming down from the tower we decided to find food, lucky for us Quinnipiac University was having an Open House and we were able to pull some scraps in to feed us before the ride back into New Haven. Once back in New Haven we hung out for a bit before deciding to make food and play Scrabble. But later on we realized how hungry Scrabble made us and we ordered pizza (it's the East Coast why not more pizza) from a local place called Modern Apizza. We then retired to bed to watch some Parks and Recreation (if you don't know about this show go onto Hulu and check it out, Ron Swanson is the funniest TV character maybe ever written).

Nov. 10th - 11th - New Haven has Talent.

Sorry for the lack of posts, we've been hanging out in New Haven, CT for a bit so we'll catch you up right now. On Thursday we woke up and headed down the coast, only stopping at the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Preserve to look around before being shooed away by rain.

We arrived in New Haven around 2 and decided to get some food and beer. After searching www.beeradvocate.com for a place to go we found Delaney's Taproom. They had a terrific tap list - which actually included Dogfish Head 120 IPA (click here for details) which was 12 dollars for 12 oz - needless to say we didn't get that one but we did get the 90 minute IPA and an Otter Creek Black IPA, both were delicious. After finishing up there we headed over to our friend Devin's place to hang out for the night.

Devin lives in a communal house which houses 12 people who are all awesome and were very gracious to us. Each one had there own little thing going on, but there was a really great sense of community there which is good to have in a communal living situation. We ended up having dinner with them and chatting about various random observations before people went off to other events or retired for the night. Devin, Jena, and I decided to call our Mango friends, Jax and Caye, to chat about life, friendship, and other oddities. (to Mangolandia - It was great to talk to you guys, can't wait to meet up) After chatting we decided to go to bed or in my case pass out.

We awoke, groggily, on Friday and moved slowly around before getting our game together. Once moving we decided to ride our bikes up to the top of what is called East Rock in New Haven, a 366 foot rock ridge which overlooks New Haven all the way out to the Long Island Sound. It was a wonderful ride up with the park road closed to traffic. Beautiful views awaited us at the top and a fun downhill took us back into town just in time to get Devin to his meeting. With Dev gone we took to reading and working on some art shenanigans.

When Devin returned we decided to go to Pepe's Pizza (Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana) which is a small little pizza place which opened in 1925 and cooks all their pies in a traditional brick oven. Their oven was huge, 14 by 14 feet, and coal fired, very cool to see. We ended up getting the plain pizza with garlic for a little extra flavor and a liter of the Birch beer, a peppermint-esque fizzy drink. The pizza and Birch beer were amazing and thanks again goes to Ruby, our Minneapolis friend from Connecticut who keeps telling us about the best New England places to visit.

 After such a wonderful meal we wondered what could top it and what did came in the form of the Yale Forestry School's Talent show. There was a ton of acts including an A capella group titled the Logarhythms, a traditional Indian dance Bhangra, some salsa dancing, a K-pop dance act, poetry, comedy, and a bluegrass band finished off the night. Oh, and there was lots of free beer... thank goodness for private schools and their wet-campus ideologies. Afterwards we returned to Devin's house to get some rest.