Our day from Philadelphia to Providence was technically a travel day, but it ended up being one of our most cherished days of the trip! We left Philly right after breakfast and drove until lunch time. When Mario planned our trip, he had found this little "village" in Connecticut called Mystic. It's this tiny little seaport town but the streets are lined with little boutique shops and restaurants. He knew I'd love it...which I did!!!
We parked on the side of the street, and this port was the first one that greeted us!
Hello, New England!!!
welcome to mystic!
We were starving, so the first thing we wanted to do was get some yummy seafood.
Just about every seat in this little restaurant looked out over the Mystic River.
The S&P Oyster Co...
They are famous for their lobster rolls.
We didn't even know what a lobster roll was!!!
Well, it definitely was not what we were expecting, but it sure tasted delicious!
Living in TX, you tend to forget what extraordinarily fresh seafood tastes like--YUM!
It was just so refreshing to see the water every time we walked out of a building! We took the opportunity to walk around and relax for a few hours.
Mar had to run to the Bank of America inside this old bank building...love the architecture.
MUCH more fun than running to an ATM!!! Haha!
This is the Bascule Bridge that crosses the river in the center of the village. It is definitely in great shape because they use it all the time to let the big ships pass under!
We wandered in and out of shops, took in the views, and enjoyed an ice cream treat.
All the docks and harbors make everything look so quaint.
Mario got tired of shopping with me, so he sat down on a bench to chill while I continued on!
We drove on further to the little town of Stonington to take in some beach views.
Yep, that's me on shore line looking for pretty rocks. Am I the only strange one who likes to take home "earthy" souvenirs??? (If you recall, I brought home a ton of rocks from our trip to Oregon last year too! Haha!)
While I was rock hunting and wading, Mario was soaking in the sun and sitting alone with his thoughts.
It's so easy to be inspired in this place!!!
We could stay in this town for hours, breathing in the fresh air and enjoying the peacefulness.
We didn't want to leave, but we had to get to our B&B for the night.
So, we hopped back in the car (after brushing all the sand off our feet) and drove just a few miles east of Providence, Rhode Island to Gilbert's Tree Farm B&B, an 1830's farmhouse, actually located in Rehoboth, MA. Our hosts were the sweetest older couple you'll ever meet. I'll share more about their hospitality in the next post. But for now, I'll end with a funny story...
We had worked up quite an appetite at the beach, so when we finally rolled in to the b&b, the two things on our minds were dinner and chilling out watching the olympics (gymnastics was on again!). Sooooo, this b&b was way more "grandma and grandpa's house" than we were expecting--which can be good in so many ways, but as far as having a tv in our room, we were out of luck. So, we asked our hosts for dinner recommendations, and they just knew we would adore this restaurant called the "Venus de Milo". Well, we drive over there, and it's this HUGE banquet facility that must mostly be used for weddings and other events. We park and walk in, and there is literally nobody there in the entrance...almost to the point where we wanted to yell, "hello?" And it kindof smells like a nursing home. Then we see some lights down the end of a hallway, so we make our way down to the lit room, and it's this bar off to the side which was completely empty except for the bartender. We ask, "Is this where you are supposed to eat?" (I mean, really, it shouldn't be this difficult to figure out!) He points us down the hall further. We walk into the main dining room where there is some horrid elevator music playing in the ears of some 15 or so (elderly) guests who are almost silently eating their dinner--definitely not what we had in mind for our evening!!! I think it was THE place to have dinner in town, THE place to have your wedding, THE place to have your reception or anniversary celebration, THE place to have your office holiday party, THE place to have prom, etc. I soooo would've taken pictures, but I didn't bring my camera since we thought we were going to have an uneventful quick dinner! Ha! So, we made a u-turn and headed back to the bar room to ask that guy where we might find a little sports pub in town where we could watch the olympics while we ate. He directed us to this little hole in the wall pub, and that is exactly where we ate and watched the some of the men's gymnastics competition. Haha! What an ordeal! But we ended up having a fun night anyway!
Our next day was our best day of the entire trip...Plymouth!!!
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