My Suburban Escapes

One of my favorite things to do is explore a place from opposing points of view: by land (on foot, bike, train, car) from water (by kayak, motorboat, sailboat, swimming) or by air (commercial plane, small plane, hot air balloon, hang glider).  To study a place from different angles is to know it intimately.  The waterways that lead to the sea are easy to do from two points of view.  I’ve paddled and walked Blind Brook from Westchester Airport to Milton Harbor; the Byram from Glenville to Port Chester; the Housatonic from Stratford to Kent; and most recently the Connecticut River from Old Saybrook to Middletown. This trip was by pontoon boat with my trusty companion Captain Coccomo at the helm while I read aloud the story of Connecticut-born explorer John Ledyard, as it was his first journey we were emulating.

Ledyard unknowingly kicked off his future career in the spring of 1773 when he felled a huge pine to carve a canoe.  In late April he packed it up with venison, a bearskin and books to travel down the spring-swollen Connecticut River to Old Saybrook ostensibly to visit relatives. The backstory is that he was broke, with no money for tuition at his first (and only) year at Dartmouth College and in constant trouble with the college president. Although a great lover of the outdoors, his flamboyant and ostentatious style clashed with the rustic Dartmouth scene in the New Hampshire woodlands.  His trip down the Connecticut was more of an escape and is the stuff of which Dartmouth legends are made. He pushed himself off the bank into the current and let it carry him downstream while reading a book of Ovid’s poetry (repeat, “ostentatious”) while a small crowd looked on.

A day’s float downstream from Hanover, the river poured over Bellows Falls, a turbulent series of cascades and rapids that dropped more than forty feet in Ledyard’s day (but now is buried under a hydroelectric dam). Ledyard was so engrossed by his reading, he later claimed, that he didn’t hear the roar of the falls until it was almost too late. In his panic, he managed to tip over the canoe, and just barely avoided being swept over the falls to his death. Apart from the bearskin, of course, he lost nearly everything — his food and most of his possessions — when the canoe capsized.

Dartmouth Alumni Magazine 250^th Anniversary issue

My trip was not quite as dramatic but filled with beauty as I soaked in the season’s last rays and looked forward to what lay beyond each curve.  I repeated by land what I had done by river the day before, making a circle from Westbrook through Old Saybrook, Old Lyme, Hadlyme, Chester, Essex and back to Westbrook before hitting 95 South homeward. Along the way I heard tales of huge sturgeon jumping out of the river to cleanse their bodies of sea lice…and of the power plant explosion in Middletown on February 7, 2010, which cracked the ice all down the river.  I learned about the battle of Essex in which the British burned all the town’s ships yet left the town untouched as they expected to inhabit it after their victory over the revolutionaries (which never came).  I discovered that Yale University was actually founded in Old Saybrook in 1701 before moving to New Haven in 1716.   I saw the former home of Katharine Hepburn on the banks of the Sound at Westbrook. I visited Gillette Castle (grab lunch on the way at Hadlyme Country Market) and the Goodspeed Opera House along the banks of the Connecticut. I was the only car on the Chester-Hadlyme Ferry (established 1769) and enjoyed the five-minute crossing as if I were a 5yr old boy. And true or false, I was told that the Connecticut is a dividing line of loyalty: those west of it often trend loyal to New York City (Giants, Yankees) while those east trend towards Boston (Patriots, Red Sox). It’s these cultural observations I love the most.

I stayed at the Saybrook Point Resort and Marina where the Connecticut flows into the Long Island Sound.  Its affordable and lovely with well-appointed rooms, saltwater pools (indoor heated and outdoor), hot tub, spa, bicycles for exploration and a great restaurant, Fresh Salt. Liv’s Shack is right at the marina too, for great seafood on the run.  Another option for a sleepover is Water’s Edge Resort and Spa in Westbrook with its Sunset Bar and Grill as your casual outdoor dining/drinking option.

If you can’t finagle a way to get upriver on a private boat, there are several charters with a variety of options including the popular eagle viewing trip:

• Islander Charters, Old Saybrook (www.islandersportfishingcharters.com)
• Lady Katharine Cruises, Essex (www.ladykatecruises.com)
• Riverquest, Haddam (www.ctrivereagles.com)
• Black Hall Outfitters (www.blackhalloutfitters.com) in Old Lyme and Westbrook and Action Sports (www.actionsports.com) in Old Saybrook for kayak rentals.

The Essex Steam Train is perfect for fall foliage viewing or with the kiddos for its North Pole Express. Have a meal at the Old Griswold Inn in Essex before or after – in business since…you guess it: 1776. The whole trip is truly a peak at the past through the lens of the present…viewed from both sides now.