Hello hello! It has been a tremendously weird, busy, and fast-moving summer. I know I haven’t been around here much, and I have a few posts coming up, hopefully soon, but for right now, here’s the story of how incredibly successful our weekend was, entirely organized by NOT me, but by one Ms. Lea!
Way earlier this summer, Lea started fretting about not having any cool summer plans and stressing out about wanting to Have a Good Time before summer was gone. She sent me and Liz a frenzied email about it and we made tentative plans to go camping, but the timing didn’t work out. The whole summer’s been weirdly paced – Liz’s graduation and starting her new job made May fly by, and we did Tybee super early on in June, and then July was Sarah moving out and all of us getting super into helping her with her new place, and then suddenly it was August and September was looming.
So Adventure Weekend was our back-up plan. We picked a weekend – this one – and we had a vague plan of driving somewhere within a couple of hours of us, preferably where there was a lake or an ocean. Originally, we were gonna do this super cheap and spend as little money as possible, but we came to the realization that we are all pretty malleable ladies who can handle cheap-ass motels, so we decided to maybe throw a night at a motel into the mix.
We threw around ideas (Maine, the Cape, a pond, something) and I read every damn article about “Best Weekend Trips in New England” I could find, but those all ended up in fancy hotels and expensive brunches and limited swimming and nothing seemed right.
Six days ago, Lea sent us a VERY ADORABLE proposal:
We drive down to Mystic. I was looking at hotels, and it seems like if we choose Groton/New London (v nearby) we can get a hotel room for a reasonable price.
So anyway, we drive down. It’s a two hour drive or so. We check into the hotel and drop off our stuff. Nearby (15 mins or so) is Waterford Beach Park. It’s the ocean, but it’s off Long Island Sound, so there’s no waves. Everything I could check describes it as a mellow beach. Parking is a little pricey–$30, but that’s just $10 each.
So then we beach for 2 hours, or so, and then go home and shower off and get dressed. We drive to Mystic downtown, where there’s a really cute downtown area, including MYSTIC PIZZA, of the Julia Roberts fame. We walk around.
Then in the afternoon we go to MYSTIC AQUARIUM which in my youthful memories was an AMAZING aquarium. It’s a little pricey, $34.
Then we have dinner somewhere, and then go back to the hotel, sleep, and then go home in the morning.
Good looking plan, right? We were on board. My assistant at work goes to Groton a few times a summer and recommended some beaches there, as well as a few places to see in Mystic proper. We had a sketched out plan and were ready to go.
And friends, was it a whirlwind trip. After much hemming and hawing as to when to leave, we set out at 10AM on Saturday. Our plan was to just head right to a beach. Liz has only just gotten comfortable in the water, so the research Lea had done was into beaches with very gentle waves. We packed up the car with beach chairs, floaty noodles, and bags crammed with clothes, and headed out. The trip there went fast – it had been a weirdly busy week, so we had a lot to catch up on. We plotted out our adventure – we were ready in our bathing suits so we could immediately take the plunge.
After a quick stop at Dunks for Munchkins (our official Beach Treat) – which I made Lea order because while I have gotten good at ordering coffee at Dunks, something about ordering actual doughnuts, and in particular Munchkins, stresses me the fuck out. I’m not sure what I expect to happen. I think I feel like I’m creating a nuisance by doing so? And in particular, I feel like ordering Munchkins is the biggest nuisance of all and that the person at the Dunks counter might actually refuse to gather them for me, I don’t know. Like, back in the day, my dad would go to Dunks and order 25 Munchkins but ask for all jelly, because that was what me and my older sister liked best, and I was in AWE of him for having the balls to do that.
A N Y W A Y. Lea didn’t make me order the Munchkins, she did it herself, and the lady gave them to her without a problem (WEIRD) though Lea herself did have a minor breakdown at the counter because she thought they only had plain and blueberry Munchkins and she had to call me in for a quick, whispered conference, where I pointed at the jelly and chocolate ones higher up and then backed away before I became complicit in the Munchkin scheme. Then Lea had to explain to the Dunks lady about how she thought there weren’t enough flavors of Munchkins, but that she had just missed the ones higher up, and the lady just stared at her unblinking until Lea ground to a halt.
Snack procured, we made our way to Groton, deciding to scope out the beaches there, and hoping for free parking. Groton is totally beautiful and scenic and parking is hard to come by. We passed the first, small beach, but continued on to seek out a bigger one and more parking. No beaches. No parking. Hmm.
Lea called her dad. “He used to live in Groton!” she said. She asked if he knew a good beach and he responded that he never went to the beach in Groton, just to rivers. “No problem!” she said, because by that point, we had made our way back to the first beach, and there was a FREE parking lot right across the street. SCORE. We drove in and not only was it free, there were plenty of spots – amazing! We unloaded our chairs, towels, bags, noodles, and snacks, and headed over. We spread out our blanket, set up our chairs, put sunblock on, and then headed to the water.
“Why is no one else in the water?” Lea and I asked, looking at the sunbathers on the beach. “Sharks?”
“I don’t know,” Liz said. “Let’s find out!”
The beach was – rocky. Super, ow, painful rocky. But the water was beckoning! We made our painful way over, clutching our noodles grimly. The water was murky. With seaweed. “I’m sure it clears up as you go in!” I said, and we forged our way through it, noodles in hand.
The whole beach of sunbathers were gazing at us. Possibly because we kept saying “Ow” and “Gross” and “Oh god it’s touching me” and “why” and “WHY.” Probably because they were amused at what we were getting ourselves into.
“But it’s so warm!” I said. “Maybe if we float?” I grimly launched myself into the thigh-deep water on my noodle. The seaweed was now flowing around my neck and wrapping itself around my legs. “It’s fine!” I insisted.
“I’m out,” Lea said firmly.
“Take me with you,” my wife said, both of them turning tail and leaving me literally in the weeds.
We forlornly made out way out, trying very very hard to not make eye contact with the people on the beach who had watched our whole situation unfold. We sat down in our chairs to “dry off” (picking the seaweed off of us as we did so) and all made the valiant effort to behave as though everything that had just occurred had gone exactly according to plan.
Lea received a follow-up text from her Dad: “Groton beaches suck.”
This was good, true information, which would have been good to have before we set off into the bog.
After four and a half minutes of perching on our chairs, we grabbed all our stuff and made our embarrassing retreat through the crowd of local sunbathers. It was really – really embarrassing.
We should have gone with Plan A. We set our course for the original beach with the thirty dollar parking. At this point, I was absolutely convinced that a) beaches didn’t exist and b) if they did, we certainly wouldn’t be allowed in. The original beach was one that Lea had done a lot of research on, so we did have facts about it, but all of us definitely disbelieved at least some, if not all, of the facts.
We found the turn into the parking lot. I pulled up to the gate. “We want to park? At the…beach?” I said to the lady.
To my complete and honest surprise, she took our money and let us in.
I still didn’t believe there was a beach.
We drove a ways and found the lot and there were plenty of spaces – a dubious sign by this point. We parked. We gathered our things. (We left the noodles behind this time, to avoid the previous embarrassment, and also because of none of us believing there would be a beach at the end of this endeavor.)
We headed down the path. The only people in our view, headed in the same direction, were two adults, fully dressed in jeans and t-shirts, with a small child. We observed this solemnly, further proof that there was no beach. As we walked, a couple of groups of youths passed us – all were wet, and all were in beach attire. We still didn’t believe it, but we commented that it was a hopeful sign.
As we got closer, we could see, off to the left, a big, open…marsh area. With a fair number of people wading in it. “Is that the beach?” Lea asked frantically. “Oh god, is this the beach? It’s my fault. I did it. It was me. You’re going to have to murder me and hide the body and never tell anyone about my human failure.”
“It’s fine!” Liz and I said unconvincingly. “That will be…a fun beach-ish time.”
We walked ten feet further and the road rose up and revealed a GORGEOUS, BEAUTIFUL, SANDY BEACH WITH ACTUAL OCEAN RIGHT AHEAD OF US.
“Oh thank god oh thank god oh thank god,” we all said, I am pretty sure, at the same time, in the same cadence.
The beach was so good. Tide was up, there were a bunch of people there, but not too many. The sun was hot. There were people in the water. You could SEE the bottom when you got up to the water. It was, in fact, A BEACH.
We flung our stuff down and immediately made our way to the water and oh god, it was such bliss. It was cold (as opposed to the warm swampiness of the Failure Beach), it was wavy but not too wavy, and it was the best sort of temperature New England beaches get in late August, where when you get brave enough to dunk yourself to your neck, the cold makes you gasp, “Sweet Mother of God,” and you can’t even pretend it doesn’t hurt, but it’s so so good.
The beach had this great series of drop offs, where we were only maybe 10 feet out and up to our necks, but the waves just let us bob, and the drop offs were close enough that Liz could still reach the bottom while Lea and I could be over our heads and AUGH IT WAS SO GREAT. IT WAS SO GREAT. I honestly feel like the Failure Beach experience mad the Amazing Adventure Beach that much more amazing, because no rocks! No seaweed! No feeling like you were Frodo being dragged down into the Dead Marshes, but only with no Gollum to save you.
We were ebullient. We stayed in the water forEVER and just crowed about how happy we were, and how great this was, and how everything was beautiful and nothing hurt. It was so, so good.
We went out and dried off and when the sun got too hot, we went back in for a final dip and then made our way from the beach, satisfied, sandy, and victorious.
ON TO THE NEXT PART OF THE ADVENTURE.
We arrived at the luxurious Red Roof Inn of Mystic, CT. I have to tell you, in my experience, Red Roof Inns are generally the best of the slightly shitty motel chains. It was chosen thusly:
Flagship Inn And Suites – seems INCREDIBLY basic, has some shitty reviews.
Motel 6 Groton – Possibly a little nicer from the pics on priceline?
Super 8 Groton – Better reviews than flagship, worse reviews than Motel 6.
Red Roof Inn Mystic – Best reviews of all of them.
Having chosen the least-awful of awful chain motels, we were dubious upon arriving. But honestly, the check-in was smooth, the room was clean, and it had everything we needed (two beds, a bathroom, and a/c). We showered, we changed, and we headed out again immediately for a) food and b) THE MYSTIC AQUARIUM.
We were starving, having had little but Munchkins all day, and it was 3:30PM by this point. Lea and I were adamant about wanting a quick sandwich, and fairly set on trying to find a Subway. Liz was okay about the sandwich, less okay about the Subway. We hit an intersection and there was a Subway nearby, but we made the wrong turn and, just as I was taking a U-turn to go back, Liz delightedly spied an ocean-side snack shop. Lea and I agreed this was a better bet than Subway and we turned around again and went back.
We all got the crab-cake sandwich. The crab-cake sandwich was goddamn delightful. We ate in about 3 1/2 minutes. Life is amazing.
We got to the aquarium by 4PM, and as we were getting our tickets, the dude said the sea lion show was starting in ten minutes. CLEARLY WE WERE MEANT TO SEE THE SEA LION SHOW. I was dubious, because I am me, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to SIT – I wanted to EXPLORE – but both Liz and Lea went, “SEA LIONS DOING CUTE THINGS, TRACEY. MY GOD.” And we went and NO REGRETS. We were seated next to lesbian moms with two cute babies and there were FOUR adorable sea lions in the show and at one point I looked over and both Liz and Lea had their hands over their hearts and looks of SHEER ADORATION on their faces and it was pretty great. The sea lions were SUPER TALENTED and they were all rescue sea lions who had been saved by the aquarium and they flung themselves around the pool to “Pump It” and were just all in all amazing.
THEN. THEN. We went out and saw an area with a huge open-air tank and went to look and THERE WAS A BELUGA WHALE. NO, THERE WERE TWO. TWO BELUGA WHALES. I could describe my feelings, but I’ll let these pictures speak for themselves:
…I had never seen a beluga whale in real life before.
Those pics were from the underwater section. We had been above and I was LOSING MY MIND about the whales andLea said, definitely trying to control the SHEER SMUGNESS she felt about this being a GODDAMN GREAT aquarium, “Oh, I’m pretty sure there’s a spot where we can see them underwater – do you want to go?”
I did. I really, really did.
Look at this guy. I loved this guy:
It was so cool. We were definitely all worked up after the whales and we had a very hard time finding the entrance to the actual aquarium, but Lea asked for help and we got to go to the SHARK-PETTING TANK and PET SOME SHARKS (small sharks but SHARKS ALL THE SAME) and see NEMO and see JELLYFISH and see BIGGER SHARKS and see turtles and seahorses and BIG SEA LIONS sunning themselves and penguins (but apparently I’m over penguins? IDK, they don’t do it for me.) and it was JUST THE BEST. THE BEST.
We were overwhelmed and tired but we had a hotel. We went back and Lea said, “can we lie down for like thirty minutes and look and pictures and talk about our successes?”
INDEED WE COULD. And DID.
Then we got up, and got dressed up pretty, and were headed BACK ON THE TOWN. (“The Town” being “The 3 Blocks that Mystic, CT Consists Of.”) We all looked gorgeously suntanned and happy. We had some minor setbacks finding parking, because the one pay lot in town was full, but I remembered parking off the main drag in Salem and thought this might be the same thing and sure enough, just a few blocks off the town center, we got a free spot on the street.
We made our way down the hill (“I’m going to complain, loudly, the entire way up this hill coming back,” Lea announced.) and went to a really amazing bookshop (biggest YA section I have ever seen) and browsed for like 45 minutes and we all bought books and it was BLISS), then wandered through some seriously weird shops, where Liz tried on hats and fascinators and we people-watched and perused the restaurants.
We had definitely left it too late and were definitely starving by the time we realized it was gonna be tough to get into a place. We tried a couple to no avail and finally put our name in at one place that turned out to be far more hipster-y than we had anticipated. (“ALL OF THESE DRINKS have EGG WHITES in them, what the FUCK,” Liz said, full of vitriol.) But they seated us quickly, and the service was good, the scallop roll (which we all got, because god knows we can’t have different meals during Adventure Weekend) was phenomenal, and we all got multiple drinks, so we called it a victory.
We wanted to go to another place after, and sit outside. We made our way past some STUPENDOUSLY drunk women (it was only 9:30PM) at a wine bar that looked cute, and got seated right away, but almost immediately decided it was too hot (and too expensive) and too…indoors, and left, apologizing to the hostess for our abrupt departure.
We went to a bar with a CUTE ROOFTOP BAR, but the town sound ordinance meant it was closing in 15 minutes. The guy seating people said the inside bar was open until 2AM and we could go there. Lea asked if there was anywhere with outdoor seating and the dude immediately recommended a place and gave us directions and was SO NICE about it, even though he was screwing himself out of patrons – VERY COOL. The place he recommended was this pizza place just down the road and it had cute outdoor seating with CUTE CUTE lights and they were seating us and said, “oh, you’ll be front row for our LIVE MUSIC” and Lea went, “Ohhhhh no,” and then, “We’re…old?” and they sat us at a high-top on the other side of the patio, which was PERFECT.
They had great beer (I asked for Blue Moon, which they didn’t have, but they suggested this local brew called “Beer’d Whiskered Wit,” which was amazing) and the musician was this guy in khakis doing terrible, terrible covers of 90s music (like opening with “Free Fallin'” and then “Blister in the Sun” and then “Radioactive” and some Jason Mraz – leading Liz and Lea to have an impassioned discussion about “Plane”) and it was all terrible) and some drunk girls made him do “Call Me Maybe” which was…a thing that happened and we were all wonderfully happy and the only thing that could possibly have made the night better would have been if he had done a terrible rendition of “Fire and Rain” but you can’t have everything.
It was all so good. SO GOOD. I gave Lea my credit card to pay for the drinks and she signed my name in loopy script with my middle initial added in about an inch above the rest of the signature, and Liz took the other receipt and put a heart around my middle initial, so that pizza place in Mystic (NOT the Mystic Pizza) thinks I have a weird relationship with my middle name.
We left and and made our way out to the general direction of where we parked – Lea complaining the entire way up the hill, as promised. Liz found the car – Liz is the only one of us with a sense of direction and was tremendously smug the entire weekend about her abilities in that arena. Lea and I definitely would have ended up sleeping on a bench if were were supposed to be the ones finding the car – that, or wandering around downtown Mystic showing this picture to strangers and begging them to find our car:
and drove home (“home” = “Red Roof Inn”). We BURST through the door to the room, ripped our clothes off, and collapsed into bed approximately 8 1/2 minutes after our arrival.
It all went according to plan. Even the Failure Beach with the Horrifying Seaweed was worth it – it provided a STUNNING contrast to the good beach. We rolled out of bed at 8:15 this morning, got breakfast at a great nearby diner, stopped and did grocery shopping at the Market Basket en route home, because we are ADULTS, and we were back by 12:30, a mere 26 1/2 hours after we left, but it felt like a week’s worth of experiences.
In sum: Mystic, CT is worth a visit. What a great goddamn weekend.
Adventure Weekend! Hello hello! It has been a tremendously weird, busy, and fast-moving summer. I know I haven't been around here much, and I have a few posts coming up, hopefully soon, but for right now, here's the story of how incredibly successful our weekend was, entirely organized by NOT me, but by one Ms.
