Sunday, June 28, 2009

Photos: Before the Research Cruise

On the way there, I took the first driving leg, starting our trip at 5:30 pm, largely as I was voted "most likely to get us across the border with minimum effort" and "most able to deal with rush hour traffic without loosing my mind." Between Toronto and Hamilton took a lot of patience. I pulled over somewhere past Buffalo and RM took over. The rental car had more buttons than the average computer. RM found the button to switch units, which made driving in the US easier, with the speedometer in miles per hour rather than km/h, but sadly switched everything. I do not speak Fahrenheit and had no idea how to set the A/C. We got to - oh, I forget... past Syracuse but not as far as Albany. The next day we continued and were almost at Springfield, Massachusetts, when the guys saw signs for the Basketball Hall of Fame. So here is where we made our unlikely pitstop.

basketball beacon
basketball

It was not open, so the guys had to settle for more ice cream. I swear, how a young man can eat ice cream three times a day and yet be so slim is unfathomable.

We got to New London, across the river from Groton by afternoon. This is a view of Groton from New London. Because CS took the train from Boston to New London, RM assumed his hotel was in New London. So we drove around New London, looking for the Hilton, until I made the guys stop and and went for directions at another hotel... where the clever woman behind the desk printed out google map directions without being asked. It turns out that the hotel was in Groton, not New London, and despite having Mystic in its name. I guess they like confusing tourists.

View of Groton
whale mural in New London
feather
birds chasing

Eventually we even found our own hotel. Here is our view:
view from hotel

More later... gotta go return the rental car.

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