After sleeping in a little today, we cleaned up and headed into Mystic for sightseeing. Last night I had purchased on-line a Mystic Pass for both of us to see Mystic Aquarium and Mystic Seaport. Buying them together and the day before saved us about $30.
We decided to hit the seaport first because it was another hot, humid day. We figured the seaport would be mostly outside (better in the morning when it's cooler) and the aquarium would be mostly inside (air-conditioning!). It worked out pretty well but there were a few places at the seaport that had air-conditioning and a few outside exhibits at the aquarium.
Mystic Seaport is mostly authentic buildings from the 1800's that were transported to Mystic from around New England. They make up a village who's main purpose is to support the many whaling ships that set sail from the area. It is very interesting so see 1800 era doctor offices, ship chandelier, smiths, etc. If interested, check out their website at Mystic Seaport.
I really enjoyed exploring the whaling ship Charles W. Morgan. She's NOT a replica but the actual ship that sailed 37 whaling voyages from 1841 to 1921. After a major refit, she again sailed into the North Atlantic for a 38th trip in 2014. When we walked aboard, there was a gent just starting a "reading" of Moby Dick. We heard, "Call me Ishmael..." and saw an older gent in 19th century dress walking the deck with about 30 people watching him. As we watched, then toured the ship, he recited many pages of the book - from memory! He was still going when we left. How do you memorize a whole book? Here I am standing near the bow.
The seaport was not very crowded when we arrived but gradually filled up in the early afternoon. It was getting hot and humid outside so we drove over to the Mystic Aquarium with hopes of enjoying their air-conditioning.
The Aquarium was very crowded and I think it was "kids day". We never found anywhere in the whole place where there weren't at least 50 children in sight. Laura did get a chance to pet the rays just after we walked in. I think she had to push a couple kids out of the way (only kidding).
There was also a huge pool with 4 or 5 beluga whales. They were huge and beautiful. Later in the afternoon, we saw them working with trainers who would ask them to do maneuvers and reward them with fish. We watched this for quite a while. It looked like a lot of fun!
The main exhibit had huge aquariums with fish from all over the world. Outside aquariums included seals, sea lions and penguins. The penguins were being fed by hand from an aquarium worker near the middle of the exhibit. They were almost all standing patiently in-line waiting their turn at the hand-out. It was fun and we watched for quite a while.
By mid-afternoon we were getting hungry and tired. As we were driving away from the seaport, Laura saw a restaurant called Go Fish in a little mall. We turn around and ate lunch there. A little expensive but not too bad considering this is a huge summer vacation spot. After lunch we headed back to our campground with a stop for gas along the way since we didn't have the trailer behind us. Oh boy. We had driven 151 miles with the trailer and 40 miles without. The truck took 18.3 gallons which was just over 10 miles to the gallon. Looks like our gas budget is going to be a little higher than expected. Maybe it was all the hills yesterday in Massachusetts. One can only hope.
Tomorrow we only have a 2-3 hour drive to my cousin Mike's house near Plymouth. We'll probably leave sometime in the late morning and stop at the dump station on the way out of the campground to empty our grey (sink and shower) and black (poopie) tanks.
Day 2 - Sightseeing in Mystic
38 miles (without the trailer) - 189 miles total
$223 spent - $314 total
$112 - 2 tickets for Mystic Seaport and Aquarium
$55 - gas
$56 -lunch and lemonade
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