train ride to new london

 

i took the amtrak train to connecticut to see my sister on wednesday and greg joined us yesterday. i'll post more about it soon. it was a fun train ride and the scenery was particularly beautiful as we grew closer to new london and came along the coast by old saybrook.

leaving penn station . . 

long island sound would be beyond the trees in the distance . . 

crossing the connecticut river . . 

coming into new london . .

pulling into the station . . after deboarding, we had to wait for the train to leave before we could cross the tracks to enter the station house.

the station was . . fancy! 

and even had a nice cafe with a barista in vintage cap and vest . . 

outside was a fountain in the shape of moby's tail . . 

i walked to the side of the building to get a photo of the tracks i had to cross (all passengers waited on the other side of those train track signals). the brick building you see to the right is the ferry terminal for fishers island. the cross sound ferries are out of the picture on the left.

the white cylinders you see are part of the large posts (i think the bottom half) for the wind turbines that have been sunk into the sea by block island.

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here's one of the large cross sound ferries loading cars for the trip across. i've taken this ferry quite a number of times.

kathy and warren picked me up in front of the train station. it was such a fun trip, and different. it was the first time taking the train to new london for me . . and i was looking forward to visiting with them in connecticut.

i'll write more about days by the lake soon!

traveling south

that's the freedom tower poking above the new jersey wetlands. we headed south today by train to visit my uncle, cousin and her husband in maryland. it's been a beautiful warm day and we even went for a swim in their pool. my uncle is doing well, though slowing down from kidney disease. it's really good to see him and we had a fun time looking through old wedding photographs and admiring how well dressed and coiffed all the ladies looked in the late 1940's!

on the way to annapolis . .

we caught the 11:35 amtrak train out of penn station. amtrak is notorious for nightmare train rides, but, hopefully, i have three lifetimes worth of bad trips to make sure i have only quiet experiences for the remaining days of my present life.

 storing our luggage and reading about the dining car . . 

 morgana worked on her hedgehog kit, and chanda worked on her math . .  !

usually, i can't take my eyes away from the window. i love seeing what's rolling by . . morgana and chanda actually got so involved with their work and then their books, that i told them to look outside so as not to miss the terrain . . !

  

i did take time to read about morocco and austria in my afar magazine . . and the ride was blissfully uneventful!

morning errands and penn station

after feeding our friend's rooftop garden plants and the turtle pets, we planted our cherry tomato seedlings in the raised beds at our children's garden.

and also watered all the flowers.

we discovered a few mushrooms growing under our thyme and oregano plants. i haven't been able to identify them yet, so if you have an idea, please drop me a comment.

the lettuce and arugula were growing well, and tasted delicious.

we also walked to downtown yarns so morgana could pick out two more malabrigo skeins for nana's afghan project.

after a late lunch at home, we took her to penn station. she's taking amtrak to vermont for a visit with our friend deychen (and is traveling with deychen's dad and aunt . . )

i couldn't resist taking a picture of the yellow daisies chanda and i passed at abingdon square park while walking home . .