The next morning we made our way up to Grand Central Station, then on to the Metro-North Railway as I reserved a car about an hour north in White Plains. Although I could have managed to drive out of Manhattan, I figured this was easier, plus I enjoyed sitting back on this lightly occupied train and watching the cities roll on by as we headed north.

Eventually reaching the Enterprise in White Plains, buddy said he only had two vehicles and pointed at a ginormous truck out in the lot that had my name on it. Scared of how much fuel this would cost and the hassle of parking, I surprised him and chose the soccer mom van instead, although I sort of regretted this once Isy said she thought the truck would have been fun and a laugh.

Now that rush hour had passed, I hoped we would miss Connecticut's notorious heavy traffic and traffic jams.

My GPS put us on the Merritt Parkway, on what was the loveliest drive I've ever had through Connecticut. As much as I love passing through the industrial cities along Connecticut's interstates, this parkway had traffic that actually moved. Not to mention that back when this parkway was built between 1938 and 1941, it was built with the idea of providing a pleasant drive. Trees create a canopy over the road, each overpass was built in a different, fancy style.

We reached Hartford in record time and this pleased me to no end. As Hartford is a place I've long wanted to see, I always lacked the time to visit after being stuck in stop and go traffic for hours, or having stopped in Bethlehem, Boston or Maine.

Finally I found myself in Connecticut's capital & we used the opportunity to walk through the towering Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Arch and around handsome Bushnell Park.

Bushnell Park was the first municipally funded park in the United States, back when the idea of taking any land parcel off the tax rolls seemed radical. It was also a strange idea with these exact land parcels, as this area used to have leather tanneries, the polluted Park River, crowded tenements on that Park River with outhouses emptying into it, soapworks, pigsties and a railroad spur. Reverend Bushnell, for who the park is named, decried that it was "hell without the fire".

Eventually Hartford purchased the properties to create the park, although Frederick Law Olmsted was too busy designing Central Park & Springfield Massachusetts' Forest Park to come here. Instead, Olmsted suggested Swiss-born park architect Jacob Wiedenmann, who planted lots of trees and shrubs to enhance the Park River and insulate Bushnell Park users from the sounds of the city.

(The Park River would eventually be buried after catastrophic floods in 1936 and 1938. A man-made pond was created later to install a water feature for park users. By 2017, a territorial Great Blue Heron had taken up residence in this pond and was named Horace, for Horace Bushnell & Horace Wells (Wells was a Hartford-born dentist who pioneered using nitrous oxide).)

Adjacent to Bushnell Park stands the Connecticut State Capitol, where sadly I couldn't add to my 'visited state capitols' list since there were no tours this Sunday.

Still, I couldn't help but take a look around.

Construction of this building started in 1871 and was completed in 1878.

I'm not going to go into any further detail here since I will be back someday to take the interior tour. Hartford needs to and will be added to the list of state capitols I've visited and toured (current list: Sacramento, Oklahoma City, Albany, Austin, Springfield & Salt Lake City).

From where we walked around, it didn't seem like we got that much of a true Hartford feeling in terms of downtown buildings or neighbourhoods or where the Whalers used to play.

Regardless, it was a pleasant stroll and now I'm excited for the next time I have a few extra hours while passing through Connecticut.

The next stop was Worcester, for Taco Bell of course.

I laughed when this happened to be the random point when Isy's father called to catch up and she explained where we were - "Nous sommes dans un Taco Bell a Wustah Massachusetts"

Our evening was spent in Salem, which I thought Isy would appreciate. I also like being able to say I've seen popular places.

While Salem wasn't my cup of tea in terms of witch trials and spookiness and such, it was a nice Massachusetts town. I'd probably avoid the tourists if I was simply looking for a walk around a town with New England architecture and feel, but it was a pleasant surprise how much I enjoyed Salem.

Picked up some camping beers at The Bunghole.

The thing I was super excited for here was Winter Park, an island connected to the town by Salem Neck. Winter Park is home to old Coast Guard buildings, Fort Pickering, the Fort Pickering Lighthouse - as well as a campground amongst all of that.

With dreams of wandering Winter Island and checking out all the ruins then coming back to late night beers, I saw the forecast promised a bit of rain and purchased a rope and tarp at a store along the way.

Unfortunately, the intermittent showers ended up limiting our wanderings.

Only a few feet from our campsite was Waikiki Beach, which made me laugh.

I've been to the real Waikiki Beach, and this ain't it sweethaht, lol.

The two of us braved the increasing rains and cut through Fort Pickering to check out the lighthouse. We must've arrived right at high tide as I was surprised to find that access to the Fort Pickering Lighthouse was actually tidal. The water only looked a few feet deep at most, but I would just get up a few minutes early tomorrow to come back out and count it by my rules of needing to stand before every lighthouse.

Tonight, we posted up at the top of the rocks and enjoyed how few people were anywhere near us on this drizzly night. The mosquitoes were atrocious though - and that's me saying that, even though they tend to prefer Isy - but we managed to hang on long enough to appreciate the flashing of the lantern.

Back at the campsite, the damn mosquitoes killed the idea of erecting a rain shelter & instead we quickly dived into the tent.

Not wanting to bother Isy with getting up too early, I slipped out of the tent near daybreak so I could properly photograph & count Fort Pickering.

Massachusetts lighthouse #3!

Fort Pickering, or Winter Island, Lighthouse was built in 1871 and discontinued by the Coast Guard in 1969. The City of Salem would relight the lighthouse in 1983 as a private aid to navigation.

There used to be an elevated walkway from the grasses to the lighthouse door, but nowadays you have to wander out on to the rocks.

Back at camp, I was starting to get worried about time and getting to the airport, but I was also being lackadaisical for some odd reason. Eventually we'd pull out of Salem and I'd race down the US-1 through Swampscott and Lynn, seemingly hitting every red light as I stressed out about the time and the time of our flight to Boston.

Skipping out on gassing up the rental so we could catch our flight, we raced to the counter and they said we were too late. There was still 40 minutes though, so we worked trying to convince the check-in counter since we didn't want to reschedule our later flight for even later.

Eventually the ticket agent said we were free to try and make the gate, so we dashed away, racing through security but asking for no special favours. In the end? Boston's Air Canada gates weren't all that busy & we actually made it to our departure gate before they even announced the priority boarding class.

The one thing that didn't work out in our favour though, and I guess was a good & costly lesson to learn, was that you really should fill up your rental vehicle. The rental company doesn't make this a secret and I normally wave off their warnings and offers of filling it up for me, but today I paid the astronomical $/gallon rate they charge when they're inconvenienced and have to do it themselves. Which with all the gas we burnt in the van, this ended up as a $270 charge on our minor 24 hour car rental. Fack.

Anyway, at least the flights went smoothly and soon enough we found ourselves in the Ottawa Airport, Halifax Airport, and then back in Newfoundland.