Photoblog: October 2004 Archives

Although this blog is about my life in Brooklyn, I've been taking more trips out of the borough than usual since I started it. My latest took me and D. to New London, Conn., to visit my good friend V. Such a different world outside the city. We spent a couple hours on Saturday walking the beach and watching V. learn to surf. We ate at an excellent little Mexican restaurant that lets you bring your own margaritas! I kid you not, we mixed our own at home in a tupperware jug, brought it to the restaurant along with some ice, and they provided the glasses. Two of them wrecked me for the night and I had no one to blame but myself!

Sunday we took a beautiful drive to Devil's Hopyard State Park, I say beautiful drive because the drive was almost more breathtaking than the walk. We passed by old red barns framed in bright yellow trees, and white houses framed in fire-red ones. Tiny lakes held the reflection of the green, yellow, red and orange leaves at their shores. The walk was nice, too, even though we didn't find the scenic vista.  It's amazing how a little bit of space will clear your head, even if you did overdrink on the tequila. In fact, the strange thing about the after-effects of drinking is that they were held at bay throughout the entire afternoon until we went to this tiny little hidden seafood shack in New London.

I don't know if it was the clam fritters, the New England clam chowder or the lobster roll that did it, but we all totally crashed after that meal. Oh, and on the way back from the park we stopped at a roadside stand and picked up some fresh baked raisin and white bread, some just-picked Macoon apples and some sweet corn. YUM!

They come in all shapes and sizes, masquarading as totally sane or totally insane. And you never know who is who. Saturday, Dennis and I checked out a festival put together by the Madigascar Institute. A group of 20, 30, 40 and perhaps even 50-somethings gathered and began a short march to a moveable color sculpture hanging above a patch of grass. They marched to the beat of their own music (quite literally). It was unclear what the dragon head (mouse head?) that's not pictured would be used for. Would it somehow be attached to the railroad tracks inside the above-ground tunnel? We left before it was unveiled.

No, not the Mick-e-dees arches, silly, the arches at El Morro in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Ya know, that extra "state" we keep around so that U.S. drug companies will have a tax-free place to produce copius amounts of drugs that may or may not benefit our health? D. and I spent the last three, er, four days--thank you then-tropical storm Jeanne--of our honeymoon  in and around San Juan. Not being a fort person, I felt a bit reluctant about the visit to the more than 400-year-old historic site. The 95ish degree heat and a strange bubbly rash that formed on my arms near the end of the trip didn't help, either. Still, the power of history can flow from inanimate objects, and this stately fort imprinted its share of history on my mind. Perhaps most memorable came when I dashed into an air-conditioned series of rooms that served as a museum for the site. Inside a group of *very* American elderly tourists milled about, discussing the fort. One of the older guys, a veteran, related how waaay back in the day the soldiers at El Morro figured out how to skip hot cannon balls across the water and right into the wooden ships to set them on fire. Pretty ingenious, and it kept the fort sound until 1898 when the U.S. invaded during the Spanish-American war. Another telling photo inside the museum was the U.S. soldiers using one of the great lawns in front of the fort to play golf.  Below is a famous sculpture in Old San Juan depicting (I believe) the Spanish conquistadors. I'm sure D. would find it amusing if I included the photo of me straddling the cannon, but I can't quite seem to find it ...