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Back from the Dead – Connecticut, USA Update

Back from the Dead – Connecticut, USA Update

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It’s been nearly one month since we returned to the USA, and we haven’t posted once!

Sorry about that.

We took a break from posting in the month since returning, focusing instead on reconnecting with family and friends in and around Connecticut. But now that we are wrapping up our time visiting, I figured I should bring the blog back from the dead and update everyone on what we have been up to during the month of September.

Family, Friends, and Frolicking

It has been a whirlwind of a month! One of those kinds of months where it doesn’t feel like you accomplished much, but in hindsight, you did a lot!

We’ve been staying with my parents during the month of September. And during that time we’ve been helping out with lots of little things around the house.

Pine cones in the yard are the enemy.
Seems like there are always another 4 trash barrels full to pick up!

That, as well as performing IT, cooking, and taxi driver duties when needed.

Also, since quite a few of my relatives live within a couple of hours of us, we’ve had opportunities to see them!

back from the dead two travel turtles
Back home again with my parents!
And thanks to my brother Dan for bringing us home from Boston.
back from the dead two travel turtles
Almost right away we had a get-together with some of our Rhode Island and Boston relatives!
Post-dinner picture with some of my stepdad’s side of the family.
Step-brothers Chris (far left) and Jeff (far right), with Chris’ wife Linda.
It was great that my nephew (Peregrine) and niece (Piper) came to visit.

We also have been able to explore the local area.

As usual, we walked our neighborhood trails on a near-daily basis. But we also explored a number of other cool areas in our part of Connecticut.

The old mill dam waterfalls at the Belding Wildlife Management Area were running strong, due to recent rains.
This Great Blue Heron was posing for us along the Tankerhoosen River.
And this garter snake didn’t seem to mind all that much when we hiked around it. Must have been cold.
Turtles at Valley Falls Park.
Fox Hill Tower was looking stately.
And the view of Rockville down below was nice too!
We were able to see a raptor presentation at the Rockville Public Library.
back from the dead two travel turtles
We hiked to lookouts at the Andrew Kenneth Webster Preserve.
Bolton Notch State Park had lovely lake and forest trail views.
Cool overlook rock graffiti at Bolton Notch State Park, easily visible from the nearby highway.

We’ve been having a really great time and are thankful we’ve stayed hiking fit!

We even made time to see the Beyond King Tut multimedia exhibition in Hartford, a birthday present from my parents.

There were 9 exhibit rooms, each explaining various aspects of the royal culture and history of ancient Egypt, as well as the Tutankhamun excavation back in the 1920s.
The 360-degree multimedia presentations were great!
But it made picking the best place to sit a bit of a problem. 🙂

Pretty cool! But it paled in comparison to the actual artifacts that came to New York City back in 1980.

And afterward, we visited the Hartford Riverwalk area, which was right next door.

Looking down on the riverwalk.
Neat bridge arches, going under I-84.
So cute!

We also stayed for a couple of nights at a family friend’s cottage up in Bridgeton, Maine.

A lovely spot to hang out.
Taking mom out for a row.

And of course, we caught up with my old high school and college friends from back in the day.

We had lunch with my college friends Mike and Anne in Boston.
Just after an afternoon of gaming with my old high school friends, Brad, Kirk, Rich, and Jeff. It was like it was 1987 all over again!
And our timing coming back to the USA was so good we were able to attend Brad’s wedding ceremony. His new wife Julie looked lovely!
And of course, spending more time with my friends at the wedding was icing on the cake!

It is always a great time seeing everybody.

And my apologies to Dave, Greg, and Jaimie for forgetting to take pictures during our time together! 🙁

We also made a travel gear resupply, replacing technology and clothes as needed.

For example, we had to replace one dead Chromebook. We also had to replace several cell phones, an iPad, and another Chromebook, all of which were at the end of the manufacturer’s operating system support life cycle.

Needless to say, the September budget report is going to be brutal. Thankfully, we had a budgetary surplus at the end of our first year of travel, so hopefully, that will soften the blow.

So What Now?

As I write this, we are gearing up to drive a rental car to upstate New York to see our friends in the Finger Lakes region for about a week. This was the last place we had a permanent home, so it will be great to see old friends!

And then we are flying to Southwest Ohio to visit Rhonda’s family during October. And hopefully, we will be able to visit our group of friends from our Miami University grad school days. The last time we saw them, it was quite the experience!

Ohio peeps, drop us a line if you want to get together!

We’ve also made headway on bookings for our planned 6 months in Mexico, starting in November 2023. And it looks like the Workaway volunteer experience we were hoping to get in the Galicia region of Spain (the village of Taboada, specifically) is a GO for May and June, 2024!

After that, the plan is to stay in Europe during July and August 2024, then come back home in September 2024 to visit again.

Year 2 has filled up quickly!

Kind of scary.

We’ll see if my posting frequency picks up during our Ohio phase, but don’t be surprised if it is similar to our Connecticut phase. It is kind of nice to put the computer down and focus on what’s near us for a spell.

But we promise that when our trip to Mexico nears, we will start regularly cranking out the posts again!

Until next time…

Thanks for reading!

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