Day 36 – Rhode Island’s South County Coast and New Haven Connecticut

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Day 36 of a Year Long Road Trip Along America’s Scenic Byways

Misquamicut State Beach

What an action packed day!  I started out at Misquamicut State Beach and ended in New Haven, Connecticut.  At Misquamicut State Beach, the seas were as calm as I’ve seen for days. With barely any surf, if it weren’t for the blue horizon of water and sky, it could have been mistaken for a tranquil pond! The three-mile beach abuts the oceanside community of Weekapaug featuring gingerbread-style beach houses that was equally as quiet this morning.

As the dogs and I walked along the beach strew with sea stars, it was clear the still morning was the calm after the storm.  While there weren’t as many geocaches as sea stars on the Misquamicut State Beach, I still found two caches of a series.  One was hidden in the brush across the street while another was magnetically attached to a “No Parking” sign. 

Watch Hill

After our walk at Misquamicut State Beach, I traveled a few miles down the road to Watch Hill, a lovely seaside resort.  Most of the stores were closed for the season, but the sandy path along a peninsula jutting over a mile into the ocean to Napatree Point was magnificent.  Reader’s Digest describes this location as one of the best beach walks in Rhode Island, and I have to agree. 

I walked/jogged the trail to wear out the dogs, as I knew they would be spending the afternoon in VANilla.  The view to my left was a red roofed lighthouse on the rocky shore, while the view to my right was grassland dunes.  To make the walk even better, I found a cache hidden on the other side of the dune nearby a salty marshland.

Yale University in New Haven

After a morning on beaches, I headed to New Haven to spend an afternoon with my stepdad’s college roommate.  We had a busy afternoon touring Yale and the surrounding area.  An ex-student and current fellow, Bill took me through several areas of the campus that I would not have known I could enter or that required an access card.  Our first stop was McClellan Hall, part of the freshman quad, where my stepdad, Bart, and Bill spent their first year away from home.

Thereafter, we walked past Harkness Tower, through the Branford College courtyards, the Saybrook College courtyards, the Trumbull College courtyards (Bart ‘s and Bill’s home as upperclassmen), and the Berkeley College courtyards.  Each College contains a dining hall, a library, and living quarters. The upper classmen are assigned a college and remain in that college through graduation. 

At the time Bart and Bill attended Yale, the dorms simply consisted of stairwells with a suite off each side including a living area with a fireplace and two bedrooms sleeping four men.  The residence halls didn’t have any corridors like most other college dorms.

Other Points of Interest on Campus

Other points of interest on the campus that we visited included the Women’s Table (a granite fountain inscribed with the chronology of years and how many women attended Yale in graduate school until the campus became co-ed in 1970), the Yale Center for British Art which housed some outstanding oil paintings, the Sterling Memorial Library, the Law School, and the Beineke Rare Book Library.  A rare copy of the Gutenberg Bible encased in glass can be found in the Beineke Rare Book Library, an addition built with translucent marble walls in the 1960’s.  Next to the glass case, is a phone number that may be called to hear a translation of the open pages displayed in the Bible.

Stone Carved Figurines

The stone carved figurines in the library corridors and along the windows of the Law School were especially funny to me.  Yale, built in the 1930’s, has a gothic appearance, and I would have passed by the figurines like they were any other gargoyle.  Not so!  One of the stone carvings in the library was of a college student holding a book open to pages with the inscription U. R. A. JOKE. (Text started a long time ago)!  Each side of the law school window sill was cornered with a policeman figurine with criminals and justice in between.  The campus was chock full of clever and beautifully handcrafted architecture.  I can’t imagine how anything similar could be built today.

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East Rock

Following our tour of Yale, we enjoyed a tasty lunch before driving to the top of East Rock, one of the two rocks between which New Haven is settled.  The rock offered a view of New Haven, the town’s harbor, Long Island, and Long Island Sound.  After taking in the view atop the rock, we ventured back to Bill and Julie’s house, picked up the dogs, and walked across the street to East Rock Park and College Woods.

East Rock Park and College Woods

We walked along the trail and across a footbridge, stopping a few times to photograph the fall colors and rocky cliffs.  The College Woods, once used by Yale to harvest firewood, was home to a another cache.  Bill found my description of geocaching interesting, so we set off on a hunt for an ammo can.  The area, canopied with trees, wreaked havoc on my GPS reading, so that I could only narrow down the search area to about 60 feet!  It took a little while to find, but we were successful, so he knows this activity does actually exist.

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Frank Pepe

After only a short time at home visiting with Julie, Bill’s wife, we dined at Frank Pepe, a New Haven pizza restaurant established in 1925 and an old Yale hangout.  At 6:40 pm, with over 30 tables in service, a line of 10 people formed out the door!  We ran into some of Bill and Julie’s neighbors, Barbara and John, and combined to one table for only a 15 minute wait.  It was busy day and lovely evening! By the time I sat down to blog, it was ten o’clock. ETB

Map of My Road Trip Across the USA

For a summary about my road trip across the USA, click HERE. For the interactive map, see the below link.

Other Articles About Connecticut and Rhode Island That You May Like

• Day 35 – Rhode Island’s South County Coast
• Day 37 – Connecticut”s Litchfield Hills
• Day 38 – Connecticut’s Litchfield Hills – Part 2

Shop

Check out the photographic note cards and key chains at my shop.  Each card has a travel story associated with it.  20% of proceeds are donated to charity.

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