The Connecticut "shore"

Okay, so my mom and dad are renting this house at the beach for two weeks, and mom really wanted us to come down a day, so we did Saturday night.

First things first....as you can see from this picture, Connecticut isn't exactly known for its beaches. Sure, there's about 100 miles of land along the Atlantic Ocean, but since Long Island sorta "blocks" the real ocean from abutting the state, we pretty much get a 10-mile wide bathtub. Waves are generally very small....and wow, lots of rocks. Not exactly the white sands of Aruba, let's just say. And the water never gets up much past 70 degrees (21 for you metrickers) so it's not anywhere near as good as say, a swimming pool.

The other reason I don't really like beach-vacations is the crowdedness. The shoreline was jammed tight with little lots each with a house on them....so there's no privacy, and you're lucky if you can drive in 3rd gear for any stretch. I much prefer going to a lake, like Maine or Vermont. The seclusion is better, and swimming in fresh water is better than salt water....except it's easier to float in salt water. I'd rather look out the windows and see mountains and nature, rather than rows of houses. That's too much like being at home!

Anyways, we missed our chance to go to a clam shack because they only took cash, and my dad didn't notice that the 2nd clam shack we passed DID take VISA. So we ended up going a little inland Saturday night for dinner to a regular restaurant. I had angel hair pasta with white clam sauce and shrimp. Totally floored my mom, who'd never seen me eat seafood in 36 years. Of course, three hours later all I could taste in my burps was the garlic. (Of COURSE an all-fried dinner woulda been cheaper, but hey, they were paying anyways!)

The little "beach association" had some sort of gala Saturday night on the water....a cheesy DJ playing gunk like the Macarena, and a bonfire that smelled like whatever had been loaded on the wooden pallets that they used to feed the fire. P-U. The some fireworks a little further inland....but not much further, wow were they loud. Tried to get some pictures, but who needs to see a bunch of blurry colored dots amidst a black sky? Not exactly moment-capturing. Oh well.