Mystic day 3

The next morning, Josh had to be on duty from 8 am til the following day at 8 am. They take 24 hour duty shifts.  He invited us to visit him to at work later in the day, but we had the morning and part of the afternoon to explore. Josh had told us about the best bakery in the country called, Sift. We decided to go there for breakfast, and get lunch to go.  It was amazing. We ate way more than we should have and promised to go back often.  This visit, our first of 3 visits in six days, we got a delicious, tall, sticky pecan cinnamon roll with caramelized pecans, a braided yeasty roll covered with cinnamon and sugar, and some buttery, very buttery croissants, 2 ham and cheese for Tammy and Josh and one vegetable and cheese for me. We also had some good coffee. People walk their dogs everywhere downtown. They even have rings outside to tie your dog while you go in an pick up your order. And  no one reacts like they had never seen a dog before. They can walk with their dog as part of their family and not have strangers try to pet their dog while ignoring the person at the other end of the leash.  After Sift, we drove south to Ocean Beach, a beach town in Connecticut. The drive was beautiful. The houses and landscape are exactly what you would expect New England to be. We explored a beach where a river ran into the ocean. It was neat to walk up the river a bit, follow it down to the beach and watch it join the ocean. The beach had a huge boardwalk with an amusement park and a couple restaurants and a giant parking lot. I bet it is packed in the summer. In the winter, everything is closed, parking was free, and there were just a few people there. Once we got too cold to explore the beach, we got in the car and drove back to Mystic. It was time to meet Josh at work. We went on base again (thank you husband David) and met him at the bowling alley. He took us into the secure area and brought us to his workplace (submarine). We left all phones/ cameras in the car and he took us out to the sub, introduced us to a few of his shipmates and gave us a tour of the sub. Wow. How do they not fall and get hurt. The top is rubberized, but not flat. You walk along the top and around the fin that sticks up to get to the entry hatch. There is a cable below the walkway that you are supposed to catch if you fall, but it is about halfway between you and the water, a long way down. The goal is not to go in the water. Once you get to the entry hatch, you have to get onto the ladder that goes down into a hole. Little tiny metal steps go down to a secret, machine run world. There were few people on duty when we were visiting, but I could imagine how crowded it would get when everyone was on board. They must have strict rules of politeness to be able to get along when confined to such a tight space for long periods of time. All the sailors, except the top ranking officers, even have to share bunks, no space of their own. Josh knows his submarine well and told us what he could about it. He even told us some travel stories. Eventually, we had to climb back out. Going up wasn't as bad and going down, and neither of us fell. I sure would have hated being the family member who fell off the sub while it was in port. Fortunately, that hasn't happened yet. Once Josh went back to work, Tammy and I decided to explore the nature center that was near our hotel. More hiking in the cold. It was beautiful walking in the woods full of fallen leaves, big rocks, and occasional ice. The center does some wildlife rehabilitation and they have a few birds of prey that couldn't be released. I like watching owls. They also do a lot of education for children. We went to dinner at a pub Josh recommended. The waitress wasn't great but the food was good. I forgot what we ate, but we watched it get dark out the window. I guess it was a sunset, the sky was pretty but not really colorful like Florida and Texas sunsets. 

I put a lot of pictures in these Mystic posts. I understand completely why Josh so loves the area. What I am posting is only a tiny bit of the photos and videos. Eventually I will do a longer video combining all the short ones and a huge album with many of the photos. That will wind up on my website when I get to it.