Branford, CT

Good Evening,

We arrived in Branford here yesterday afternoon and grabbed some lunch on Main Street at a bagel sandwich shop. Half way through lunch the sky grew grey and storm was settling over us. In moments the rain flooded the streets. It was nice to be inside and dry and filling our bellies.

I went to bring the car closer while the rest finished lunch. On my way back from parking the car I ran into a local. Henry, and older gentleman that took his time while he walked and frequently attended to his pipe and tobacco. He saw my Red Sox hat shielding me from the rain as he took for cover outside the bagel show. He put out his hand and asked firmly "You like the Red Sox?"
In Connecticut there's a lot more Yankee logo's than Boston B's. He and I chatted a bit about the Sox.

From lunch we headed out int the now sprinkling rain to see what Main street had to offer us for the week. Further down Main we saw a paint your own pottery studio. A perfect place to kill a rainy hour before meeting our renters at 3:00. J, Elle, Nancy and Maurie all painted... I took pictures with J's new digital camera. Ellie painted a Lion mug, a shell dish and M&N shared the duties of painting a sunflower dish. We enjoyed the owner of the shop who was super friendly and even told us as we were leaving to stop by during the week if we had any questions about the area... Cool!

We arrived at the house to meet Audrey who showed us the wonderful house we'd be spending the week at. After the tour and getting settled in , Ellie and I walked down the street to the community beach. We spent some time throwing rocks into the water and J found shells. As we were getting ready to move on a red bearded man entered the beach with a Branford Parks t-shirt on. Thinking he was official and some sort of a park ranger I started to speak to him (Steve). Turns out he's a local and we started talking a bunch. As we started to move on our way he asked if I liked mussels..... Ah Yea, sure do! So he invited me to join him to harvest some mussels from the seaweed drenched shore. He showed me what to do and I took about 8 home to steam and share with Maurie as our appetizer. They weren't bad at all! It was such a treat and to be invited on our first day here was welcoming and a wonderful start to our week as neighbors!

For the rest of the day we unpacked, took it easy and grilled steak tips and hamburgers on the charcoal grill.

J and I are now sharing photo duty's now that she has her own camera. So I'll be uploading her pix soon.

FYI. We don't seem to have consistent web access here so I'm currently using a weak open wireless network in the neighborhood.... sshhhhh don't tell. So I'll post updates when I can.

G'Nite