May 25-26 - Cheshire, CT

"...you will never regret not having passed one more test, not winning one more verdict or not closing one more deal. You will regret time not spent with a husband, a friend, a child, or a parent." –Barbara Pierce Bush

We love our new home in Ithaca. We like being close to our family, we enjoy all the activities in the area, we really like the temperature here in the summer, no biting bugs and there are so many places to explore. Did I mention the grandkids live close...we really love that. The only downside is not running into old cruising friends on the water. The only way to see them now is to visit them by car, so this past weekend we drove up to Connecticut to visit the crew of Amici. We haven't seen them since last April.

No trip to New England would be complete without lobster and Ted made sure we had plenty of lobster to eat...in fact they probably were the biggest lobsters we've ever seen. Our whole weekend was fantastic...great conversations, great food...great friends. 

Pizza is a big thing in New Haven, CT. Their style is Neapolitan pizza, locally known as apizza. It originated at the Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana and is now served in many other pizza restaurants in the area, most notably Sally's Apizza and Modern Apizza. We went to Pepe's for lunch today and we at Modern's when we were here years ago...hard to say which is the best.

Our selection for lunch today were white clam pie and a margarita pizza...they were huge and very good.

We met some other cruising friends at Stony Creek Brewery in Branford in the afternoon...we had fun catching up with them, but it was very crowded since it was such a beautiful day. Summer has arrived in New England and everyone was out enjoying the sun.

Circle of Friends - Susie, Stan, Noel, Robin, Ted and Sally

Before we headed back to the boat on Sunday we stopped at Lock 12 Historical Park in Cheshire, it's part of a multi-use trail that was once the Farmington Canal. The canal was also known as the New Haven and Northampton Canal, which was a private canal built in the early 19th century to provide water transportation from New Haven into the interior of Connecticut, Massachusetts and beyond. The canal only operated from 1828 to 1848, then trains became the preferred form of transportation. At that time it was it was converted to a railroad. Lock 12 is the only restored lock remaining today, but the Farmington Canal Heritage Greenway covers a route of approximately 84 miles from  New Haven, CT to Northampton, MA. Over half has been developed as a paved trail for non-motorized recreation and commuting.