I left home late Friday evening – about 9:00 PM – much later than I planned. I drove for about 4 hours up to Pennington, New Jersey and stayed at a very rural hotel with about 25 acres of property. Nothing fancy, but very affordable (a characteristic much favored by grad students!). I pulled into the motel around 2 AM that morning and crashed! The next morning, I got up at about 9:30, packed up and drove over to Princeton. I always wanted to see the campus. It was very beautiful. While walking around, it struck me that there were no roads at all going through it. It made sense when I thought about it – much of it was built before the invention of cars – but still stuck me as different from what I’m used to. The architecture was fascinating – lots of gothic structures and some stone buildings that reminded me of what we had down at Virginia Tech, only not as nice… ;)
After strolling around campus a bit, I got back in my car and drove around until I found Einstein’s old house. It was a bit smaller than I expected. It made me think of Dr. Charles McKenzie at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, FL. I audited a “Philosophy of Science” class taught by him while I lived down there. He got his doctorate at Princeton and used to live two houses down from Einstein. He said he used to hear Einstein playing the violin in the summer when everyone had their windows open. How cool is that?
After leaving Princeton, I set out for Norwalk, Connecticut to go see one of my best friends from high school, Eve, and her family. I got a little turned around heading up there and arrived about an hour-and-a-half later than intended. It was fantastic to see Eve again – we hadn’t seen each other in about 10 years! It was also wonderful meeting her husband, Darren, and her son, Grady (same age and name as my nephew), for the first time. Grady was so cute! He is 2 years old and hardly has an ounce of shyness in his body! J Darren was great too. He’s a very nice guy and teaches high school English there in Connecticut. After Grady woke up from his nap, Darren and Eve showed me around Norwalk and the adjoining town. I’m not used to the New England environment and really enjoyed it.
After exploring around a bit, we went to a park near their house for dinner and Grady and I got hot dogs. (He likes them almost as much as I do!) While we were there, Eve and I got to reminiscing about how we used to go to get fast food when we were in high school. We liked fries from McDonalds, burgers from Burger King, and Frosties from Wendy’s, so we’d run to all three to make a meal. I had totally forgotten about doing that! (Another delicacy we used to go out for was Slurpees and chili-cheese-dogs.)
Eve and I caught each other up on our respective families and reminisced a lot more about old times and old friends and it got me thinking about people I haven’t thought about in far too long. I regret having lost touch with so many of them. I also got to thinking about how great Eve’s family had been to me over the years – even letting me stay with them for a week when my parents had to go up to Michigan when my Aunt Barbara (my Dad’s sister) was dying of cancer. I’m sorry to have let so many years go by without being in touch.
Sunday morning, we slept in a bit (well… I did anyway) and then they took me over to New Haven to go see Yale’s campus. It was very different from Princeton, but was also very beautiful.
If anything, I think Grady is a little too ready for the college life!
After going to Yale, we drove to visit Wesleyan College where a number of Darren’s students have gone. While it was no Princeton or Yale, the campus was still nice. On the way home, we stopped by Ikea so Grady could play in the kids section. I also got some good ideas for my new apartment while we were there. After Grady got a bath last night (and came out dressed in his totally awesome frog towel), I had to say good-bye to Darren (he was heading into work before I got up). I really enjoyed hanging out and talking with him and hope we have a chance to do so again. It’s really great to see Eve with such a wonderful husband and son.
This morning, I had to say good-bye to Eve and Grady. :( That made me very sad – I found a new little buddy to play with and it made it extra-tough to leave…
On my way out of town, I swung by CompUSA to pick up a new cell phone charger (I left mine at home – something I’ve never done before in all my travels). I then drove to “Abbott’s Lobster in the Rough” in Noank, CT for lunch, just outside of Mystic. Eve and Darren had strongly recommended it – for good reason! It was a very popular lobster place overlooking a New England bay packed full of sailboats at anchor. The food was absolutely delicious! I got their “famous hot lobster roll” – a quarter pound of pure lobster meat with melted butter on a toasted bun. As Grady would say, MMM!!! MMM!!! MMM!!! ;)
After lunch, it was just a few more miles before I hit Rhode Island, my 48th State! I drove into Providence and, not having any idea where I was going, took the first exit towards downtown. It turned out to get me exactly where I wanted to go. I parked just outside the campus of Brown University. While walking around campus, I got to go inside University Hall which was used as barracks by both the French and Americans during the American Revolution. After that, I went to First Baptist Meeting House, which was the first Baptist church in America, founded in 1638.
I then walked over to the Athenaeum, a private library where Edgar Allen Poe once tried to woo Sarah Helen Whitman, inspiring his poem Annabel Lee. It was a book-lover’s paradise!
I then walked to several other sights around Providence – probably getting in at least 4 or 5 miles of walking over the course of 4 hours. I then hopped back in my car and took off for Plymouth Rock! I’d never seen it before and realized it was along my route north. I couldn’t resist the chance to see it. It took me about an hour to get up to Plymouth from Providence. They also had a life-size reconstruction of the Mayflower. It was much smaller than I imagined. I arrived too late to be able to board it, but I was able to see it as the sun began to set behind it.
I had thought about continuing on to have dinner in Harvard Square tonight and see Harvard (to compliment seeing Princeton and Yale), but all the hostels in Boston were absolutely full. Instead, I decided to camp out at a KOA just outside of Plymouth where I am now.
This trip truly has been a blessing so far on many levels – seeing Eve and meeting her family, taking a nice-long break after prelims, finishing up the 50 States, and just relaxing and having some fun. I am also praying for this to be a time of much needed spiritual recharge for me – spending time in prayer, reading my Bible, and listening to some good sermons, music, and audiobooks on my iPod. If you think of it, please pray that this journey would help me to recharge – spiritually, mentally, and physically – before school starts up again next week.
My journey north continues tomorrow and I eagerly look forward to the what lies ahead! :)
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