Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
PerhapsIwasexpecting toomuch.Inthemoviesinthe1940speoplewerealwaysgoingto
Connecticut for the weekend, and it always looked wonderfully green and rustic. It was al-
waysfullofemptyroadsandstonecottagesinleafyglades.Butthiswasjustsemisuburban:
ranch houses with three-car garages and lawns with twirling sprinklers and shopping cen-
ters every six blocks. Litchfield itself was very handsome, the quintessential New England
town,withanoldcourthouseandalongslopinggreenwithacannonandamemorialtothe
war dead. On one side of the green stood pleasant shops and on the other was a tall, white,
steepledchurch,dazzlingintheOctobersunshine.Andtherewascolor-thetreesaroundthe
green were a rich gold and lemon. This was more like it.
I parked in front of MacDonald Drug and crossed the green through a scuffle of fallen
leaves. I strolled along residential streets where big houses squatted on wide lawns. Each
was a variation on the same theme: rambling clapboard with black shutters. Many had
wooden plaques on them pertaining to their history—OLIVER BOARDMAN 1785; 1830
COL. WEBB. I spent over an hour just poking around. It was a pleasant town for poking.
Afterwards I drove east, sticking to back highways. Soon I was in the suburbs of Hartford,
andtheninHartforditself,andtheninthesuburbsontheothersideofHartford.AndthenI
wasinRhodeIsland.IstoppedbesideasignsayingWELCOMEToRHODEISLANDand
stared at the map. Was that really all there was to Connecticut? I considered turning back
and having another sweep across the state-there had to be more to it than that-but it was
getting late, so I pressed on, venturing into a deep and rather more promising pine forest.
Considering Rhode Island'smicroscopic size it seemed totake me ages tofindmywayout
of the forest. By the time I hit Narragansett Bay, a heavily islanded inlet which consumes
almost a quarter of the state's modest square mileage, it was almost dark, and there were
lights winking from the villages scattered along the shoreline.
At Plum Point a long bridge crossed the sound to Conanicut Island, which rode low and
dark on the water, like a corpse. I crossed the bridge and drove around the island a little,
but by now it was too dark to see much. At one place where the shore came in near the
road, I parked and walked to the beach. It was a moonless night and I could hear the sea
before I could see it, coming in with a slow, rhythmic whoosh-whoosh. I went and stood at
the waters edge. The waves fell onto the beach like exhausted swimmers. The wind played
at my jacket. I stared for a long time out across the moody sea, the black vastness of the
Atlantic, the fearsome, primordial, storm-tossed depths from which all of life has crawled
and will no doubt one day return, and I thought, “I could murder a hamburger.”
In the morning I drove into Newport, America's premier yachting community, home of the
America'sCupraces.Theoldpartoftownhadbeenfixedupinrecentyears,bythelookof
