MYSTIC CONNECTICUT

The movie, Mystic Pizza, was named after this intriguing place that is not recognized by the State as a community. Its actually part of Stonington and Groton. Maybe that's why it is "Mystic". Jim's daughter-in-law grew up here and she and his son were married here.  Wikipedia has a long history about the place if you wish to click on this link. There seems to be a strong arts community judging from the galleries.
.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystic,_Connecticut

 Part of their history was boat building and shipping.

 Its a pretty town with a delightful harbor and nice restaurants. Swans are an imported species used to eat up some of the invasive algae troublesome in the shallows where the river meets the sea.

 A draw bridge, built in 1922, lifted for a couple of passing boats. It moves about 2200 boats through in a year. We watched as a couple of pedestrians, giggling, scooted under the gates after the whistle blew and crossed over in a hurry.

 The counter weights, there are two of them, weigh 260 tons each. Kind of amazing to see them up in the air and to walk under them.

 It was hot yesterday when we arrived and we walked around town from one air conditioned store to the next. Our goal was to visit the largest Maritime Museum in the World today, but, yesterday and this morning proved so hot and muggy we are moving on to his son's house where we can plug in to air conditioning instead of running the noisy generator. The museum will wait for another year.
We were so lucky to have stopped in the gallery of Jeffrey P'an, a glass blower. His work is different than anything I've seen. Exquisitely beautiful, different, and fragile.

Regrettably, I only took  a few pictures of his exquisite art. There is a video of him working at this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjX9c5fSsrM

  The difference in his blown glass and others is that he makes his own rods of glass, then melds a pre-designed mosaic of the glass before shaping it into a piece. Amazing work. He has a gallery in Stonington as well. He can be found all over the web. info@prescientstudios.net

Headed for the water for a breeze, we found the old Mystic Lighthouse. I found a picture of one of the only women known to be a whaler. She consistently worked with her husband whaling. She had no children so they worked together. This little museum held a lot of stuff. I enjoyed the tools from ice making-

and a story about an eccentric guy named Hancox.

From the lighthouse tower I took a picture of Jim trying to cool off in the shade of a tree. He suffers more than I do with the heat. The museum was not air conditioned.

For a link to other pictures, click below:
http://picasaweb.google.com/1579penn/8410Mystic#