Alexandersmap

    Tag: Connecticut

    • There’s Something About Connecticut

      There’s Something About Connecticut

      For the life of me I haven’t fully figured out Connecticut.  It’s a part of New England, but it’s also a big part of New York as well.  Nothing illustrates that more than the Red Sox-Yankees Mason-Dixon line that runs through the state.

      Connecticut exhibits some of the characteristics of New England – Beautiful old towns mixed with postcard views and a rich colonial history.  Litchfield County is to most people the most beautiful part of the state, but you can make a case for Windham or New London County too.  What turns most people off with Connecticut are the highways and associated traffic, and the cities, which have some lovely parts to them but some really run down parts too.

      Connecticut has that Yankee frugality co-mingling with that New York hustle.  It’s a place that’s hard to describe.  Look no further than that Connecticut accent.  It’s a mix of Boston and New York.  You know it when you hear it.  Or if you like, we can talk about the drivers.  Boston gets a bad rap, and deservedly so.  But Connecticut drivers are the worst.  They refuse to move out of the left lane on the highway no matter what their speed, unless of course they’re the other type of driver in Connecticut; the zig zaggers.  These drivers are bouncing between lanes at extremely high rates of speed relative to those around them.  Perhaps they’d stay in the passing lane if the former drivers would ever move over, but perhaps they just love the adventure of putting lives in danger.

      I lived in Litchfield County 24 years ago, and while the memories aren’t great, I do remember loving the 200 acre farm that I lived on.  We had a small apartment in an old farmhouse on a working farm.  Most everything associated with that time in my life is gone, and good riddance to it.  That experience, combined with some epic traffic over the years, may have jaded me.  I like the people, I like the scenery when you get out of the cities, and I’ve had some great moments there.  And yet there’s something about Connecticut…

    • March of the Giants: Roadside Paul Bunyan Statues

      March of the Giants: Roadside Paul Bunyan Statues

      An interesting phenomenon that I’ve seen in my travels around the northeast is a crop of Paul Bunyan statues sprinkled around the region.  I’ve seen them in Cheshire, Connecticut, Georgetown, Massachusetts, and Elmsford, New York.  I’ve seen pictures of one in Bangor, Maine.  Some of these, like the one in Elmsford, aren’t called Paul Bunyan, but “muffler man”.  But we all know it’s really a Paul Bunyan statue in disguise.

      These roadside curiosities are generally used to draw attention to a business.  And they do the job year in and year out.  Of those that I’ve run into, the statue in Cheshire is my favorite.  Not because it’s especially detailed, it’s more that its the first one I really paid attention to.  And there’s a great story of the guy who owns it sticking a flag pole in Paul’s hands because there was no restriction on the height of a flagpole but there was objection to the size of the statue when he originally put it up.  That’s a true yankee right there.

    • Sleeping Giant

      Sleeping Giant

      The Metacomet Ridge runs roughly along the Connecticut River from the Vermont border through Massachusetts and into Connecticut.  In that state, close to Long Island Sound in Hamden, is Sleeping Giant State Park.  This is a part of the Metacomet Ridge and for my money the most interesting formation in the entire ridge.  If you look at the ridge from the North or the South you can see what looks like a giant person lying down…. thus the name.

      This is considered a trap rock mount, made from flowing lava and forming a step formation.  In fact, much of the Metacomet Ridge is trap rock and geologically distinct from other mountains in New England.  The ridge was previously called the Traprock Ridge, which is more descriptive but not nearly as interesting.  The name Metacomet comes from Native American chief who fought with the colonists.  He’s better known as King Philip.

      This picture shows what the “head” of the giant and the upper torso.  Other vantage points offer up the entire body of the sleeping giant.  The foreground, is “progress” in the form of a Dunkin Donuts, liquor store, etc.  I’m sure there were better places to take this photo, but this was what I had to work with today.  The head is also known as Mount Carmel.  Right at the base of Mount Carmel is Quinnipiac University.  There was a time right before Sleeping Giant became a state park when there was an active quarry at Mount Carmel.  With the establishment of the park it ceased operations, thus protecting the park for forever being known as the Headless Giant State Park.

    • Alexander’s Map

      Alexander’s Map

      A new year, and a new pursuit; this blog.  So why the name?

      Alexander’s Map is a rare map published in 1624 to encourage colonization of the lands granted to William Alexander.  The map gives an early, if inaccurate, glimpse at this region that I’m so fascinated with.  Alexander’s Map stretches from present-day Massachusetts to Newfoundland to the northeast and Quebec (“New France”) to the north.  
      My blog will cover observations from living in this region, and will also include observations from as far west as Buffalo and as far south as New Jersey.  This is where I spend much of my time, and with so much history, food, sports and geological and cultural diversity to explore it will be fun to explore this in writing.  I hope you’ll enjoy the journey with me.