More maritime culture.

Doug and I were thinking about starting a new blog this weekend, a joint venture that focused on food and daytrips, two of our favorite things. We love getting in the car and just driving somewhere. We tend to stay in New England, especially now that we are old and gray, but at some point we may venture past these New England boundaries. What doesn't seem to change, though, is our desire to eat cheap, unhealthy food while on these road trips. We don't really actively seek out dives, and we don't actually ever eat in those kinds of places, and we don't go for fast food for the most part. We try to catch some kind of local flavor while on the road, and usually this ends up meaning a greasy spoon or a local joint of some sort. Since we at least once a month take a trip like this (seems like more often this fall... maybe it's because our weekends are ours again and don't belong to trips to Connecticut), we thought it might be a good idea to document our travels and review our eats in a blog just for that purpose. We nixed that idea, though, since this is what our blogs really end up being at the end of the day, so I guess people truly interested in our travels or in the food we eat will just have to sift through the other posts to get to the good stuff.

Good stuff: Yesterday we hit up Mystic Seaport. We wanted to go for a road trip yesterday that would take us somewhere near the water, and somewhere near some kind of interesting local food. We immediately thought of Cape Cod, as we HAVE NEVER BEEN there since living together again in Massachusetts these four years now. Seems weird, huh? We just don't tend to drive the car in that direction. So we were going to make the Cape Cod National Sea Shore in Eastham our destination, with Arnold's our choice for dinner, but it's closed for the season. We then thought Sundae School, but that's also closed, as is the Cape Cod Potato Chip factory tour (closed on weekends... can you believe that?). Cape Cod with its seasonal attractions was reluctantly scratched from our list, and we quickly put together plan B, which was to drive down to Mystic, Connecticut, to see if the Seaport seemed like a place we'd want to go. We drove the hour and a half it took to get there and, despite the slightly high admission charge and cool mist falling, decided to give it a go.

I've visited Mystic Seaport maybe 4, 5 times total in my lifetime, but it never changes, and this is not a bad thing. The Seaport is a recreation of a New England shipping town, not unlike Old Mystick, and you can visit the period pharmacist's shop, grocer, caner, blacksmith, bank, captain's house, school, chapel, etc., etc. There are real tall ships, too, to walk on and investigate. The prize of Mystic is the Charles W. Morgan, a whaling ship built in 19th century New Bedford. We didn't get to see this ship, as it's out of the water for a 3 and a half year restoration project, but we did get to climb aboard the Dunton, a commercial fishing ship from the early twentieth century (it still smells like fish). It was a good visit, though some of the buildings were closed for the season. Reinforced Doug's current interest in maritime history and culture, though, so that was good - at least our drive was worth it! Here are some highlights of the day:

Here's a view of the Mystic River, on which the Seaport sits. It was a particularly gray and misty day, one right out of a New England storybook. We wanted to eat a big bowl of chowder, or at least thought we should. It was that kind of a day.

Here I am driving the Dunton. Doug did most of the driving that day, so I was happy to do my part here.

We saw the Amistad, which was parked here at Mystic. Here's Doug standing near it. By the time we noticed that the Amistad was available for tour Doug's tummy was screaming for eats, so his desire to actually go on the ship was minimal. We'll save that for next time.

Doug's tummy brought us into the town of Mystic itself, and we decided to eat at Mystic Pizza. Was it a bowl of clam chowder? No, but it is local eats, and that's what we were after. Here's a shot of the pizza, which wasn't as bad as I thought it would be (after all, Mystic Pizza is known for the movie, not for the pizza, right?)

The Mystic Pizza decor certainly played up the movie. On a flat-screen TV in the back of the main dining room, the Mystic Pizza movie plays continuously. I had a great view of Julia Roberts' giant '80s hair all evening. Doug, on the other hand, had a view of Owen Wilson's lips. What does the Starsky & Hutch remake have to do with Mystic Pizza? Nothing, but Doug seems to be fond of Owen, so that's all that matters.

All in all, a satisfying meal, a good trip, and plenty of new blogging material. I think Doug might be in charge of posting actual food/restaurant reviews, and in that sense we can have a joint blogging project, but in the end we both barely have the time to spend blogging in our own blogs - how would we have time for a third? That was a crazy idea, and I'm glad we talked ourselves out of it.