August 11, 2008

August 11, 2008

It rained all night and into the morning. Again! Every time it looks like it is going to let up, a downpour erupts. Finally when the Internet connection went bad we packed up and headed west into Connecticut to New Haven. New Haven is the home of Yale University. Our nephew, Ryan is going to school here, but he unfortunately hasn’t returned from his summer dig in Peru. So we are on our own. We stop at the Peabody Natural History Museum. Yale is known for some of the more famous archeologists (eg Hiram Bingham of Macchu Pichu fame) and paleontologists (eg Louis Leakey). We have run across Yale several times on our trips. On more than one occasion, we have been told Yale did the initial dig, only to be told the artifacts were packed up and sent to Yale for storage. We are here to see these artifacts at the Peabody Museum. I tried to use our nephew’s name for free entry…. unsuccessfully. The Peabody is a nice museum where we could spend most of the day. Unfortunately we are at a two-hour max street meter and it is raining so that is our deadline. We focus on the dinosaur bones and the Macchu Pichu artifacts and then take ten minutes to breeze thru the rest. We will have to come back when we can stay longer. To add to our wet misery, Connecticut has almost no RV parks, so we need to keep moving. I guess CT doesn’t like our kind.

We continue west stopping at Weir Farm National Historic Site. The farm is the former summer home of artist Julian Weir. Weir was one of the first American Impressionist painters. He had seen this new style in Paris in 1877 but dismissed it as a horrifying fad. He later joined the club. We arrive late in the day only to find it is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. Unaware we knock on the door and the off duty ranger lets us watch the film. We didn’t give the place its due but this place seems to be a stretch for a national park. I think it is another play for a government handout.

We spend the night in Fishkill, NY where we see the new Batman film, “Dark Night”. To our surprise, it was filmed in Chicago.