Capitol of Connecticut

Day 266
Jersey City NJ- Hartford CT

Noise. Chaos. Crowds. It's been fun and one heck of an experience, but alas our time in the city has come to an end. Good riddance I say. Over the last three weeks we have lived in Washington DC, Philadelphia (a bit in the country), and 4 nights in Jersey City. We are ready for a break from all the urban and are looking forward to going rural. For we are simple small town folk from the mid-west and enjoy watching the corn grow. You know the places. A porch you can sit on and when a car does come by you know which neighbor it is.  

It's not going to be that easy. The east coast is plenty crowded and it won't start to thin out unless we head north. Only the heartiest of people can live in a place that has cold weather on the regular. To get to those places we hit the highway and roll out of NYC. Now I'm going to need to you to brace yourself. New Jersey and New York are in cahoots to screw people out of money. There are only three ways out of the city that go east and each one is a toll. Two of them are tunnels. We are considered hazardous because of the propane and are not allowed in the sub subterranean holes. We cannot take parkways (urban highway) beacuse of height restrictions. Our options are limited down to two routes. Either we travel 70 miles of city streets to cross at a toll bridge that is $20 which is in the wrong direction, or we take the George Washington Bridge to Manhattan and through Brooklyn. Seriously sit down before you read this. The toll for the RV to cross the bridge and head east was.... $84. I know. I almost threw up too. It's $15 for a single car, and this bridge sees 800,000 vehicles a day. We had to pay to make it to Connecticut. Another state knocked out on our mission to see all 50. We arrive in Hartford late afternoon in a cold drizzle.

Penny gets parked and Shirley heads into town. This is the capitol of Connecticut which means it will have a free building to tour. Shirley gets parked and I see this sign on the way in. Your baby is safe with Batman.

Anyways, how about that free building? Yet another piece of east coast history. Construction completed in 1878 and was considered a great marvel of engineering for the young nation. Atop of the dome was a 7,000 pound bronze sculpture of Genius of Connecticut. An astute eye will notice there is no bronze sculpture on top of the dome now. It was scrapped for the war effort during WW2, melted down and turned into ammunition. 

We were not prepared for what awaited us inside. The house was in session along with a trade fair of #madeinconnecticut. Businesses from around the state showed off locally made goods to schmooze with politicians. Katie and I walked around completely out of place. We were the only people in jeans and hoodies.

Jeans and hoodies are fine by me. I know who I am and where I come from. I'm a guy living in an RV traveling the country. Sometimes that means sleeping in a Cabela's parking lot to make our dreams come true. This is life on the road.