While we most definitely could’ve spent another couple days in in the Tarrytown/Sleepy Hollow area, our aggressive pre-planned itinerary and limited number of vacation days sadly prevented us from doing so. So, it was now off to Essex, Connecticut for us on the morning of our second day where we’d end up getting a real workout in!
It was about an hour and fifteen minutes from Sleepy Hollow to New Haven, Connecticut where while we didn’t stop at in the morning, we would later be spending the night. Essex was about forty minutes further and along our drive I was genuinely surprised to see just how densely populated and industrial Connecticut was. The corridor along Interstate 95 is quite urban and I guess I just wasn’t expecting that. This definitely isn’t a bad or good thing, just a thing I didn’t envision. As you’re about to see though, Connecticut was absolutely stunning in its beauty and definitely another place I’d happily return.
Melissa and Nancy striking a cute pose at the train station in Essex where we began that day’s journey.
Gangs all here!
This was an eight mile round trip railway bike excursion and we loved every single second of it! Prior to our trip, this was the event I was most looking forward to and it didn’t disappoint in the least! The scenery was absolutely gorgeous and we lucked out with some cool temperatures that helped us not overheat as we were really working ourselves!
Like I said, I was most looking forward to this, so I was also preparing for it! I spent several hours at the gym doing the stationary bikes that sat and rode in similar fashion, so my ass wouldn’t be sore for the next several days after this and it worked! No soreness for me, but I also think these railway bikes were pretty smooth and simplistic, so maybe I wasn’t ever going to get sore, but I didn’t know that when I was training!
Loved seeing these abandoned train cars along the way.
Peep the lady down the middle sporting my signature smile! Proud of her!
Loved these rock formations!
I always love a good tunnel! …at least I did till we got to Boston! Oof!
I bet if we were just one week later this corridor would’ve been lit up in reds, oranges, and yellows.
Me taking a photo of Charles taking a photo of us…
…the photo Charles captured of us. This EASILY one of my favorites of the entire trip! The smile on Melissa’s face just makes me so happy! We had such a wonderful day that day.
“All Aboard!”
Nancy and Kamber getting excited for our railroad journey!
There were two sets of tracks and I just loved when we would pass another train. What a rush!
This was the very train car that was used in the filming of “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull!” Harrison Ford sat on this train and Shia LaBeouf rode a motorcycle alongside it or something like that. I will definitely be going back to watch this movie, so I can see this scene unfold and know that we sat in the very same train car as “HAR-RI-SON FOOORD!”
Melissa just makes the cutest lil’ faces. Our conductor was so informative and knowledgeable and I really liked him, ESPECIALLY – and this is NOT a joke – after he complained to the other conductor about there being too many tourists and saying how we were all too early for the leaves. I was like, this my man. I be complaining about the customers at work all the time too, so his complaints about us really resonated with me, but in our defense, everything I saw said the last week of September was peak leaf peepin’ season! That wasn’t the case this year, more like the second week of October!
View of the Becky Thatcher Steam Boat we were about to board and cruise down the Connecticut River on!
Stunning.
That conductor’s complaints really helped me know that if I were to come back I’d want to do so at least a week later. October 2nd was apparently a week too early! I bet this view would’ve knocked me over with a feather had them trees of been all lit up in their fall foliage colors!
I was unaware that Mark Twain also resided in Hartford, Connecticut at some point in his life. I just always thought it was Hannibal, Missouri, clearly I thought wrong, so there was quite a bit of Mark Twain imagery around these parts, including the name of our steam ship.
This is Gillette Castle a twenty-four room mansion successfully made to resemble a medieval castle. William Gillette was an actor in the early 1900’s who famously portrayed Sherlock Holmes.
Literally Britney Spears is just like Jesus. Her imagery is everywhere you look and “Circus” being such a massive part of all that. I mean, when I was in South Dakota at the Corn Palace, the 2022 annual theme was “Circus” and now here in Connecticut they have a “Circus” themed train car!?! Both of this AFTER Britney was freed from her abusive conservatorship! SHE HAS RISEN! Clearly the world is rejoicing under the second coming of Godney! God Bless the Holy Spearit! Hallelujah. Amen.
Yale University! We took a haunted New Haven tour around town, but much of the town we went around was Yale’s sprawling campus and learned quite a bit about their dark and mysterious past. I truly loved this tour!
It was absolutely freezing out that night, which really added to the creepy and chilling ambiance of New Haven!
I would lowkey have loved to have been able to walk Yale during the day. I was just in love with their campus. This wasn’t no janky SIUE shit, this is a real school!
I was obsessed with this clock tower. Would love to be able to go up top!
It was just so cute here!
The building on their left is their student center, which caused us Kamber, Melissa, and I to all laugh out loud. We’re all VERY anti-SIUE, so seeing what a real school’s student center looked like was just awesome in comparison.
Speaking of comparisons. During my time at SIUE they would have these posters up around campus that read: “Harvard. Yale. Princeton. SIUE. We’re in good company.” I laughed at them in disgust back them and I still do so now, but they’ve stuck with me all these years. Now after walking around Yale campus, I feel personally offended for the students of this prestigious school that they were ever unbeknowingly to them compared to that junk heap of terror masquerading as a school.
This graveyard that was just off campus had a terrifying past where it is rumored – but never proven – that the school would harvest the bodies and do various experiments on them. That part remains to be certified, but this graveyard did bury people of all color, even back in the day, and when they went to do some ground work a few years back. They found in the minority section that bodies were stacked upon bodies in what they described as mass graves. This graveyard wasn’t that big, but they estimate that over 15,000 bodies are buried there because of this mass graving.
Our tour guide said people have caught spirits and such on their camera, so I made certain to take as many photos inside as I could. Alas, I didn’t catch a thing.
This was one of a handful of secret society buildings we saw on Yale campus. This one was directly across from the graveyard and was for the medical school. I definitely believe they were doing curious works on those corpses.
This park is said to be full of bad energy as several haunting and terrifying events have happened here. Most recently one hundred people died in this park at the same time from a bad strand of marijuana like five years ago or something quite recent like that. It’s history of bad haunts is legendary and they’ve found several bodies over time buried up underneath the trees, which is why we were advised not to stray from the path. No problem there.
Despite its sordid past, I did find the park to be quite beautiful and picturesque.
We opted to get crepes after our haunted walking tour and luckily for me and Kamber, this gave us even more steps, which put me at like 200% of my daily walking goal, so I was pumped! The other three… not so much.
I got a blueberry cheesecake crepe. It was totally fine.
Formerly the Hotel Duncan, the Graduate Hotel New Haven was absolutely wonderful and I would HIGHLY recommend it to anyone staying in the New Haven area! We loved it!
They even had these adorable bicycles you could rent to drive around town! I would happily of done so if we had just one more day! This city was precious and I can’t wait to come back!
Cute lil’ phone booth in our hotel lobby!
The silhouettes are all of famous people who’ve graduated from Yale! We recognized Bill and Hillary Clinton, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, and a handful of others. This was a really extraordinary touch we felt. Definitely added to the top tier ambiance of the vibe.
Well, there you have it, our day in Connecticut! Thank you all so much for viewing! These posts are taking me much longer to curate and prepare than I anticipated, but hopefully the next day will be out soon! Until then though, I wish you all, all the best!
More haunts and happenings from our New England vacation:
Working hard everyday towards achieving my goal of becoming an international best-selling author. Wrote the book, just need the agent and publisher. Received the ultimate endorsement when Britney Spears wrote me saying she'd be one of the first in line to buy my book! #FreeBritney
Was disappointed in that Indy film, but love all the others. Another great set of photos.
I only saw that particular Indiana Jones movie the once, so a rewatch is definitely in my future. Thank you! Definitely had fun taking them!