On Saturday my friend and I were to take a ride on the riverboat on the Connecticut river. It had not run since 2019 due to covid. We planned to get fun things for a picnic as they have a nice picnic area by the dock. And then go and see what we could find for tag sales.
I’d been too exhausted from the butter ordeal to check listings for tag sale addresses on Friday. And on Saturday morning I spent 2 hours cleaning up the greasy mess from Friday’s butter making. The kitchen is a good deal cleaner than it’s been in awhile. But I had no time to look for listings, so we were just going to wing it.
She picked me up at 7:45AM and we went to our co-op. She got a chicken salad on croissant sandwich and mozzerella balls, tomato and basil plus a bag of organic cherries. I got chips, peaches, Jarlsburg cheese, and kale salad.
We’d seen 2 tag sale signs on the way to the market, but my town, for some reason, doesn’t start tag sales before 9AM. We swung by to see where they were and then went to my house again. I’d forgotten my disability placard for parking and we had things to leave in the fridge and fruit to wash.
Then we headed back to the tag sales as it was close to 9AM. The first was an estate sale and one can find amazing things at those. And it was on my town’s main street with all the real old houses. So I had high hopes, but alas, there was little I would have taken as most of what was displayed was obviously things the auctioneer or dealers had discarded because of damage and was far overpriced.
So we went to the second one and I found a cane for use on the new cellar stairs and a stairs basket.
So we went north along the routes where people typically put out signs or have sales but we didn’t see anything. We were halfway to the riverboat site when we found a sign and ended up at a tag sale where I got a DVD and the book that sparked it. I also got the oversized milk crate.
A stop for gas and we headed for the riverboat. The placard came in handy as we were able to park about half way down the hill. It would be a shorter climb back to the car.
We were the first ones there and the crew was just heading down to the boat. They said we could bring our picnic so we did. I got lots of nice photos but they were deleted in a brainfogged attempt to get them onto my computer.
We have been on the riverboat many times but in the past it was a lovely old wooden boat. That was sold during covid and went to Florida where the new owners are restoring it. So we had a modern metal and plastic one for our ride.
The crew said there were only 12 people signed up, so we’d have lots of room to move from side to side to see things.
The first thing was passing the French King rock. When French explorers came up the river, they saw this rock, which can be up to 16’ above the water, and claimed the area for the French king and planted a flag on the rock.
The river is really high from all the recent rains so not much was showing.
I had some really nice shots of the French King bridge but I’ll have to use this old one. This bridge was built in 1 year in 1932 for about $300,000. One doesn’t see construction jobs of this size completed in one year these days.
This is the island in the cove where the eagles have had their nest for over a decade. We couldn’t see the nest due to foliage.
But we did see one of the eagles on the return trip.
Someone had put together notebooks of the information about this area of the river.
Years ago we had learned how the river valley was a huge fault, formed when Pangea the super continent formed. When Pangea broke apart, it did not break on this fault, but instead out past Boston. So the other side of the river is part of North Africa. The red star is where our farm is in America and the fault.
We saw a pair of mute swans and their little family. We also saw a blue heron and a whole flock of goldfinches.
The Connecticut river valley was created when the glacier that covered it started to melt. A glacial morraine or dam was formed down in Connecticut and the water from the melting glacier created an enormous lake called Lake Hitchcock. As the glacier melted up the valley, the meltwater pouring off it created plunge pools along the path.
The depth finder had found one of them at 75’. They can get to 120’ deep.
The river was dammed at the falls and eventually the water was diverted into a canal to power the mills in the town. So this was as close as we can get to the bridge over the dam.
It was lovely on the river, cool and a nice breeze. The ride is 1½ hours and if we hadn’t been hungry for our picnic, we’d have loved to stay out longer.
But we were heading back up the river and soon made the dock. We found a nice table with a lovely view of the river (all deleted, sigh) and ate our leisurely lunch. Being so close to the river and under nice tall trees, it was very cool and pleasant.
We headed back home by a different route hoping to see tag sale signs, but we never did. It was a nice ride though. We got back around 3PM and the thunderstorms started around 5PM. They were so bad I had to close the awning windows as the wind blew the rain around the sides.
My brother and I made another fish stirfry for supper about 7PM, this time with a new garlic sauce he found. We also spent time planning for my mom’s upcoming visit.
On Sunday he has decided to move to the other end of the house, to the room with 4 windows. He wants to put an AC into one of them, something he can’t do in his current room.
So we will be finally finishing the winter clothes change over, cleaning the room, and moving furniture in and out to set it up. At some point he will go buy the AC. It’s supposed to rain all day. I also hope to work on the curtains, but it will depend on how hot it gets during the day. That room for sewing is the hottest in the house, if the windows have to be closed.