Seaside Retreat

Spent part of the weekend where Connecticut and Rhode Island meet the sea. Besides a staggering variety of malls, the Mystic/Stonington/Westerley area offers quite the assortment of cute shops, fancy food stores, and darn good fried things. Time was short, but we managed to hit the silken sands at Watch Hill, RI. I discovered that just wading in the ocean helps transform me into a calm and tranquil being. Amazing! (And the roses scenting the path through the dunes helped, too.)

We shopped at 2 gourmet markets, Mystic Market, which sells things like Stonewall Kitchen jam and prepared chicken & tarragon salads, and also Puritan & Genesta, which has not only a gluten-free section in among all the natural foods, but also sells earth shoes and organic cotton socks.

Plus we could not resist the siren call of Sea Swirl, offering fried whole belly clams and softserv, dished out from one of those retro glass-fronted fry-shacks. It reminded me of Vern's Fish Fry in Bennington (formerly Paul's Fish Fry, I believe) where we used to stop every time we ventured from New York State into New England. Nothing like a big styrofoam container of French fries and seafood on a white hot July day. Yummm!

Next time we're down there I suppose we should try to actually see some of the sights, like Mystic Seaport or the Mystic Aquarium.