Essex River Museum

We started out our day at the Essex River Museum. They were having an exhibit of paintings about the War of 1812.

Lon was much more interested in the Turtle. The first military submarine!

He has so much fun playing in the replica

Out the window

That is one big pulley

Learning a little more about sextants

Captain Lon

Building the ship, or at least the bones of a ship.

We also learned about the raid on Essex during the War of 1812. This was s light up diorama. Lon loved pushing the buttons and watching things light up

 An little easier to read bit about the raid

Seeing if he could pull the anchor. It was very secure
We decided we were hungry, so off we went in search of something to eat

We found a place called Westbook Pizza, serving since 1945.  It was good pizza.

After pizza, on our way to the next stop, Lon started reading his new book about the Turtle.
The lady at the Essex River Museum gave him the bookmark since he was so enthusiastic about the Turtle.

We stopped at Hallmark's AC Peteterson's Ice Cream, since 1914.
They had some really wonderful ice cream!!

The Book Barn! The Goat! The Cats!
There are 4 Book Barns now, we went to three of them
Found some fun books! Found one called Ancient Rome on 5 dineri a day. I also found a book about EB White. The man who wrote Charlotte's Web.  There is never enough time to spend there!

Next to Book Barn #4 is the Thames Brothers. I think they got burned out of New London.  It is a very small space they have now.
Lon found some cars, he took them up and asked the gentleman how much, he said 5 dollars. 1 dollar a car. Lon said, eh and was going to put them back. The man then said, three dollars and I will throw in a book.  Deal.
We found the burnt out fuse in the rental car, we just have to get the teeny tiny fuse that will let my phone charge in the car! It will be easy to pop in, now that we figured it out.
We went to dinner at a place called the Spice Club in Niantic. It is Thai and Japanese food. Lon liked it since they had katsu!  He still loves that. We all ate way too much. It was decent Thai. Very little heat in it at all.
It was a good day.