This is Abby and Katie.
Who's Katie? You might be wondering. Or, which Katie. (Abby's note: I know a lot of Katie's, which is a good thing. In fact, Katie (the one pictured below) had me check how many were in my phone as of this post. There are 12. 10 of them I chat with regularly. True story. Katie says "not surprised").
THIS KATIE:
This is us in high school. We were on a field trip at the St. Louis Science Center. Yep. We're still goofy.
So, we've been hanging out in Connecticut all week :) Here is a photo chronicle of our trip.
Our adventures began with a trip to Salem, Massachusetts on Thursday afternoon. It took us FOREVER to reach Salem, which should have been around a 2-hour drive, but there was lots of traffic. However, the upside, was that we found really cheap gas for Abby's car, on a much diverted route in a foiled attempt to avoid said traffic. Here are some pictures of Salem :) We went on a guided evening tour!
Katie is fairly convinced we saw some supernatural activity. She just likes this picture ;) And hey, there's no reason it should have colored streaks. It was dark outside! *cough*
On Friday, Abby was supposed to have an outdoor concert, but due to the extreme heat it was cancelled, so we went shopping...more like an excursion in the air conditioning. We found some absolutely, amazing delicious coconut chips at Trader Joe's. The bag is almost gone, which is totally unfortunate. In fact, we're eating them now.
...now the bag is gone.
Anyway, then it did cool down, so we spent the evening at a nearby lake.
The next day we adventured to Niantic, CT. Niantic is home to a yearly celebration called 'Celebrate East Lyme," which featured fireworks in the evening. We're not sure what the festival was really about, but there was lots of street food, and to Katie's dismay, we did not see any ticks (get it...Lyme?...Lyme Disease?...). We went up early and explored a place called the Book Barn. It was seriously book heaven. The picture doesn't do it justice...it went on for multiple buildings.
Oh look, here we are again! Waiting for fireworks!
On Sunday, we went to Abby's favorite Sunday hangout: the Farmer's Market (mentioned in various other posts), and saw Monster's University. The two of us agree, Pixar has done it again! So cute.
Anyway, these were our smoothies from the Market! Abby's was the green one (pineapple, mango, coconut and it turned green with added kale) Katie's was the tan one ("Almond Joy" almonds, bananas, coconut, and cacao)
On Monday, Abby went to work. BUT when she came home, we went to the Cedar Hill Cemetery in Hartford. It has a handful of famous people buried there, including Katharine Hepburn, J.P. Morgan, Samuel Colt and Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. The Cemetery is expansive and had some beautiful headstones. This one was our favorite, mostly because it was somewhat very odd.
It's the plot of Mark Howard, who was, according to our self-guided tour booklet, a "prominent figure in the insurance industry." Descriptive, right?
Abby's been telling Katie to come visit her all year, and her wish came true! We spent copious amounts of time watching Season 2 of How I Met Your Mother, eating delicious things including homemade kale chips, pesto, gluten-free cheese and garlic biscuits (a delicious success!) and enjoying some good old Abby-Katie company. Or maybe it's Katie-Abby.
Whatever.
It was great!
Abby's New England Bucket List. Checked off Niantic and Salem!
(Why yes, those are Abby's bunny salt and pepper shakers hanging out on the list). There are many more adventures left -- and many adventures aren't on the list since they were completed before the list was compiled in June -- but there's another year left in New England to make it happen!
P.S. Wondering what "Half Sour Pickles" means? Us, too. Just kidding. We had dinner at a place that served "half sour pickles" which for some reason we found very amusing and fascinating. We'll let you look them up yourself.
