As we left Plymouth, we knew we were heading to Long Island to visit my Aunt Eileen, but we also knew that the capitals of Rhode Island and Connecticut were on the way. We had decided to take the ferry from Bridgeport, CT, to Port Jefferson, NY, the next day, so we had plenty of time check Providence and Hartford off the list.
For the smallest state in the country, the Rhode Island Capitol building in Providence is really quite nice. It probably won’t end up on our top 10 list of capitols, but it’s a beautiful building surrounded by park like green space, in the middle of a nice section of the city.
Hartford blew us away, and has moved to the top of our list with 16 capitol buildings behind us. It’s a gorgeous, castle-like building set on the top of a hill overlooking an expansive and beautiful park right next to the train station, and all sorts of people were walking and sitting and picnicking and picking kids up from soccer games, and it felt like the heart of the community.
The building was equally impressive from all four sides.
It was even more beautiful when the sun set and it was lit up for the night.
The park was really pretty, and had historical features like this arch, which used to be at the end of a bridge, until the bridge wasn’t needed any more because the river it crossed over was rerouted because it flooded the city of Hartford one too many times. Now, it’s just a historical feature.
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One of the things we really liked in Hartford was that the people in the park were proud of their city. We would not have gone to look at this fountain had we not encountered a man on the street who told us about the city’s history, and encouraged us to look for this beautiful fountain.
We spent a quiet night at the Cabela’s in Hartford before heading for the ferry the next day. The ferry turned out to be a really fun ride, even though we were a little anxious about driving our rig onto a boat. But, as it turned out, getting the rig across the Long Island Sound was the least of our worries.
The ferry heading in to collect us.
Getting ready to get on the ferry.
 The view from the ferry deck heading towards Long Island. |
This video shows the front going up and us exiting the ferry to Long Island. It got a little iffy after this because our GPS put us on roads that were a little too small for our truck…but we had time to buy a new GPS to prevent this problem in the future.