Mansfield Drive-In & Hopeville Pond

John fashioned a delightful little weekend earlier this summer: the Friday night double feature at the Mansfield Drive-In, camping at nearby Salt Rock State Park (not at all worth a visit, but OK if you need a place to crash when you're a little zonked from over three hours of movie watching beginning at 10 p.m.), and then tooling around Western Connecticut and cooling off in Hopeville Pond, pictured above.

I can't say enough about how great drive-in movie theaters are, and how fearful I am that they will disappear altogether. Prior to finding this one in Connecticut, the last time I had gone to the drive-in was with my dad and sister, and I couldn't have been more than 10. So going back to the drive-in had that great youth-summer-nostalgia thing going. What I couldn't have appreciated then, though, was the fact that sitting in your car, watching a first-run feature at a drive-in movie theater, you can really do pretty much whatever you want. You can eat whatever you can bring, drink whatever you can find, and ... lots of other things. All we had was pizza and beer. But the folks around us were very creative. It generated such a strong sensation of summer and freedom. I beseech you, go to the drive-in, before the summer is over!

Memorial Day on Deer Isle, Maine

The fabulous Jess, who makes relaxation an art form:

Inside Oceanville Baptist Church:

Lupines, and the Stonington Opera House:


Sunset on Cat Cove:

Catch Up Post

Here is a quick post to get you up to speed on the last few months. I know, I know, this is not how blogging is supposed to work, but I got a bit caught up in playing Scrabble on Facebook I was extremely busy with other, more important, satisfying and fulfilling things.

I spent a blustery March weekend in cozy Milwaukee with my mother. We basically ate and drank our way through the weekend, which is a good thing to do in Milwaukee. Here is just one sample, cherry pie at Alterra Coffee, which is in a spiffily converted water pumping station. I miss that about the Midwest ... they don't do too much of that neat-o adaptive reuse out here on the East Coast.

In April the dear old VA sent me to Seattle. They must have had a good reason ... I can't recall now what. But the upshot was that I got to meet 3-week-old Harriet, and be present for both her first walk (pictured below), and her very patient mother's first post-conception beer (not pictured).

Bridget B-W, New Mother and Hostess extraordinaire.

Mom visited me in May, just in time for the blooming Mountain Laurel and a neat-o concert by the New Haven Chamber Orchestra.

OK, we're up to Memorial Day. Stay tuned for summer fun!*

*In about 3 months, when you've totally forgotten about summer.