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Recently I rode train 190 from Stamford to Kingston Rhode Island. I have ridden this train often and it is one of my favorite trains.

The train leaves Stamford at 8:33 in the morning and heads toward Boston. The train makes four stops in Connecticut, Bridgeport, New Haven, New London, and Mystic.

Taking the train to New Haven is nice. The train ride is around fifty minutes. New Haven is a great town to walk around. You have museums, Yale University and a good selection of restaurants.

New London is also a nice stopping-off point.  Next to the train station is the ferry station. You can take a ferry to Long Island, Fishers Island and Block Island in the summertime.

Mystic is the next stop. You have the Seaport, Aquarium and Shopping Village and downtown Mystic. The seaport is only a fifteen-minute walk from the station.

The views from the train are very nice. The train hugs the coastline. You get nice views of Long Island Sound and the surrounding marshes. In the summertime you can have the kids count how many egrets they see during the trip.

Mystic is about two hours on the train. If you buy your tickets three weeks in advance you can get a decent price.

Next week I am off to Hudson, New York.  I will let you know how the view of the Hudson River compares to Long Island Sound.

I went to visit the Metropolitan Museum in New York City. I wanted to see the beautiful art they have.

I of course went by train, and I disembarked at 125^th Street. Usually, I would take the subway down to 79th Street and walk across to the Museum.

This time I decided to walk the entire way.

Here is a picture of moss on the wall along Central Park.  The picture only captures a little of the art of the moss. I find it so enjoyable to see the beauty of moss. This segment reminds me of modern art so much.

The museum visit was great. My favorite painting is Washington Crossing the Delaware.  If you haven’t seen it, you should go and view it. The other paintings and sculptures are well worth it.

Train fare, admission and buying lunch on the street came to fifty dollars total.

You know the situation. you are coming to a stop sign. No one is approaching from the other Roads. Do you stop or roll through the stop sign?  The same applies for right turns on red. Do you stop or just roll through the red light.

My observation is, more of us are not stopping and to make it worse, we seem to be going faster through the stops and right turn on red.

What do we gain by not fully stopping. Five, ten seconds at most. Is it worth it? I was almost hit when a driver made a running right at a stop sign. Needless to say ,he had to stop at the next traffic light.  He gained absolutely nothing.

The worse thing is, I was in the crosswalk well before he arrived. He was so concentrating on turning he never saw me.

I am assuming the driver was a male. I don’t know.  I couldn’t see the driver. All the windows were heavily tinted including the front windshield.

To stop or not to stop should not be a question. We should be stopping at stop signs.

We are back from Washington DC. The train trip down seemed long. However, the train trip back home seemed to go quickly. Each trip was four and half hours.

Amtrak breaks away from the Metro North line at New Rochelle and it is a nice change of scenery. Entering New York City, you go through Pelham Park, and it is all trees.  As the train progresses you slowly realize that    you are in NYC.

Going over the Hells Gate Bridge into Queens you get a very nice view of the Manhattan Skyline. Once in Queens it is interesting to look down on all the backyards of the townhouses.

The train crosses the Delaware at Trenton, and you follow the river all the way past Philadelphia.

The best part of arriving in Washington DC is walking out of the train station and seeing the capital building close by.

There are lots of sights in DC. We visited most of the Smithsonian Museums in the Mall.

One highlight for me was visiting the National Arboretum. They have a nice bonsai collection. I was once a bonsai enthusiast.

This is a picture of my favorite tree there. I call it fire and ice. The tree is over 400 years old, and the snow gives it a nice look.  The fire part is because this tree comes from Japan and was at Hiroshima in 1945 when the bomb was dropped.

Overall, I feel the train is the best way to travel to Washington.  It is a little bit long. However, it is relaxing.

We were in Washington on probably the coldest weekend of the year. I was surprised how many tourists were still visiting the city.  I imagine the city could be quite crowded in the spring and summer.

I grew up in Pound Ridge New York just north of Stamford CT. We had a pond on the property and the water flowed from it to Stamford.

The water went to Laurel Reservoir and from there to the North Stamford Reservoir and then the stream continues and is officially called the Rippowam River.

Yesterday I chose to walk along the Rippowam River. It was exhilarating. We had three inches of rain the night before. The river had overflowed its banks.

Down at Mill River Park the water was roaring through the park.

Finally, just before the river empties into Long Island Sound, we had this lake just for the day.

It is such a nice feeling having been associated with the river since I was a child.

Stamford, the city of rock and water. Yesterday was a great water day.

A New Year

A New Beginning

I have been writing this blog for a couple of years now and have enjoyed immensely telling you about the delights of Stamford that I have discovered walking all over the town.

This year 2024 I am going to add some additional insights into my blogs.

Last year when I was walking on High Ridge Road, I saw the aftermath of a pedestrian/car incident. It was not good.  I am continually seeing bad driving, bad walking, and a lack of following the rules of the road.

I am going to be posting blogs about how the Stamford Traveler can do better. A Stamford traveler is anyone who travels through Stamford by any means of movement.  Which means just about everyone of us is a Stamford Traveler.

Now on to my next insight.

TWA

Do you know what it stands for? If you are my age, you might say TWA is the airline. Sadly, the airline has been gone for many years.

TWA for me now stands for trains and walking adventures. I have utilized the train to take me on some great walking adventures. I plan on doing more this year and reporting on them.

Here is a TWA you can do.  Take the train to New York City and walk around. However, to make it different take Amtrak to Penn Station. Amtrak breaks away from the Metro North Line at New Rochelle and will take you through the Bronx and over Hell Gate to Queens.  It is a great trip to see a different part of New York. Buy your ticket three weeks in advance and avoid Friday and Sunday. The cost is not that much.

On to adventures.

As I walk all over Stamford, I am always seeing bridges. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were over 250 bridges in all of Stamford. The Rippowam River has 25 bridges crossing it.

Here is a picture of some of the bridges crossing the Rippowam River. You have I-95 the arch bridge was the old train bridge and in the distance is the RR bridge.

Now here is a picture of a cute bridge.

The bridge is located off Wire Mill Road. It just fits the landscape so well. There are many bridges like this one all over Stamford.

They are hard to see in the summer. Fall and winter is when they stand out. They are also hard to see when you are driving.

Another reason for walking around Stamford

I took Earth Science in high school. It was one of my favorite classes. I learned so much about the structure of our planet. I can look at a rock outcropping and tell whether it is syncline or anticline.

I also learned that the Appalachian Mountain range once had the tallest mountains on the planets. Looking at geologic time and they have been worn down over millions of years.

Now onto the Stamford Mountain ranges. Piles of leaves.  We are watching geologic time in a flash of a second.

First there is just a little mound. In some cases, the mountains grow slowly. Other times they appear overnight. Did an earthquake push them up?

No, it is the mighty leaf blower. It has noisy superpowers to build these mountains and they are mountains. They take over the roads and sidewalks.  They are a pain to walk around or even drive.

Then like magic they disappear again.  The trees wait quietly all winter to start the mountain range building next year.

This is the picture I have been waiting to show you.

My neighbor’s Japanese Maple is a brilliant red. It is just gorgeous.

This year all the Japanese Maples are gorgeous.

Here is another maple.  I am assuming that the wet summer helped the maples fall colors.

The regular maples are way past prime for leaf viewing. It looks like this weekend is prime for the Japanese Maples.