... john invited me to join him for a little picture taking wanderabout ... as i settled in to his car he asked, "do you have anyplace particular in mind" ... "nope, you've got the wheel, you do the navigating" ... "okay, well, how about we head over to stonington" ... on the ride over we made a few stops to explore with our cameras ...
... after crossing onto the island we decided to leave the main road to see if we could find the secret vantage from which chad takes his wonderful pictures of the pumpkin island light ...
... i'm not sure we found the spot, but the little cove we discovered offered a beautiful view of the lighthouse ... john informed me that it was taken out of service years ago, and is now a private residence ...
... while i wasn't looking, it seems, john made sure to carry out his shared-photo-outing duties ...
BY JOHN MEADER
... in stonington we wandered the docks and piers, snapping pictures while we basked in the relatively calm wind, bright sun, and mid-20°f temperature ...
... composing to capture the drops falling from the icicle, i'd a momentary thought that even as i watched they were gradually slowing in the journey down the frozen stalactite* ... in hindsight, it was some sort of omen ...
... we enjoyed a fabulous lunch at the harbor cafe (perfect haddock, coconut cream pie second only to that served up at thompson's in bingham) ... leaving the restaurant we found that the temperature was dropping fast and, judging by a loudly snapping flag, the wind was suddenly gusting over thirty miles per hour ... sky directly above us still hinting blue, for about ten minutes we drove in an almost arctic whiteout snow squall, then, as fast as it had hit, it was gone ...
... with the tide low, we wandered around beneath the mighty deer island bridge ... built in 1939 of a "light weight" design similar to the then-under-construction tacoma narrows bridge, dramatic wind induced oscillations of the roadway first necessitated the addition of reinforcing stiffeners (the triangle shapes projecting from the sides), and then extensions to the cable supports ... luckily, the redesign was enough to keep the deer island bridge from suffering the fate of the infamous "galloping gertie" (original color movie of the bridge's collapse) ...
... hmmmmm, did i say it was cold and windy ...
... before turning inland for the final leg of the ride home, we stopped at the narrows bridge to enjoy the sunset ...
... a good day, with all my biorhythms simultaneously bottoming out, one i appreciated a bit more than usual ...
... a final thought: these little wanderabouts of ours, there's always at least one empty seat in the car ...
*credit to Chad for the correction!