We braced ourselves for another long day in the car, but thankfully the worst was behind us. Stopping in the cute town centre of Stamford for a coffee, E was particularly taken with the many brightly painted dinosaur statues dotted around the town, apparently part of a summer art project.

Our next stop was the Stamford Museum and Nature Reserve – a nice mash up of gallery, farm and zoo.  

 There were lots of animals for E to look at, he was particularly impressed with the baby goats he could pat, and a ferret. There was a particularly good reptile house and a pond with beautiful otters playing in the water. A play on the playground, and E was ready for a sleep, so we gave the museum a miss and hit the road. 

   
We had had a recommendation that the pizza in New Haven (home of Yale University) was worth stopping for, so set the GPS and were soon there. The weather had become very unsettled, and although still hot there were brief intense bursts of rain to contend with. Soon we arrived in New Haven and headed for the recommended pizzeria, Modern Apizza. The wood fired pizzas were very good, albeit enormous! Two small pizzas was too much for the three adults. I did see a large pizza come out of the oven, I think the box may have come with a warning saying it needed two people to lift it. 

Quickly eating in the car, we pressed on, and were soon into Massachusets and then New Hampshire, bringing our count of states visited on this trip to 9. Hopefully the trip back from Boston will get us through Rhode Island and up to 10!

The landscape became increasingly green and lush, and we started passing country clubs and golf courses quite regularly, before reaching Laconia, on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee (prizes for correct pronunciation). Our destination was Weirs Beach, a small holiday town about 20 minutes away. 

 We settled into our nice cottage then Deb and I headed to find us dinner – some cheap but quite good Mexican. While we waited we had a margarita at the bar – lots of locals sinking beers and talking crap. The barmaid was very friendly and ran the place single-handedly, not a bad effort.

Again we crashed, exhausted from our long couple of days of travel. I’ll put up some photos and the like in the next day or so.