Norwich, CT

We awoke to a cloudy, rainy day in New London on Thursday, July 10 but fortunately the rain let up in time for us to go ashore.  We were meeting Sandy, a good friend of Cathy Mallove (Jonny’s cousin) for breakfast at Muddy Waters Cade. Jonny has his grandmother’s wedding ring that his mother, Janice, wanted Cathy to have since they were very close.  Cathy lives in Toronto and rather than mail it to her, we are bringing it to Sandy because she, Cathy and their group of girlfriends are vacationing together in Block Island next week.

Sandy has a dog that looks a lot like Archie (Cocoa is a doodle, Archie is a Cockapoo). The dogs look like kissing cousins but they mostly ignored each other! But we had a nice time over breakfast chatting about New London and the various acquaintances of Jonny and Sandy.

Walking back to Zendo we passed some of New London’s interesting landmarks.

Our plan for the day was to cruise up the Thames River to Norwich. Jonny had never been there by boat even though it’s a short distance from New London and I think I’ve only been there once or twice in my life. We left New London at 11:50 for a pleasant cruise up the river.  We passed Windscilla, a wind farm installation vehicle that was on a huge scaffolding structure. It looked like an oil rig because it has to drive the wind turbine deep into the ocean floor. 

We also passed the Coast Guard Academy and the US Submarine base with the Nautilus docked by the shore.

Interestingly, both Harvard and Yale have boat houses on the shore for their annual crew races.

The river was an interesting mix of bucolic scenery, academies and industry.

This impressive building is the Mohegan Sun casino.

We entered Norwich Harbor and arrived at the Marina at American Wharf by 1:40.  

The marina has recently been totally renovated. We were pleasantly surprised by how attractive and efficient it was. The marina staff greeted us and helped us tie up on a T dock. The grounds were very attractive, so much so that they were in the process of setting up for a wedding that would be held under a tent overlooking the marina on the weekend. 

We went to the equally attractive restaurant and brew pub on the grounds and had a beer and some nibbles.

The Norwich area is the home of two significant casinos that are owned and managed by two different Native American tribes. Foxwood is owned by the Pequot tribe and Mohegan is owned by the Mohegans. We had never been to either of them, probably because we’re really not into gambling. Mohegan Sun was very close and the marina provided transportation so we decided to go. What an amazing facility it is! It is creatively decorated with a Native American theme, but everything is “over the top” with a large waterfall in the atrium, a huge Dale Chihuly glass sculpture, Native American art and sculptures, four thousand slot machines and other gaming options, and scores of bars, restaurants and shops. Pretty amazing!

We soon learned there were no happy hours so we decided to have dinner at Michael Jordan’s Sports Bar. We split a delicious order of their special fried chicken dinner with all the fixings and a Caesar salad.  After dinner we walked around the casino and I pretended to try my hand at one of the slot machines.

Having gotten our fill of the casino experience we headed to the door, surprised to see that it was still light outside. Being in the casino feels like nighttime all the time! We got an Uber back to the marina and spent the rest of the evening relaxing aboard Zendo.