Looking Back at a Strange Year

It was one year ago today that Rachel and I packed the cats in the car and started a 3000 mile move across the country and, frankly, away from everything we've ever known. Rachel and I are both west coasters through and through. Rachel technically lived on the east coast for a the first couple of years of her life, but since then she has lived in Oregon and Washington. I lived the the Puget Sound region for 39 years. Even when I was in Eugene, OR while in graduate school (the first time), I still had a permanent address in a Seattle ZIP code. The move was a tough one for both of us, and we've spent the past year learning, adapting, and settling.

News Summary
For those who may have missed out on a few things, here's a brief summary of the past year:

We left the Puget Sound region on the evening of July 31 for a quick five day drive across the country. The first few entries in this blog are daily entries made during that drive.

Rachel started the Astronomy PhD program at Yale at the beginning of September. She has done quite well: students are required to earn two "high honors" ratings in the classes they take (no grades for grad students at Yale) in the first two years. She has earned those two ratings already in her first year. She even got to Arecibo, Puerto Rico with one of her classes last fall, ostensibly to visit the radio telescope there. (They did, in fact, spend a lot of time at the telescope, but they also enjoyed a beach, some touristy stuff, and even a hospital ER. Everyone was fine after the ER visit; one of her classmates had a nasty allergic reaction but made a full recovery.) She is now working on the first of two required "mini" projects and in less than a year, she will be taking her qualifying exams. After passing those, she begins to work on her PhD thesis.

I started the Computer Science master's program at the University of New Haven (the other UNH) about a week later. I have also done quite well in my program, finishing the three trimesters with a cumulative GPA of 4.0 (five A+ grades and five A grades--three of those could have easily been A+ grades, but I chose not to do extra credit in those classes). I am currently working on my master's project, which is a database for the CS department to keep track of alumni. My advisor specifically thought of me to do the job because, as he admitted in a Freudian moment, he didn't want an "average" student putting this together for the department.

Rachel's work in the past year has consisted of being a TA for several classes. I have been working in the UNH Department of Institutional Research, first analyzing data, filling in surveys, and generally being bored, then more recently with writing code to automate many of those boring, repetitive tasks. I briefly believed that I was going to get a full-time job at Sikorsky Aircraft, who would pay for my school, but the economy shot that down. I then thought I would be a programmer on a cutting-edge new social networking site, but they have decided to do more fundraising and planning before starting work. I am also currently taking a forced two-week vacation from my work at UNH due to lack of funding to pay me to work all summer.

I started playing hockey in the Connecticut Hockey League in September as well. The league is nowhere near as well-run as the GSHL, but it's hockey. My team is one of those that has different players every session, so you never know how good we'll be. We missed the playoffs during the winter session, but we are the second place seed into the playoffs for this spring-summer session (and have a real chance of winning it all since we beat the first place seed a few weeks ago). I also played in a tournament here just a week ago, notching my second career hat trick in the semi-final before losing in the final.

We did visit the Seattle area during Christmas, but between the extraordinary amount of snow there and the fact that it was Christmas, we were unable to see many people outside of immediate family.

My parents visited us in New Haven for my 40th birthday and gave me as a birthday present the highlight of the past year for me: a trip to Boston to see my first NHL game. The Bruins came from behind in a not-very-well-played game to defeat the Canadiens. It would have been nice if it had been a well-played and exciting game, but when it comes right down to it, it was the NHL. I was so excited to be there, I admit that I nearly started crying when the teams came out to start the game. Kovalev scored the first goal of the game, and I'd wanted to see him score, so that was nice. :-)

A couple of days later, my dad and I went to Bridgeport to see the Sound-Tigers (a NY Islanders farm team) take on the Lowel Devils (a NJ Devils farm team) in the AHL. The skill level may not have been quite as high as the NHL game, but it we sat right on the ice (No, not literally--in the first row on the crowd side of the boards. Sheesh!) and the game was considerably more fun. That was one of the best times I have ever spent with my father. We really connected and had a great time.

Things I Have Learned (other than school stuff)

Connecticut drivers are crazy. Okay, I already knew that from the visit last June, but it's definitely been confirmed. It might help if a few more people would hang up their cell phones and concentrate on driving. A far higher percentage of drivers here are on their cell phones even though here it is a primary offense. Maybe if the police actually enforced the law, it might make a difference.

I'm not much of a blogger. I think of great things to blog about, but I never seem to get around to writing the posts. You guys have missed some pretty deep insights because I never got around to writing them down. Just be impressed anyway. ;-)

Connecticut isn't a bad place to live--except in the summer. I don't mind the cold in the winter. I could even handle a couple of weeks of really hot, dry weather (such as western Washington and Oregon have been sweltering through recently), but hot and humid is the pits. Granted, I haven't experienced 100° and 100% humidity (never been to Georgia, in other words), but the current 81° and 87% humidity is pretty damn nasty. We have a small AC unit in our bedroom (that's all we can afford). It gets the bedroom down to about 75° and 55-60% humidity at night, which feels frighteningly cool and dry after the days here.

I need an umbrella. There's something I never thought I would say. Western Washington gets a lot of rain, but spaces it out over a lot of days. Except for one day in Tuscon, AZ, I have never seen it rain as hard as it does here. If we are expecting an inch of rain in one day, it will probably fall in about 2 hours here. In Seattle, it would take the whole day--which is still pretty soggy, but the streets don't become 6" deep rivers. The other issue is that when it rains in Seattle, you can wear a rain coat and be comfortable. When it's 80° and there's a waterfall pouring on your head, putting on a rain coat just makes you hot and sticky--it's much better to have an umbrella in that situation. (I still snicker at those who pull out an umbrella for a light mist or even a light rain, but I understand the need for it in a heavy rain when it's too warm for a coat.)

East coast people are not all rude. It is a common belief that people are ruder on the east coast than on the west coast. That may well be true in some places, but not really in greater New Haven. The people here are a lot like they are in the Puget Sound region. You may not get quite as many friendly nods from strangers while walking down the road, but people are not on the whole any ruder than I have experienced in the past. We've met some great people over here and at least one of them is even a Connecticut native. :-)

Okay, I'm sure I skipped details in the summary and that I learned more than I listed here, but this is getting long so I'm going to wrap it up. In short, we both miss the Seattle-Tacoma area, I miss my old hockey teams, and I (for one) would love to be able to move back to Seattle some day (though I don't think it will happen any time soon). On the other hand, New Haven is not a bad place to live. The weather isn't too bad outside of the mid-July to mid-August range (which is the same as for the Seattle area, for that matter), the people are good, and you can learn to survive despite the local drivers. We miss Azteca, strip-mall teriyaki joints, and convenient Red Robin's (the nearest is in Hartford), but we're coping.

Oh, and the cats are fine, too, though they don't understand why Rachel and I have made it so hot and muggy recently and they wish we would fix it.

Driving in Greater New Haven: Addendum

There are two "rules" which I forgot to list in my recent post, but of which I was definitely reminded in the last couple of days:

1. When the light turns green, the first left turner has the right of way over the oncoming traffic. This doesn't happen all the time, but pretty frequently you'll be sitting at a traffic light trying to ignore all the other drivers inching up every few seconds, probably hanging over into your lane and all (a police car did that to me this weekend). When the light changes, you begin to go straight through the intersection only to find that the first left turner going the other way is going first. These people often do not even make an attempt to get through quickly, but instead trust to the fact that they will be in your way, so you will let them go.
2. "No Standing Any Time" means "Free Parking!" This is especially bad at the "T" intersection between Crown St and Howe St, just one block up from our apartment. In the intersection (across from where Crown St ends), there are some of these signs. It is VERY rare not to find someone parked there. (To be fair, this is just outside the entrance to the YMCA day care and some of these people might be picking up or dropping off kids, so are really being nice since they didn't just stop in the driving lane to run inside.)

That's all for now. I just wanted to make sure that my list of "rules" was more-or-less complete.

Driving in Greater New Haven

It's been nearly a month since I posted anything, so it's about time for my first post dedicated entirely to observations on life in Connecticut. Seeing as my parents will be visiting me soon and driving a rental car while here, I decided to start with a primer for any Washington state driver who happens to find himself/herself driving in the Greater New Haven area. Much of this post is tongue-in-cheek, but there are some seeds of truth to it. There is some good safety information in here for anyone who is not used to Connecticut traffic.

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Navigation

The freeway exits here are numbered sequentially from south to north on the odd numbered interstates. I think it's west to east on the even numbered interstates, but I am not at all certain of that. The point is that the exit numbers often have absolutely nothing to do with the mileage posts. Don't assume that just because you're at mile 20 and you need to take exit 25, you have about 5 miles to go. You may have 1, 5, or 25. There's no predicting it that way. (For those of you who are not familiar with it, freeway exit numbers on the west coast (and many other places, of course) correspond to the nearest mile post on the freeway. If the exit is near the mile 22 marker, then it will be exit 22; it might be the first exit along the freeway, but it is still numbered 22. If you have two different exits near mile post 22, then the first will be exit 22A and the second will be exit 22B. It's a nice way to judge how far it is to the exit you want if all you know is the exit number.)

The "rules"

The following are the "rules" as some people seem to interpret them. (NOTE: You can find drivers who interpret the rules in the same way all over the place, but the percentage in Connecticut seems to be much larger than in western Washington state.)

1. Red means go. At least, it does when it has just turned red. At any intersection on almost any cycle of the light, you will find that 3-5 cars per lane will go through the red light right after it has changed. I have even been honked at for stopping at a red light! This behavior seems to be encouraged by the fact that at every traffic light, the light is red in all directions for several seconds before changing to green in a new direction. I'm sure the thought is increased safety because it gives people time to clear the intersection, but instead it means about the same amount of safety because new people will be entering the intersection during this red-all-ways phase.
2. When red does mean stop, it means come to a complete stop and then creep forward. You see creepers everywhere. It's common enough that there is a "Sniglet" for it: nurging. (A Sniglet is a word that doesn't exist, but should. To nurge is to creep forward at a traffic light seemingly in the hope that this will make the light change faster.) What's really interesting is the extremes to which some drivers take this creeping. Some, for example, will stop about 15 feet behind the car in front of them just so they have room to creep every few seconds. There are also quite a few drivers that stop at the stop line, then proceed to creep forward so much that their entire car is in the intersection before the get the green light; but of course they're not going to run the red light, so it must be okay.
3. The lines on the road are merely suggestions. You see this everywhere, too, but not so much in Washington as here in Connecticut. I've seen a couple of drivers stop approximately 10-12 feet beyond a stop line that is well back from the intersection for a very good and obvious reason. And this isn't limited to crossing stop lines and stopping in crosswalks, either. See, in Connecticut, the lines between the lanes are apparently completely optional, so it's okay to randomly ooze from one lane to another or even to drive for miles with the dashed white line between your wheels. Did I say "dashed"? Sorry, even the solid white fog line is optional and you can drive with 2 or more wheels on the shoulder, too. The people behind you for which you're kicking up dust and gravel will love you for making their drive less boring (or something). Wait, I'm focusing too much on the white lines. The yellow ones in the middle of the road are optional as well--especially if there are two solid ones. It doesn't matter that some idiot is trying to drive the other direction on the other side of the yellow line. Cross it whenever you like.
4. The term "driving" in "driving lane" is merely a suggestion. If you need to run in to the store for a moment (which can be up to half an hour or more), then it is apparently okay to simply stop your car in the driving lane and run your errands. Even if there is only one driving lane headed in that direction--remember, the lane lines are only suggestions anyway, so the other drivers can use the other side of the street. Unless someone has parked there, too. (Yes, I have seen that happen. Traffic both ways was completely blocked by empty cars.)
5. Speed limits are also just a suggestion. Probably the majority of people everywhere believe this to be the case, but few really live it the way they do around here. There is, for example, a stretch of freeway near the interchange of I-91 and I-95 where the speed limit is 40 miles per hour. NOBODY drives that slowly there. If you did, I can guarantee that someone would ram you from behind. In fact, if you want to go "merely" 60 miles per hour along that stretch, you had better be in the right lane. The other three lanes are reserved for cars traveling at least 70 miles per hour. (I have done 70 mph through this area and the cars were streaming by.) On other roads, the speed limit is commonly 25, but the minimum safe speed is 35. On the other hand, there are also roads where the speed limit is somewhere between 30 and 45, but there are a lot of drivers who won't get above 20 or 25 on those roads. (They are all two lane roads with one lane in each direction, of course.)
6. As long as we're talking about suggestions, blinking red lights are just a suggestion. And apparently that suggestion is that you glance quickly at any oncoming traffic and accelerate to make sure you get to the blinking red light before the other traffic gets to its blinking yellow light.
7. "Bus Stop; No Standing" means "park here if you need to". I have literally (and I do mean literally) been standing at the curb at a bus stop waiting for the bus to finish traveling the final half-block to pick me up when someone parked right in front of me. I have also had trouble getting a driver to see me because of all the parked cars in the bus stop. Bus drivers get even, though, by driving closely enough to scrape rear view mirrors and, in one case, pulling half in front of a parked car whose driver thought it was about to leave, then sitting there for several minutes for no reason other than to prevent the car from leaving. (It couldn't back out because of the other car parked in the bus stop right behind it.) I was sitting on the bus and in no particular hurry, so I found that situation particularly funny.
   

Don't get me wrong; everyone knows these "rules", so driving here is not so terrifying as it might seem. Well, once you've gotten used to it. I was pretty terrified when I first started driving here because I thought the other drivers' actions were unpredictable. Now I know better, so driving to the mall requires fewer changes of underwear than it once did.

Other potential hazards

A few other things to be aware of should you find yourself driving near New Haven:

• New Haven itself abounds with one way streets. This is true of many cities, but somehow it just seems to be more the case in New Haven. Maybe it's just me.
• Because of all of these one way streets, it may not be possible for you to figure out how to get to where you want to go by car. When Rachel and I first came here to look for an apartment, we tried to get to one promising site only to find that we needed to go the wrong way on a one way street to get there. Undaunted, we used our map and figured out how to get to the other end of the block only to find that at that end it was one way in the other direction. We gave up at that point. We still don't know how the cars get onto that street. (Admittedly, we haven't worked really hard on figuring it out; I can't even remember what street it was anymore.)
• Tow trucks in Connecticut do not put lights on the backs of the cars they are towing, so you often cannot see their brake lights and/or turn signals. They do have a bar of flashing yellow lights above the cab when towing a vehicle, so they are hard to miss (especially at night).
  
• Pedestrians will walk into the street at any time. This is largely because the city of New Haven and the surrounding communities have worked hard to make it difficult for pedestrians to know when to cross the street, but that's the subject of another post. Just be aware.
• Finally, be aware that the bicyclists in the area are playing a game: if they get you to hit them then they win, but if you manage to avoid them then you win. They play this game very seriously. I've managed to win so far when behind the wheel of my car, but it's been a close thing a few times. I think I've begun to figure out the rules, but that's again a subject for another post.

One last observation. In Connecticut, it is a primary offense to be driving while talking on a hand held cell phone. Despite this fact, I see a considerably higher percentage of drivers talking on their cell phones here than I did in Washington (where it is a secondary offense, for those of you who don't know). The police don't seem to be willing to pull people over for talking on the phone even though it's a primary offense. By my own observation, many (though not all) of those people who have the loose interpretations of the rules described above are on the phone. I'm sure these people believe that they are "fine" when talking on the phone, so anyone who thinks, "Sure, some people are bad drivers when on the phone but I'm fine," should re-think that. If you weren't fine, you wouldn't know that, so just assume that you are not fine. I have had several near-accidents in the short time I've lived here, and every single time the other driver was on the phone and never even noticed me! I could go on and on here, but this post is long enough. Just hang up the damn phone and concentrate on the road.

Driving is dangerous even when everyone is alert and following the rules. Keep that in mind, please.

Interesting followup on Sikorsky/Change to this blog

I had my class with Dennis last night. As usual, he drove me home after class. When we were in the car, he suddenly said, "You sure impressed Larry!" When I asked him why he said that, explained that he had been concerned about the quiz we took last night when leaving work and Larry had told him, "Cheat off of Scott. He's smart." :-)

I also found out in the course of that conversation that Larry had found out about my math background after the interview was scheduled already. I just thought that was interesting, so I decided to pass it on.

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As for the change to this blog mentioned above, I haven't really been using it for sharing most news. Most of the people I'm sharing news with are either in touch with me via email, facebook, phone, or some combination thereof. (For those of you reading this on facebook, "this blog" refers to my blog at http://twocatsinacar.blogspot.com/. The blog is automatically imported into facebook as notes.)

I have decided that while I will still occasionally post big news here, my emphasis is going to change. I would like to start posting some observations about the differences between life in the Puget Sound region and life in the New Haven area. (By the way, if you want to sound like a native when/if you visit, "New Haven" is pronounced as one word (newhaven), with the emphasis on the second to last syllable--new·HAV·en. I'm only just starting to pronounce it "right", and I have to consciously think about it every time.)

My Job Interview with Sikorsky

The interview itself was very informal. I met first with Dennis, my friend who got me the interview in the first place. He asked me a few basic questions about technical aspects and explained the job and structure of the databases I'd be working with. He started to draw a diagram on the back of my resume and, when I pointed out I had blank paper, suddenly realized what it was he was about to draw on.

It was a little strange having him do part of the interview not only because I know him, but also because he'd ask me a simple question, I'd answer it, and he'd say something along the lines of, "Perfect! You'd be surprised how many people can't answer that." In one case, he told me of interviewing some woman who was supposed to be an expert SQL user. (SQL, or Structured Query Language, is the language used to get information from a database.) He said he'd asked her the same really basic question and she'd been unable to answer it. The question was really basic, too. Anyone who's ever done anything with SQL should have been able to answer it.

After about 15 or 20 minutes, Dennis told me I'd passed his test and he went to find Larry (his boss) for the second part of the interview. After asking me if I knew anything about the database system used by the company and hearing that I didn't really, he turned my resume over and drew a diagram on the back of it. I guess it was a good thing that I'd had Dennis leave that spot blank for him earlier. :-)

In the course of talking to Larry, he told me that what had actually interested him in me in the first place was my background in math. They have a need for someone who can help predict when they should start making parts that take years to make but cost lots of money to store, so he was hoping I could do some basic data analysis and come up with a system for making such predictions. (They have had several software vendors claim that they had a solution for him, but the were all, in his word, "shit".)

He finished by telling me that he wasn't looking at anyone else for the job and that, in fact, until Dennis told him about my math background in a totally unrelated conversation, he hadn't been looking for anybody. He wants me to start working as a contractor with the company this spring; this would be part time work done whenever I could around my other work schedule and my class schedule. If everything works out, I could become full-time with the company as early as July. There are no benefits while doing the contract work, but upon transferring to full-time, I would get full benefits--including having Sikorsky pay for my tuition, fees, and required texts while I complete my degree!

There are details to iron out and all, but it looks like I'll be working for Sikorsky before long, doing both data analysis and some application development for them. :-)

Halloween in the Big Apple

Rachel had a one day conference at the SUNY (State University of New York) Graduate Center in Manhattan on Halloween, so I hopped on a train that afternoon and headed down to New York to explore a bit before meeting up with Rachel and her friends for dinner and then catching a train back home.

Grand Central Station upon my arrival.

I had several hours to kill in New York, so I decided to start out by wandering up to Central Park. Walking in NYC is an interesting experience--you don't really set your own pace, you just get carried along with the crowd. And traffic lights are more of a suggestion to the pedestrians; there were numerous occasions when the only reason the traffic got to go when they had a green light was because the lead car started driving through the throng of pedestrians still crossing the street in front of them. I've gotten a little used to not necessarily paying any attention to traffic lights when walking in New Haven, but New Yorkers appear to take that concept to the extreme. Arriving in Central Park gave me a brief respite from being carried along by that flow.

Central Park is not mostly open grassy areas, despite what you might have seen on TV. It's filled with outcrops of these long-ago glacially smoothed rocks. Time and erosion have eliminated the "smooth" factor from afar, but when seen up close, the indicators of glacial action are all there.

The picture's a little blurry, but Central Park's pond is famous, so I couldn't leave this out.

The waterfall is pretty and in focus, so I had to include it.

Just over a rise from the waterfall, there were people ice skating. This rink is artificial, but apparently people have been ice skating on this end of the pond during the winter months for over 100 years. (It was not cold when I was there, just so you know. I think the temperature was in the upper 50's, but the sun made it feel warmer.)

From atop another outcropping of rock, you can almost tell that the ice rink is, in fact, triangular. The picture of people skating was taken from behind and to the left of the yellow tree on the other side of the rink in this picture.

Proof that it was autumn. These two trees were the most colorful I saw.

Leaving Central Park, I headed south towards Times Square. I ate a small lunch in at a place called "Brooklyn Diner". It was neither Brooklyn nor a Diner in the classic sense. It was much more upscale than your typical diner, despite the fact that the building was designed to look like the classic diner. I didn't realize this until I got inside and by then I was starving, so I had a salad and managed to get out of there only spending about $15.

Shortly after lunch, I passed the Ed Sullivan Theater. There's some TV show that's filmed there, but I couln't remember what it was. I think it's on late at night, though. ;-)

Arriving in Times Square, I had to take a picture of the Coke sign.

Facing the other direction (away from the Coke sign) in Times Square.

After marveling at Times Square for a while (the traffic, the signs, the way the pedestrians were even more bold there than elsewhere in the city), I decided it was time for me to make a pilgrimage that any self-respecting hockey fan would in that situation. I had to walk down to Madison Square Garden.

A block or so from Madison Square Garden, I looked to my left and there was this interesting-looking building. Seems like there should be a giant ape or something hanging from it, though.

I finally made it to Madison Square Garden. The is actually the back entrance, but the front entrance is through the high-rise building you can see a little of a the top left corner of this picture, so it looks a lot less like a sports arena from there. The blue sign on the building is advertising New York Rangers tickets.

Having seen the Empire State Building (sans ape), I had to head over that direction to check it out. I didn't have time to wait in line to buy tickets to the observation deck (and I wouldn't dare have gone up there without Rachel, anyway), but I did go inside for a bit.

This is the floor as you are on your way to get in line to buy tickets for the observation deck.

The SUNY Graduate Center is kitty-corner across the street from the Empire State Building and it was getting close to time for Rachel to be done, so I headed over there. I didn't think to take pictures as we boarded a crowded subway car (I couldn't get more than a foot inside the door) and headed down to a spot that one of Rachel's friends knew about. We ate dinner there, then Rachel and I were tired, so we took the subway back up to Grand Central Station to head home. (We also stopped off in Times Square so Rachel could experience it, but we were tired and didn't take any pictures.)

Grand Central Station again; later at night and less crowded.

One amusing thing occurred while we were waiting for our train home. It was very warm in the station, so we stepped outside to cool off a bit. While we were standing there (and I was thinking to myself how the train station was barely recognizable as such from that angle), a man walked up to us and asked if we knew where the train station was. We told him, "That's it, right there." He said "Oh," stood there for a moment looking, then walked away--not towards the station. Minutes later, we boarded a train and headed home.

Autumn in New England and an Afternoon with the Sleeping Giant

(NOTE: Please excuse the quality of the pictures in this post. They were all taken using my cell phone and when there wasn't a smudge on the lense, it seemed to focus on anything but the subject of the picture. I have fixed them up as best I can with the Gimp.)

Fall arrived in New Haven this past week. It suddenly was much cooler and the trees started changing. The week ended with a big wind and rain storm on Saturday, so most of the pretty leaves are gone now. My camera is spending a few days in Puerto Rico with my wife right now, so I've done the best I could to capture some images with the cell phone camera (see the note at the beginning of this post).

First, a couple of pictures from around New Haven. The first couple are trees I passed while walking to work on Friday (10/24).

I also walked home from work that day. (It was a nice day and I hadn't gone for a run that morning, so could use the exercise.)

If you squint really hard, you can see West Rock in the distance on this one.

The West River looking north into Memorial Park in West Haven.

The cemetery was looking really nice.
Pictures from my phone (above and below) do it no justice whatsoever.

Another neighborhood tree in New Haven.

The Sleeping Giant

A few miles north of New Haven, there is a series of ridges that, especially when viewed from the south, looks a lot like a giant man lying on his back. This series of ridges make up Sleeping Giant State Park. In an attempt to get some better pictures of fall color and for something to do while my wife was sitting on a beach in Puerto Rico, I took a hike in the wind and threatening rain. Luckily, the heavy rain held off until well after I got home.

I didn't take this picture. It's on the Sleeping Giant Park Association's web site.

The trail I chose to start out on was wide and well-maintained. Notice how there is little-to-no undergrowth in the forest. That's typical of forests around here.

This escarpment is the giant's chin. I intended to get up onto that chin before the day was over, but I got a little lost and didn't make it up there this time. That just gives me more motivation to head back up there someday soon, maybe even with my wife in tow. :-)


This tower sits on one of the giant's hips. The well-maintained wide trail ended here. I elected to take a different trail back since that other trail was supposed to take me up onto the giant's head before heading back down to the parking area. First, however, I climbed up in the tower to get some views of the surrounding countryside.




If you look very closely at the horizon in the third picture, you can see some tall buildings. That is New Haven. To the left of New Haven is another ridge. That's East Rock. East Rock and West Rock (mentioned way above) are both basalt ridges like those that make up the Sleeping Giant, but they lie right around New Haven itself. (East Rock is much closer to downtown New Haven than it looks in this picture.) I don't know who came up with those amazingly creative names.


The entire point of this picture is to show just how windy it was. Notice, please, that all of the leaves are blowing to the right. (I know, it's hard to tell, but humor me.)


The paint spot on this tree tells me that I am following one of the trails. There are places in the park where the only way you can tell you're on a trail is by following the marks on the trees or, if you're climbing practically straight up and can't see the trees, they are often kind enough to paint the marks on the rocks. The lack of undergrowth in the forest makes it very easy to wander off of the trail without even realizing it. The mark on this tree is blue even though it looks white in the picture. It tells me I'm on the blue trail. Somewhere along the line, however, the marks really did become white so I obviously missed a turn on the blue trail. The blue trail is the one that takes you up onto the giant's head. The white trail, on the other hand, goes up onto the giant's chest.


You do get a good view of the chin from the giant's chest, but this view told me for sure I had gone the wrong way. After staring at the map for a long time, I figured out where I had gone wrong, but I decided to continue along the white trail anyway.


Quinnipiac University is literally right across the street from the giant. It's not even a particularly wide street--just a two lane rural road lies between the campus and the park. This view is from the giant's shoulder as I prepared to begin the descent.


Just after taking the picture of the university campus, I found all the autumn colors you could possibly want in each leaf of this tree. I gazed upon this glorious delight in wonderment for many hours (or maybe it was only a minute or two), then began the descent.


And a steep descent it was. This portion of the trail (note the white mark on the tree--this is the trail) was almost literally straight down. This was not a hike for the faint of heart.


And the leaves covered the rocks like a carpet, so you couldn't always trust your footing. This part of the hike was not all that enjoyable, to be honest. (But at least the ground was pretty while it was trying to kill you.)

After consulting the trail map a couple more times and once taking 5 or 6 steps down a stream bed instead of along a trail (they looked the same and I'd been watching my footing when the marks on a nearby tree indicated a turn), I found a safe route back to the car, and was able to make the drive back home.


(Don't worry, I stopped the car to take the picture, and there was no one behind me on the road--I checked.)