We have a friend that lives on Long Island NY and when she heard we were coming to Mystic, she said we should take the ferry across and come visit her. A ferry ride….hmmmm, sounded like a fun! So we jumped on that.

We had never been on a ferry with a car before. We did a practice run the day before we left so we could figure out where to go. Don’t want to miss the boat.

Our ticket was for 8:00 AM and the website said to arrive 1/2 an hour early. Of course knowing us, we were there 45 minutes early. When we checked in, the guy asked us if we wanted to hop on the 7:30 ferry, we said heck yah!

After you drive on (and there are people there telling you EXACTLY were to park your car, we had to avoid being over a manhole), you lock up your car and go above deck where the coffee and treats are.

We had to check out the scenery and the boat before we got some coffee.

Wow, look at this one

This is incase the Captain wants to go skiing

I figured we were doing pretty good until I saw this on the aft deck

I hope that is not filled with explosives…I think we might be ok. If you zoom in you’ll see a lunch box. No one is going to blow up their lunch

That ship looks like they open the nose of the boat to let the cars out

I had to ask Gary about this place

Electric boat? This is a big and impressive building to be building electric boats out of. I didn’t think they were that popular. Here is an example of what they build

Oh…that kind of electric boat. One of those would be cool to tour.

We went inside to get some coffee and get out of the wind. It was a little bit of a bumpy ride but nothing us seasoned sea farers couldn’t handle. After we had our coffee, Gary found us a spot toward the front of the boat. As we got closer to the front, we could hear car horns going off. Ahhhh, I bet it is like an earth quake to the cars, every time the ship hit a wave hard it set off the alarms. As I am listening I wondered if one of the cars was ours. Gary pressed the “open” button on the key fob and one of the cars went silent, must have been ours! Then the horn started again….and again….and again. OMG, does this happen on every ride. It must drive the people that work on the boat nuts.

We saw a few lighthouses on the way over

This doesn’t look in very good shape. Let’s see that one close up.

Tough shape but there is a chair and plants in pots. I wonder if someone lives on it? Now THAT would be a cool Airbnb to stay at.

And look at the houses we saw

A house that serves as a light house too.

That is quite the place. I bet their view is phenomenal. And plenty of places to park your car.

Now that’s a place ready for high tide.

I saw this house in the distance and wondered why it was so pink so I used my zoom to get a better look.

That looks like it was a total gut job. I bet it’ll be something when it’s all done.

When we got to long island we were very early to meet our friend so we just drove around and checked out the island. There were a bunch of vineyards on that end of the island, too bad they were all closed. Maybe they make wine for Makers Mark too

We ended up meeting up with our friend in Greenport, CT at a restaurant by the water, quite a distance from her actual house. Turns out she was at a retreat for the Electrical Union. Her husband belonged to the union so she could go to these retreats which they held a few times a year. Now these retreats were held on properties that were like resorts…..right on the ocean! Talk about a sweet gig. And they used to have two of them on the ocean that the union owned. That’s a good investment for your union dues.

We spent a few hours chit chattin with her but she had to get back to her retreat. We figured we had seen as much as we wanted to of that place, so we thought we’d head to the ferry dock and see if we could hitch a ride back early. Our return ticket was for 6:00. So when we got to the dock at about 2:15 (the ferry was taking off at 2:30), the guy said we could wait in the standby spot by the orange cones.

He was pretty sure we’d get on. I hope so, look at the line of cars. I found out that the way they load this ship is cars drive on and then they raise the floor so more cars can get on underneath them. They ended up with 3 levels of cars on each side. Finally, the guy started picking up the cones and told us to follow that boat onto the boat

So we did! I feel like this ride was a much tighter squeeze. They sure know how to pack the cars and trucks on board. No Unabomber’s this time, so I knew we’d have a safe trip.

We had a much smoother ride on the way back but that didn’t stop the horns from going off.

I snagged a seat out side. The lady I sat next to heard me comment about the horns going off. She said it happens every time. She then proceeded to put in ear plugs. Now THAT’s a seasoned ferry rider. And yes, our horn did go off, but this time, only once.